[CALUG] Fedora core 4 and Linksys wireless

Mon Jul 10 21:08:32 CDT 2006

Right at this moment I'm using my internal Broadcom BCM94306 card that is 
embedded inside my HP Pavilion 5478ze laptop. I'm using SuSE OpenLinux10 with 
ndiswrapper pulling in the bcmwl5.dll that comes with the WindowsXP package 
the originally came with the laptop. Actually, you should grab all of the 
files used by windows and place them in a directory that your Linux 
distribution always has access to. Ndiswrapper needs the .inf, .sys, and .dll
files to be able to load the windows based driver. I've also had RHFC5 running 
wireless with ndiswrapper and the windows dlls. Note that both SuSE and 
RedHat put dummy files in the lib/modules directories to make it hard for you 
to use ndiswrapper and the dlls. I've kept good notes on how to get 
ndiswrapper working on the laptop with both distributions. So, if nobody else 
has been able to offer further advice than maybe the attached notes will 
help.

   Rich Putt

On Monday 10 July 2006 08:36, julsford at comcast.net wrote:
> I have no idea how to get it running.  I've seen some stuff about using a
> wrapper program, but it seems like a hacked at approach, and I didn't know
> if there was something better, or if there was a better brand of wireless
> card that supports Linux.
>
> Thanks!
> Julie
>
> PS- Kelly, I'm looking up the chipset - thanks!
>
> -------------- Original message --------------
> From: "william kelly" <william.kelly.jr at gmail.com>
> whats your issue?
>
>
> On 7/9/06, julsford at comcast.net <julsford at comcast.net > wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm looking for help getting a Linksys wireless pci card running with
> Fedora core 4 - any suggestions?
>
> Also, are there any Linux kernals that have wireless support built in?
>
> Thanks
> Julie Ford
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Get a good copy of the ndiswrapper. The one that comes with SuSE linux
doesn't work and seems to be designed to prevent the use of the
good ndiswrapper.
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Use ark and pull extract the data.tar.gz file from the 
ndiswrapper-source_1.1-1_i386.deb file.
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Do gunzip -c data.tar.gz | tar -xf - to extract the content of the
data file into the expanded usr directory.
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Uncompressing the data.tar.gz file produces the usr/sbin, usr/share,
and usr/src directories. You'll need to cd into the usr/src directory.
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Inside the /usr/local/src/ndiswrap/usr/src you'll find the file
ndiswrapper-source.tar.gz and directory modules which is empty until 
you do the following command. Run gunzip -c ndiswrapper-source.tar.gz
| tar -xf -. The previous command will populate the modules directory
with the ndiswrapper directory which has further content.
######################################################################
cd into the following directories and run make and make install:
linux:/usr/local/src/ndiswrap/usr/src/modules/ndiswrapper/driver
and
linux:/usr/local/src/ndiswrap/usr/src/modules/ndiswrapper/utils
######################################################################
You now have created the appropriate kernel modules and the ndiswrapper
application. But there is one thing still amiss. The debian package
loads the ndiswrapper.ko kernel module in the 
/lib/modules/2.6.13-15.10-default/misc but the SuSE kernel doesn't find
the proper module file. SuSE looks for the ndiswrapper.ko file in the
/lib/modules/2.6.13-15.10-default/extra directory. So you'll need to
do the following to get SuSE to pick up the correct kernel module:
Copy the misc/ndiswrapper.ko file back one directory with
'cp misc/ndiswrapper.ko ..'.
Next 'mv misc/ndiswrapper.ko to misc/ndiswrapper.ko_new.
Next 'mv extra/ndiswrapper.ko to misc/ndiswrapper.ko_old
Next 'mv /lib/modules/2.6.13-15.10-default/ndiswrapper.ko into the
/extra directory in the place of the old SuSE wrapper file.
Now your system is almost ready for use.
######################################################################
The following steps will enable you to load the WinXP drivers under
the SuSE linux kernel.
Find the Broadcom wireless lan card DLL files. You'll need the .inf
and .sys files.
Create the following directory:
/usr/local/src/broadcomWireless/
Copy the bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.dll files from the following directory:
/windows/C/SwSetup/Misc4
to
/usr/local/src/broadcomWireless/
######################################################################
Finally, the system is ready to load the wireless network module.
cd into /usr/local/src/broadcomWireless/ and run 
'ndiswrapper -i ./bcmwl5.inf' <- This will load the card into the
wrapper but you'll still have the load the module.
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Run 'ndiswrapper -l' to ensure the broadcom driver has been loaded
inside the wrapper software. You should see the following lines:
Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5  driver present, hardware present
######################################################################
Run 'modprobe ndiswrapper' to load the ndiswrapper module as a working
linux kernel module. If all works well you'll be ready to use the
broadcom wireless module. But this doesn't  complete all of the steps
you need to take to use the wireless card. You need to add a wireless
device inside the control center and enter the wireless key to activate
the wireless connection. After connecting the new wireless device you
should be up and ready to use the internet.
######################################################################
Add the wlan0 network card and use the wlan0 device. Use the 80211.o
driver and follow through the rest of the setup. Once you get to the
encryption method use the WEP shared key which has a 16 byte hex
sequence. Basically this is the same key as used by all wireless
devices connecting to the network.
######################################################################
su - and enter the password. Now run '/etc/init.d/network restart'.
The eth0 and wlan0 devices will be shut down and then restarted. Once
you see the wlan0 device restart you should see the IP and netmask
displayed. Now you're connected to the wireless lan and ready to go.
######################################################################
After all of the extra work to get ndiswrapper compiled and running
with the Broadcom BCM4306 dll loaded I found there was still a problem
getting the device connected to the internet. The difficulties led to
some manual changes to the files in /etc/sysconfig/network/. The following
lines show the changes.
######################################################################
File /etc/sysconfig/SuSEfirewall2 has the following changes:
< FW_DEV_EXT="any eth-id-00:0b:cd:8b:d6:31 wlan0"
---
> FW_DEV_EXT="any eth-id-00:0b:cd:8b:d6:31"
952c952
< FW_LOAD_MODULES="ndiswrapper"
---
> FW_LOAD_MODULES=""
######################################################################
The following file is created when YaST2 is used to add the wlan0 card.
File /etc/sysconfig/hardware/hwcfg-static-0 has the following change:
#MODULE='p80211'
MODULE='ndiswrapper' <- NOTE THE CHANGE IN KERNEL MODULE NAME
MODULE_OPTIONS=''
STARTMODE='auto'
######################################################################
The following file is created when YaST2 is used to add the wlan0 card.
File /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-wlan0.
I had to make the following changes to ifcfg-wlan0: none
######################################################################
The following file needed on change to ensure wlan0 is properly loaded
at bootup:
File /etc/sysconfig/network/config was changed from:
MANDATORY_DEVICES="" to MANDATORY_DEVICES="wlan0"
######################################################################
Had to load the package dhclient so that the firewall rules wouldn't
prevent the use of the wireless card. The following paragraph describes
what I had to do to finally get the routes set so the firewall wasn't
forcing the wlan0 IP through the 169. network.
By the way, use 'route -n' to see the route IP addresses vs. the host
names. Also iwstatus wlan0 will show how the wireless card is setup.
######################################################################
Last but not least I had to run the following under root:
/etc/init.d/network stop
/sbin/dhclient
The dhclient restarts the network and shuts down the firewall vpn route.
Now you should be able to use a browser to get to the internet.
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