Can't get W-LAN working (Linksys WPC54G) [not resolved]

[The Archangel]

Okay guyz, I've been working on this off and on for over a week now. Finally giving in and crying for help. I'm trying to set up a WPC54G card on a Winbook J1. The card plugs in and the PWR light turns on, but that's as far as I can get So here's what I've tried.

First of all, I'm running gentoo-sources 2.5.25

Starting off, I tried installing ndiswrapper version 0.8
Downloaded the source from http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/ndis ... z?download
untarred and did make install, per INSTALL doc.
to get drivers loaded I did

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mount /dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom
ndiswrapper -i /mnt/cdrom/lsbcmnds.inf

and because I read the WPC54G needs this also

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ndiswrapper -i /mnt/cdrom/bcwml5.sys

Good, no errors loading the drivers, but now.

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minibox root # ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
bcmwl5.sys
lsbcmnds

Drivers are loaded but there's no "present" next to them.
lspci shows:

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minibox root # lspci
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8601 [Apollo ProMedia] (rev 05)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8601 [Apollo ProMedia AGP]
0000:00:05.0 Modem: PCTel Inc HSP MicroModem 56 (rev 02)
0000:00:07.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South] (rev 22)
0000:00:07.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 10)
0000:00:07.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 10)
0000:00:07.4 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] (rev 30)
0000:00:07.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 20)
0000:00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Trident Microsystems CyberBlade i1 (rev 6a)
0000:02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Linksys, A Division of Cisco Systems [AirConn] INPROCOMM IPN 2220 Wireless LAN Adapter (rev 01)

And even after I type modprobe ndiswrapper, ifconfig and iwconfig show both show only lo, no eth0 or wlan0, etc. Am I missing something to get the card picked up?

Next I tried to use Linuxant's DriverLoader. Downloaded the generic source tar from http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/wl ... nloads.php,
untarred and ran make install. At the end of install, it says:
To complete the installation and configuration of your device,
please run "dldrconfig" (or "/usr/sbin/dldrconfig")
So I ran dldrconfig

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minibox driverloader-1.72 # dldrconfig
Linuxant DriverLoader for Wireless LAN devices, version 1.72

No pre-built modules for: unknown-unknown linux-2.4.25-gentoo-r4 i686-SMP

Trying to automatically build the driver modules...
(this requires a C compiler and proper kernel sources to be installed)

Where is the linux source build directory that matches your running kernel?
[/lib/modules/2.4.25-gentoo-r4/build] /usr/src/linux
Building modules for kernel 2.4.25-gentoo-r4, using source directory
/usr/src/linux. Please wait...
driverloader: Device or resource busy
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.25-gentoo-r4/kernel/drivers/acpi/battery.o
depmod:         acpi_bus_generate_event
depmod:         acpi_os_free
depmod:         acpi_bus_get_device
depmod:         acpi_root_dir
depmod:         acpi_install_notify_handler
depmod:         acpi_extract_package
depmod:         acpi_evaluate_object
depmod:         acpi_bus_register_driver
depmod:         acpi_bus_unregister_driver
depmod:         acpi_get_handle
depmod:         acpi_remove_notify_handler
depmod:         acpi_bus_get_status
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.25-gentoo-r4/kernel/drivers/block/nbd.o
depmod:         devfs_register_series_Rsmp_f3efa40e
depmod:         devfs_unregister_Rsmp_9ef1ce4c
depmod:         devfs_mk_dir_Rsmp_e231615a
depmod: *** Unresolved symbols in /lib/modules/2.4.25-gentoo-r4/kernel/drivers/input/input.o
depmod:         devfs_register_Rsmp_b875c5ec
depmod:         devfs_register_chrdev_Rsmp_9f50cf99
depmod:         devfs_unregister_chrdev_Rsmp_77f3e0ce
depmod:         devfs_unregister_Rsmp_9ef1ce4c
depmod:         devfs_mk_dir_Rsmp_e231615a
done.

