Ndiswrapper - help with wireless pci card, ubuntu and other drivers

howdy ktulu. i use wireless on most of my *nix machines, though i'm turning in for the night, i shall look at this one at work in the morn

..just before i go though.. ndiswrapper is great, and bcmwl5.inf is as standard as they come, so it should be real easy..

 

i haven't got my Linux laptop with me today, will check it at home later for some of the settings i wanted to paste here..

For now though i wonder whether it's the atrocious newer way of doing wireless, that's at fault here... I don't use Ubuntu but just googled and Dapper Drake seems to have bcm43xx setup as default, i find it to be a real pain (have come across this on Mandriva and in PCLinuxOS).
bcm43xx is a Linux driver for the Broadcom bcm43xx wireless chips, and it was included into the Linux kernel since 2.6.17-rc2.
I always find it easier to disable it and do wireless the 'old' way, ie i swear by ndiswrapper usually.

Let's try bypassing bcm43xx.
I can't remember the exact details at the moment but if i recall correctly you add a line to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist like this 'blacklist bcm43xx'

You can run lsmod | grep bcm43xx and if it's there just unload it via rmmod bcm43xx

ndiswrapper should now work ok, ie sudo ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5 (can't remember if you need the .inf on the end) then

ndiswrapper -i ~/Desktop/bcmwl5.inf


You can then configure the wireless parameters, easiest way is obviously via the 'gui' tools.

i usually then finetune the config files for network interfaces at the command line. They should live in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts and are called ifcfg-eth0 or ifcfg-wlan0 or whatever your wireless interface is called.

Provided we get your wireless sorted we should look at disabling IPV6. This is another networking annoyance in the latest linux distro's. A symptom of IPV6 being present when it's not wanted is slow internet response (mainly thru web browsing). Here's an example link with some info -
http://vntutor.blogspot.com/2007/05/disable-ip-v6-to-speed-up-feisty.html

Though as i say we haven't got that far yet. See how you get on with the bcm43xx removal for now.

 

no worries.

you need to be using sudo, like you were before, for each command..

 

- ah ok. you need to edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file and add the line 'blacklist bcm43xx' (without the ') as opposed to running them. this could get tricky. try using a simple text editor such as kwrite.
edit- see next comment, we don't need to do this now

- ...however it seems bcm43xx isn't present after all

- that's ok, see previous comment

- that works ok

hmm, what's happened there i wonder...

 

changing distro's is always an option, but for now i've 'rewound' and started re-reading your original post as i hadn't actually delved in and checked out the specifics of your wireless adapter....


There's a very well laid-out how-to here - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/Ndiswrapper which is very useful as it specifically mentions 6.06 of Ubuntu. I got that link from here - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=539208 (which i'm still reading so i may have to edit my post and add more bits of info shortly..)

Anyways, there's also a very important link to keep in mind if/whenever you want to do wireless in Linux, it can be a lifesaver (and moneysaver!) when researching which devices to buy... - http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/...ponent/option,com_openwiki/Itemid,33/id,list/ then as you have a wmp300n you would choose 'List M-N' and search down until you find your adapter. Now there can be multiple paragraphs for a given card, this is due to those pesky manufacturers using various chipsets for any given hardware... ..i'm still reading thru the 3 flavours ie different chipsets listed in that link. In fact i'll paste the 3 chipsets here -

# Card: Linksys WMP300N Wireless-N PCI Adapter

* Chipset: Broadcom Corporation BCM4329/BCM42055000 802.11b/g
* pciid: 14e4:4320
* Driver: Linksys ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pub/network/WMP300N-20060511.exe
* Driver Version: 4.80.9.2 Apr 24, 2006
* openSUSE Linux v 10.1
* ndiswrapper: ndiswrapper-1.28

