Re: Failing to get wireless card working on Toshiba + Suse

From: John Scudder (jscudder_at_verizon.net)
Date: 09/03/05 

Date: Sat, 03 Sep 2005 00:06:33 GMT

Jeremy Russell wrote:
> On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 12:02:49 -0700, Perfect Reign
> <theperfectreign@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 19:18:44 +0100, someone posing as Jeremy Russell
>>pretended that someone gave a rat's ass and spewed out:
>>
>>
>>
>>>>You can get 9.3 here: http://www.opensuse.org/index.php/Download
>>>
>>>Thanks - downloading now ...
>>
>
> I tried the download route; that failed for unknown reasons, so I
> bought a copy of Suse 9.3 Professional. I'm still suffering
> intermittently from wireless issues. I installed the software from
> the DVD, which seemed to be going fine - it recognised my wireless
> card, connected to the Novell site, downloaded updates, all as
> expected. Once the install was over and Linux had rebooted, all
> wireless connectivity had gone again :(
>
> I reinstalled from the DVD and this time, the wireless card wouldn't
> permit a connection even during the installation. This time, I called
> Suse support and was advised that the installation support didn't
> cover wireless networking.
>
> Accordingly, I tried once more - restarted a fresh install, got an
> update connection again, and after a reboot, got stuck without a
> connection once more. Suse support were more forthcoming this time -
> I was advised to download a couple of rpm files from the Suse FTP
> site, which I've duly done. When I try to install both the advised
> packages, the 'rpm' utility reports that both patches are already
> installed.
>
> Suse support have now advised me to repeat the installation (this must
> be like the 5th time) and NOT to download updates during the install.
> I did try this - the connection didn't work during the install again -
> therefore I've given up for a while.
>
> Should I be concerned that I was told not to download the latest
> patches, do you think? This won't be a production system, just one
> for me to play around with, therefore security is not a major issue.
>
> More importantly, can anyone shed any light on why my wireless card
> (standard Toshiba Satellite M30 with Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG built
> in) might be intermittently working? This is a dual boot, WinXP
> system and the card itself is faultless under Windows.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jeremy
For wireless support you may need the 'ndiswrapper' package (included
with SuSE 9.3) and the Windows driver CD. Below are the directions for
installing your wireless card. I don't remember where I found the
information, but it worked for me with my Toshiba and a Linksys card:

> * Click on the "Install and Remove Software" icon on the right pane of YaST
> * On the left side of next window, near the top, is a label called "Filter:" and a dropdown box box.
> * Select "Search" in the dropdown box.
> * In the search field below that, type in "ndis" (without the quotes) and click on the Search button.
> * Voila! There are two items listed in the right pane. Make sure the package called ndiswrapper is checked.
> * Now, back in the search field, enter "wireless" and click on the Search button.
> * Make sure the package in the right pane called "wireless tools" is checked
> * Click on the Accept button in the lower right hand corner.
> Become SU
> * You can create a new folder just like you do in Windows, right-click in the folder...
> * Copy the windows driver (both the *.inf and the *.sys) into the new folder.
>
> * At the prompt, type
>
> ndiswrapper -i <drivername>.inf
>
> where <drivername> is the name of the *.inf file.
>
> Next, check the status of the loaded driver.
>
> Type the command
>
> ndiswrapper -l
>
> You should see something to the effect:
>
> Installed ndis drivers:
> <filename> hardware present
>
> At the terminal prompt, enter the command:
>
> modprobe ndiswrapper
>
> * When YaST starts, click on Network Devices
> * In the right pane of YaST, click on Network Card
> * Click on the Configure button (your card might not show in the list...no biggie)
> * In device type, select wireless
> * In configuration name, enter wlan0 (or whatever iwconfig gave you above...)
> * Hardware configuration name, module name can be left blank. options should be left blank.
> * If you are using a not using a PCMCIA or USB card, you can skip to the next point. If you are using
> a PCMCIA, then check the box at the bottom labled PCMCIA. A few of the config options will disappear,
> and the config name will change to bus_pcmcia (or something similar). Just change it back to wlan0 (or
> whatever iwconfig told you). Other than that, the installation proceeds the same as normal cards. I
> presume for a USB card that it is the same, but I do not have one to test.
> * Click on next to go to the next page of configuration.
> * Most wireless networks are set up to assign an IP address dynamically and I assume yours is that way.
> * Click Next to go to the next page.
> * This is the page where you enter your wireless network settings. Enter your ID and key and any other
> settings you need to specify. I am still running a simple 128-bit WEP enabled 802.11b so I used a Shared
> Key Authentication mode in Managed Mode and entered my key using Hexadecimal. If you use WPA, refer to
> WPA wiki for details on setting this up.
> * Click next to close out the configuration of your card.
>
> * Click on System Icon in YaST.
> * On the right pane, click on that ugly icon labelled "/etc/sysconfig Editor". This is the closest thing
> Linux has to Windows registry as far as I can tell...sorry for the comparion but not sorry for calling
> the label ugly! How about just "System Configuration" instead?!?!?
>
> * On the left pane of the window, expand the selection to System | Kernel.
> * Now, click on the item labelled, MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT
> * In the right pane, enter "ndiswrapper" (again, without quotes) and click Finish.
>
> * Now that you are a superuser, you are going to use a cool utility called Midnight Commander to edit the
> wlan0 configuration file. I found it by reading that big manual that comes with Suse. It is a throwback to
> the days of edit in DOS, but I like it!
> * To start Midnight Commander, type "mc" at the command line. It is a blue file explorer-like utility.
> * You can user your mouse to double-click to the directory /etc/sysconfig/network This is where your
> network configuration files are at. To do that, first double click on /etc, then scroll down and double-
> click on /sysconfig and finally /network
> * Select the file called (something like) ifcg-wlan-wlan0 (it might be named differently but the important
> thing is that it has the wlan0 part!
> * Once selected, click on edit in the menu at the bottom of the screen.
> * Scroll through the file and you will notice that the settings match up to what you were viewing in the
> good old /etc/sysconfig Editor in Yast.
> * Now add the following two lines to the top of the file:
>
> DHCLIENT_MODIFY_RESOLVE_CONF='yes'
> DHCLIENT_SET_DEFAULT_ROUTE='yes'
>
> * Note the use of single quotes above around yes. Also note that these new settings will be viewable in the
> /etc/sysconfig Editor in Yast! Not that you will want to change them...
> * Click on the Save item on the menu item to exit the editor. Now go back to the /etc folder.. To do that,
> double-click on the symbol /.. at the top left of midnight commander. This is basically saying, go up one
> level in the directory tree.
> * Once in /etc, scroll down to the file resolve.conf and open it for editing.
> * Place the following two lines at the top of the file (it is probably empty right now)
>
> Search <you ISP DNS IP>
> nameserver 192.168.0.1
>
> Where <your ISP DNS IP> is your Internet Service Provider's Domain Name Server IP addresses and
> 192.168.0.1 is the ACTUAL IP address of your router. Most routers are set up to default to this
> or 192.168.1.1. Check your router and use the proper default IP address!
>
> * Click on save and then exit out of midnight commander. Close the terminal. You are done!
>

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