No devices detected by driverloader

If you need license keys, assistance or more information, please go to:
        http://www.linuxant.com/

When reporting a problem for the first time, please send
us the file generated by "dldrconfig --dumpdiag".

To complete the installation, please point your browser to:
  http://127.0.0.1:18020/
minibox driverloader-1.72 #

GAH! No devices detected!
I'm pretty sure I enabled wireless PCMCIA support in the Kernel. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to try next? This probably isn't everything you need, so please let me know any additional information you want to see. I'm open to anything right now. Thanks in advance!

[markfl]

And even after I type modprobe ndiswrapper, ifconfig and iwconfig show both show only lo, no eth0 or wlan0, etc. Am I missing something to get the card picked up?

try

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cat /proc/net/dev

to list all network devices


Gentoo Wireless configuration scripts (for when you get the card working)

Mark

[The Archangel]

Thanks for the post man. Unfortunately, even though the card is being detected it appears that it's not being "enabled"

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minibox root # cat /proc/net/dev
Inter-|   Receive                                                |  Transmit
 face |bytes    packets errs drop fifo frame compressed multicast|bytes    packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed
    lo:     500      10    0    0    0     0          0         0      500      10    0    0    0     0       0          0

Any further help would be greatly appreciated!

[powdahound]

Check out this thread: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php? ... ght=wpc54g

I'm trying to get mine working right now too so I will let you know if I do.

[The Archangel]

Thanks. Yea, I have been there before. For the first part of that, it's all geared for the .6 setup. One thing I did grab from the last page was this. Hope it's helpful.

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minibox linux # cat .config | grep NET_
# CONFIG_NET_IPIP is not set
# CONFIG_NET_IPGRE is not set
# CONFIG_INET_ECN is not set
# CONFIG_NET_DIVERT is not set
# CONFIG_NET_FASTROUTE is not set
# CONFIG_NET_HW_FLOWCONTROL is not set
# CONFIG_NET_SCHED is not set
# CONFIG_NET_PKTGEN is not set
# CONFIG_ARCNET_1201 is not set
# CONFIG_ARCNET_1051 is not set
# CONFIG_ARCNET_RAW is not set
# CONFIG_ARCNET_COM90xx is not set
# CONFIG_ARCNET_COM90xxIO is not set
# CONFIG_ARCNET_RIM_I is not set
# CONFIG_ARCNET_COM20020 is not set
# CONFIG_ARCNET_COM20020_ISA is not set
# CONFIG_ARCNET_COM20020_PCI is not set
CONFIG_NET_ETHERNET=y
CONFIG_NET_VENDOR_3COM=y
# CONFIG_NET_VENDOR_SMC is not set
# CONFIG_NET_VENDOR_RACAL is not set
# CONFIG_NET_ISA is not set
# CONFIG_NET_PCI is not set
# CONFIG_NET_POCKET is not set
CONFIG_NET_RADIO=y
CONFIG_NET_WIRELESS=y
# CONFIG_NET_FC is not set
CONFIG_NET_PCMCIA=y
# CONFIG_ARCNET_COM20020_CS is not set
CONFIG_NET_PCMCIA_RADIO=y

Thanks again, and please let me know what you find on yours!

[powdahound]

I've actually just decided that I'm going to reinstall gentoo from scratch. When I was at school I had a friend do most of it for me and didn't learn too much. Now I'm sort of lost as to how to do a lot of things and I think it'll help me a lot if I just start fresh by myself. Will be a week or so before I start to tackle the wireless I'm sure.

[monkey89]

BTW, for the WPC54G, I think you should be looking for two files: bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys, and you ndiswrapper -i the .inf file, and that's all you should do. At least, thats how it was when I tried it.

So you know, there is an ndiswrapper ebuild. However, I gave up and forked the money over for the commercial driverloader, and it works unbelivably well. I've written a working ebuild for it and submitted it to the tree. If you can't get ndiswrapper to work, try driverloader for 30 days, I doubt you'll be disappointed.

http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader

-Monkey

[The Archangel]

Yea, I did try driverloader. The thing that got me is both of these "wrappers" didn't detect the card. ndiswrapper doesn't say "present" and driverloader says No devices detected. I will try downloading the zip file and using that. I think it has a bcmwl5.sys and .inf. The one on my CD only has lbscmnds.inf and bcmwl5.sys.