#Card: Linksys WMP300N Wireless-N PCI Adapter

* Chipset: Broadcom Corporation BCM94321MP, 802.11b/g/Draft n
* pciid: 14e4:4329, reported by lspci as Broadcom BCM43XG Rev. 1, but according to bcmwl5.inf, it should be BCM43XNG
* Driver: Linksys WMP300N_20061117_dr.exe
* Driver version: 4.100.15.5
* Fedora Core 6, x86-64, kernel 2.6.18-1.2849.fc6-x86_64
* ndiswrapper: ndiswrapper-1.31. 1.28rc2 works also
* Note: other Broadcom draft n drivers, such as the Dell and others do not work. They appear to support a device 14e4:4328 but not 4329. Only the newest Linksys driver supports 64 bit. Previous one did not.
According to iwconfig, getting speeds in the 200 Mbit/s range, even with tx power turned down to 10dBm.
* As far as I can tell, draft N actually works.
* ‘This version of the driver also fixes a rootkit exploit’ see: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=365
* For older BCM cards, the file bcmwl5.inf does not contain the required data although I suspect the drivers themselves do. Other manufacturers such as Dell have released updated drivers fixing the vulnerability.
See: http://support.dell.com/support/dow...=1&vercnt=2&formatcnt=1&libid=5&fileid=187886 which does not include information for 14e4:4329 however.

#Card: Linksys WMP300N Wireless-N PCI Adapter

* Chipset: Atheros 5416
* pciid: 168c:0023
* Driver: Belkin F5D8001 (just the ar5416.sys file). Rest, standard Linksys install CD
* Driver version: 6.0.1.4
* OpenSuSE 10.2
* ndiswrapper 1.29 (1.34 does not work - locks up the machine)
* Note: If you use the Linksys drivers then it seems to lose connections after a short time or on large downloads. Replace the ar5416.sys with the one from the Belkin drivers and this does not happen. The only change I made to net5416.inf was to update the version number.
* Note: This doesn’t work for Fedora 6 kernel 2.6.19 with ndiswrapper 1.25 (built in), 1.29 as above, 1.36, 1.37 or 1.38. The first modprobe works ok, and even allows connection, but you cannot modprobe a second time - each time it maxes the CPU or crashes the kernel. Same symptoms with a 16k stack sized kernel.

Now to see exactly which chipset of the wmp300n you have.... (i don't use anything quite as modern as that, most of my adapters for various linux machines and also windows machines are Linksys WMP54G and i have 2 chipsets among my many cards, the Ralink RT2500 and Ralink RT61 ..but i digress);

a-ha, i see you'd posted your chipset info further up the page...

...so... ..according to your lspci quote, the '4329' suggests to me that your chipset is the first of the 3 choices i posted above, however the second choice mentions '4329' also.

..it seems Ubuntu isn't mentioned in the 3 chipset paragraphs, however it obviously doesn't mean that Ubuntu isn't supported, it could just be that your 'Draft N' adapter is too new to have much info listed in that link. And the links i'm reading have loads of info re your adapter, but it's finding specific info on whichever chipset you have that's proving tricky at the moment..

..so more concerning is the fact that your lspci output suggests your adapter isn't recognised, it says 'unknown device 4329'. Just going to see i've got any info here somewhere of how an lspci output should look..

- there's an example (off one of my machines) of what you should see, ie specific info re the chipset...

(sorry this is turning into war and peace btw, i always write my replies so that anyone else can refer to them)

right...i need to go read up on those other links i posted and do some more googling... back soon..

 

still googling...

..what's your kernel version, from uname -r ???

