Network Configurator doesn't recognize Ndiswrapper in FC5



Has anyone been able to get the Network Configuration GUI to handle a
wireless card that requires Ndiswrapper?. I've installed the livna
ndiswrapper rpm along with the XP driver for the Broadcom 802.11G card in
my Compaq R3000z. In earlier versions of FC I was able to configure the
card using the GUI but FC5's Network Configuration GUI doesn't see the
card. I have gotten the card to work by creating a script with Xemacs so
there is nothing wrong with ndiswrapper or the driver, it's strictly a GUI
issue. For future use it would be nice to be able to use the GUI so if
anyone knows if there is a way to get it to work I'd appreciate it.


For the benefit of others here is how I hand configured the card,

Installed ndiswrapper from the livna respository.

The installed the driver,

ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5a.inf

ndiswrapper -m

This wasn't sufficient to get ndiswrapper to automatically load. I had to
create the following file with Xemacs and did a chmod +x on it,

/etc/sysconfig/modules/wlan.modules
#!/bin/sh
modprobe ndiswrapper

The driver will then load on boot.

Next I created a script to configure the interface. First I needed the
HWADDR for the card so I did an ifconfig wlan0. I then created

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0

# Wireless
DEVICE=wlan0
BOOTPROTO=static
BROADCAST=192.168.1.255
HWADDR=00:90:4B:5F:85:07
IPADDR=192.168.1.4
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.1.0
KEY=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ESSID=MYNETWORK
ONBOOT=no


The card can now be brought up and down with the usual ifup wlan0 and
ifdown wlan0 commands.



.



Relevant Pages

  • Re: Howto configure Wireless Card in FC5
    ... If the card is plugged in, and there is a native driver ... If there's no native driver, then the next step is up to you. ... I've gone the ndiswrapper route for cards that don't have native drivers ... You obtain the ndiswrapper source and install the wireless-tools package ...
    (Fedora)
  • Re: [SLE] new at wireless configuration
    ... using ndiswrapper for the linksys card to work. ... in /etc/sysconfig/kernel to have the driver loaded during boot. ... Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 ... Thus I have added the network card by using YaST>Network Devices>Network ...
    (SuSE)
  • Re: [opensuse] cannot see wireless networks (Suse 10.0)
    ... ndiswrapper -r driver_name ... >> Have a Linksys wireless card using the ndiswrapper for the driver. ... For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx ...
    (SuSE)
  • Re: [opensuse] persistent bcm43xx ..
    ... I had my wireless working OK few months ago in my hp tx1000 ... The wireless card in this pc is broadcom bcm4312. ... I suppose this might be because of the bcm43xx driver. ... Why would you prefer ndiswrapper ove the native bcm43xx driver? ...
    (SuSE)
  • Wireless setup: D-Link DWL-G650+ on 9.1 Pro
    ... ethernet card for it, Suse recognised this out of the box - happy days. ... -Uninstalled the SuSE ndiswrapper and built version 1.2 from source. ... -Uninstalled Suse wireless-tools and built & installed version 27. ... Reading up first about WLAN security issues in general (never used ...
    (alt.os.linux.suse)