[bennyc]

in my situation, I could get my wpc54g detected with ndiswrapper and wireless-config. Everything seems normal expcet it doesn't connect to the network.
I'm using gentoo-dev-sources, let me know if you want a copy of my config.

[markfl]

Good luck with the re-install, its usually quite a good learning process.
I have ndiswrapper working on my laptop for a BCM4301
I use 0.7
I tried 0.8 but it didnt work, possibly you might have better luck with 7 as well.

Driverloader i couldnt get working though and I hated the web interface.

Mark

[The Archangel]

Good luck with the re-install, its usually quite a good learning process.
I have ndiswrapper working on my laptop for a BCM4301
I use 0.7
I tried 0.8 but it didnt work, possibly you might have better luck with 7 as well.

Thanks, I will try .7 when I get home. Anyone know the best way to uninstall .8 and make sure it's completely off? Just cd to the untarred directory and do "make uninstall" ?

Just my .02...Mark is right on with the reinstall. My install of Gentoo took 2 days (I screwed up at the kernel point and decided to start over from Setting up the Disks.) The bootstrapping alone took between 4-6 hours. Needless to say, I learned so much just from doing the installation.

and benny, if you want to forward that config please do so. Like I said before, I'm willing to try anything to get this thing going Either here or by PM would be fine. Thanks man!

[The Archangel]

Just an update to get this going again. I tried .7 and it did not work with the same reasons. I have decided at this point to upgrade to 2.6.7. Will post again tonight with more info. Thanks!

[The Archangel]

*BUMP*

I've now tried kernels:
gentoo-sources 2.4.25 and 2.4.26 r3
gentoo stable 2.4.25_pre7-gss-r7
and development-sources 2.6.7
all to the same result of the drivers loading, but not presenting [present] next to the driver name.
Also, I've now tried ndiswrapper .05, 6, 7, 8 each with the same results.
I can't help but think I've missed something when configuring the kernel. Anyone know the specific option(s) I need to have selected? There's nothing in there in specific for Linksys or Broadcom Airforce.

[Cappo]

I know this post is old, but I thought that I might be able to help anyway. I got the WPC54G (version 2) working on my laptop doing the following:

1) I used the ndiswrapper HOWTO, which was already mentioned by others in this thread;

2) I had the best success using the driver files from the CD that came with the card. Just copy over every .inf and .sys file you find on the CD;

3) WEP was a little tricky for me, basically you need to use the following syntax:

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# iwconfig wlan0 key XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

where XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX is the hex key used by your AP;

4) I had a major problem getting the card working at first, because the PC Card slot on my laptop was faulty. If your laptop had multiple PC slots, have you tried the card in each one?

BTW, My kernel is gentoo-dev-sources 2.6.7-r12


HOpe this helps,

Cappo

[Zyne]

I'm not entirely sure what your problem is actually.
I'm using ndiswrapper 0.8, and it worked great first try...

but, try to do what I wrote here:

1. remove all old drivers from your system (unmerge ndiswrapper, and rm -r /etc/ndiswrapper
2. open up a console, and do rmmod ndiswrapper. This will unload the ndiswrapper module
3. emerge ndiswrapper
4. ndiswrapper -l should show nothing at present!
5. do this: ndiswrapper -i <link to your bcmwl5.inf> however, do not do the same with the .sys file.
6. modprobe ndiswrapper
7. emerge wireless-tools, and type iwconfig upon release. There should be a wlan0

if you have done all that, and there is a wlan0, you should go to the wireless thread in the documentation forum. If there is no wlan0, there must be something wrong in your kernel I think.


gl!

[edit]
wtf? That's a thread from july 22nd lol...
that's over a month ago...
oh well, it will be of good use to someone hopefully...