Also, let's have the output from lspci -n ..just the line that corresponds to your lspci info from further up the thread. it should be the one beginning with 03:01.0 or 0000:03:01.0

- in the output, the 3rd column along should hopefully say 8086:4329

(i'm new to lspci -n as never had a need to use it before today)

 

0000:03:01.0 0280: 14e4:4329 (rev 01)[/quote] nice one; now i've just got to remember where my poor old brain had got to

edit- right then, so yours is definitely this one here -

#Card: Linksys WMP300N Wireless-N PCI Adapter

* Chipset: Broadcom Corporation BCM94321MP, 802.11b/g/Draft n
* pciid: 14e4:4329, reported by lspci as Broadcom BCM43XG Rev. 1, but according to bcmwl5.inf, it should be BCM43XNG
* Driver: Linksys WMP300N_20061117_dr.exe
* Driver version: 4.100.15.5
* Fedora Core 6, x86-64, kernel 2.6.18-1.2849.fc6-x86_64
* ndiswrapper: ndiswrapper-1.31. 1.28rc2 works also
* Note: other Broadcom draft n drivers, such as the Dell and others do not work. They appear to support a device 14e4:4328 but not 4329. Only the newest Linksys driver supports 64 bit. Previous one did not.
According to iwconfig, getting speeds in the 200 Mbit/s range, even with tx power turned down to 10dBm.
* As far as I can tell, draft N actually works.
* ‘This version of the driver also fixes a rootkit exploit’ see: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=365
* For older BCM cards, the file bcmwl5.inf does not contain the required data although I suspect the drivers themselves do. Other manufacturers such as Dell have released updated drivers fixing the vulnerability.
See: http://support.dell.com/support/dow...=1&vercnt=2&formatcnt=1&libid=5&fileid=187886 which does not include information for 14e4:4329 however.

..in which case there's no reason it shouldn't work with ndiswrapper... there's this link i'd already pasted further up, and it's not very different to what you've already done...

re-checking my previous replies to see if there's any other links with any more clues..

right at the start of this thread you said "ubuntu 6.06 lts x86 version", does the x86 mean x86-64 ie 64-bit ?, in which case i wonder what version of the Windows driver you've got. From the paragraph above it states "* Driver: Linksys WMP300N_20061117_dr.exe
* Driver version: 4.100.15.5
* Note: other Broadcom draft n drivers, such as the Dell and others do not work. They appear to support a device 14e4:4328 but not 4329. Only the newest Linksys driver supports 64 bit. Previous one did not."

that driver is here - http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Sate...937314B245&displaypage=download#versiondetail

 

quite right about the x86, it just looked like you could also have meant b4bit.

well, you could always try Fedore Code 6, which the paragraph up there says supports your card... http://fedora.inode.at/6/i386/iso/

- that's a fair few cd's though..

how about another suggestin first....

try PCLinuxOS 2007, it's the only distro i've used that i've seen wireless work 'out of the box'.

You can run it off the CD ie it's a live cd, plus you can install from the same CD too. I have it on 2 machines and 1 of my work machines too. - http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pclinuxos

It may be worth also trying TinyMe, which i only found out about this week (it's like a cut-down PCLinuxOS) - http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?
It's currently at test6 and works great, and is only 200mb; i've been doing all my internet duties off it's livecd for a few days now. Not tried wireless on TinyMe yet, haven't got wireless setup here yet, that would have to wait until i'm back at home..

edit- i could try it later while i'm still here - loads of the neighbours have wireless, i could set up one of the laptops and as long as i could see some neighbours networks it would prove it works. Then i could finally install the wireless router that i hadn't got around to doing.. i'll have a go at that later..

So.. i'd suggest trying one or both of those, all you have to lose is a couple of cd's or cd-rw's. ..let me know what you think

 

i only used one or two versions of Fedora at work, and not for long each time, recently i ditched Fedora (no reason) for PCLinuxOS. PCLinuxOS is based on Mandriva, both PCLinuxOS & Mandriva are very nice indeed (& simple to use/maintain/learn). By far my fave distro has always been Mandriva, been using it for 6/7 years now, since back when it was known as Mandrake (i started out with version 8.1). Most of my machines are Mandriva, though as there's so many smart distro's out there i try to keep some machines spare for changing distro's now and then.

Anyways, yes, PCLinuxOS is incredibly user-friendly. As i say, it's a live cd, so you can try it out, then (like TinyMe) you can just install from an icon on the desktop. I highly recommend you dive into PCLinuxOS straight away