Please - I NEED SOME HELPPPPP!!!!!! I am fairly new to Linux - but still having problems.


I have tried to install the wireless network to no avail.

I have tried using ndiswrapper 0.9 along with the Realtek 8180 drivers. No success. When I execute 'modprobe ndiswrapper' my system locks up.

I don't know where to go from here - I really do NOT want to go back to Windoze, but if I cannot get this problem licked, I will have no choice. I need the wireless for my business.

SuSE 9.1
Linksys WPC11 v4
Ndiswrapper 0.9

btw - I have searched all over this site trying to get answers before I post - but I keep running into the same problem over and over - system locking.

Did you have a look at this site? seems promising

http://www.linuxvoodoo.com/resources/howtos/linksysv4/

If I am reading correctly, that will work with the 2.4.x kernel. It seems the problem is with the 2.6.x kernel (???)?

The problem you have is that the chipset V4 is not supported by ndiswrapper, this software at least promises to work with a 2.4 kernel

the card appears to be recognized as a Bromax card (which sounds more like a brand of oven cleaner to me!), but it works with the orinoco drivers, so all i did was change these two sections in the /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.conf:

card "Bromax OEM 11Mbps 802.11b WLAN Card (Prism 2.5)"
manfid 0x0274, 0x1612
bind "orinoco_cs"

card "Bromax OEM 11Mbps 802.11b WLAN Card (Prism 3)"
manfid 0x0274, 0x1613
bind "orinoco_cs"

previously they were set to prism, not orinoco.
i suppose i could have changed the name strings too, but whatever..

Not sure if anyone is still reading this tread, but if so and to the future searchers here is what I did to get my WPC11 v4 card to work.

***here is the 30K foot view, for details instructions see the yast and ndiswrappers help files***


OS: suse 9.1

1) use yast to install ndiswrappers
(it installs v0.6... or something like that)
(reroute install to a mirror ftp site if need be)

2) install linksys's xp driver (see ndiswrapper help for instructions)

3) yast should see the card under network adapters

4) configure with your setting (wireless, pcmcia, etc), and the key part is to enter "ndiswrappers" in the module block and "NET8180" in the options block. (or whatever the driver's name is)

5) once your done and yast closes itself out you may need to up the interface. ( "ifconfig wlan0 up" should do the trick)

merize147,

I'm a newbie to Linux and am having the same problem with my WPC11 v4 card on Suse 9.1.
I was able to perform steps 1 to 3, but am having problems with 4.
I have gone into /etc/modprobe.conf, but am not sure where to add the lines for these 2 fields.

I have added NET8180 in what I think is the Options block section as follows:
# required for DRI support on SiS chips
options sisfb mode=none mem=12288
options NET8180

I don't see any obvious place to add the "ndiswrapper" for Module block.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Taichiman

I give up, been working on this same problem for about 2 weeks now

TaiChiMan; The "options box" and "Module" referred to are the two boxes in the YAST hardware configuration page, not regions in the config file!

CrazySka; other threads suggest that ndiswrapper 0.7 is more stable under suse 9 - and I note that that suse themselves distribute version 0.6 as an rpm for suse 9.1. Could it be worth de-installing ndiswrapper 0.9 (just delete it, I think) and running an rpm on suse's ftp site?

I've got ndiswrapper 0.7 runing on an old dell laptop with a belkin card, and no sign of kernel lockups. Not completely right yet, as it doesn;t fully autodetect, but at least I can get it running with a bit of fiddling. Specifically, once I ran ndiswrapper on the driver .inf files, running
#rmmod ndisrapper
, then
#modprobe ndiswrapper
at the command line do seem to get the card up and running.
Finally, in another query here, nickname and nwid are both unnecessary nowadays; you only need the essid to identify the network.

S.

Sire,

I understand the Module and Options blocks are fields in Yast2 screen, but they are greyed out and blank, and I cannot enter any data to change them.
I went into the /etc/modeproble.conf because that is what the help on the left side of Yast2 suggested. Is there another way to put values into those blocks?

Thanks,
Taichiman

Guys,

The 8180 chipset causes people many problems and I wont go into them here. What I strongly suggest you do is search this forum for the string "8180" and there are a number of people who have had some success in getting this to work.
Regards
Chris

TaiChiMon:
You are right; the boxes do grey out and cease to be available once the hardware selection is set to 'pcmcia'. This can't, it seems, be readily undone without deleting the device and starting over (though I suspect that the locked ifcfg-wlan-pcmcia file in /etc/sysconfig/network might have something to do with that...). That is, I guess, because once it's set as pcmcia, it should all be (hahaha) picked up smoothly by the pcmcia hotplug process. Which I am still struggling with myself... it seems strangely erratic. Nothing suggested seems to get suse to both recognise and configure the card.

My current work-round is a script I run manually as su:
rmmod ndiswrapper #to remove it if it's there
modprobe ndiswrapper
.. and then an ifconfig to set the IP, and a couple of calls to iwconfig to set essid and wep key

Works (mostly ! ) but still well short of what I'd like - which is simple recognition and config on on boot-up or insert.

Sire,

this 8180 chipset seems to be giving lots of folks a lot of problems. Everyone seems to solve their problems differently from everyone else. Really strange.

If I use the ndiswrapper, do I still have to load the driver for the WPC11 or does ndiswrapper take care of this? The doc on ndiswrapper and what some folks have been talking about make it seem like I don't have to load the driver. I have not been able to install the driver since my source kernel is not installed, and the driver wants the path to source-kernel.

This problem is quite frustrating, especially for a Linux newbie like myself. Ugh.

Taichiman

Guys,

I have posted a feature request at the ndiswrapper project site at sourceforge. Specifically I have asked that support be included for this chipset in the next version. Hopefully the dudes there can sort this out. In the meantime, they have a good irc channel but note the following instructions on the website so go prepared!

Regards
Chris