Re: [gentoo-user] realtek 8197 wireless card setup

[Mick]

On Saturday 22 December 2007, Jeff Cranmer wrote:
> On Saturday 22 December 2007 10:30:45 am Hans-Werner Hilse wrote:
> > > I think I'm getting closer now.
> > > I removed the driver from the kernel, and installed ndiswrapper.
> > > I got the inf driver from a guy from realtek, and used
> > > ndiswrapper -i drivername.inf  to install it.
> > >
> > > Now, when I run
> > > iwlist wlan0 scanning, I can actually see my access point listed, plus
> > > lots of other local wireless networks.
> >
> > That's good. It actually receives.

Yep, you're half way there.  The radio communication part of the equation 
seems to be working.

> > > connecting to it is a different matter, however, as the connection
> > > always appears to time out.  I'm using iwconfig to manually set the
> > > ESSID, wep key etc. at the moment, and have tried the trick of setting
> > > the speed manually to 5.5M to avoid timeouts.
> > >
> > > When I try to run dhcpcd wlan0 the first time, I get Error, wlan0:
> > > timed out The second time I try to run it, I get an error because
> > > dhcpcd is already running.

Try to kill it first (dhcpcd -k) and then re-run it.  I would run with 
defaults (re. channel, speed, etc.) and perhaps only add a small delay in 
your /etc/conf.d/net to allow the device to come up:

sleep_scan_wlan0="1"

> > Try the minimal approach first and configure it manually using
> > ifconfig/route and ping some host on your network (or the AP if it does
> > IP). If that does not work, there's something wrong with the driver, if
> > it does, the culprit is dhcpcd (vram USE flag?).
>
> Just to clarify, how would I ping a host on my network?  I only have one
> other PC connected to the router.

You use the LAN IP address of the router/host.  I don't know what options 
Belkin gives you, can you turn on responses to pings (ICMP packet requests) 
both on the router and on the other PC?

> If that is not possible, due to wireless router firewall stealthing (I have
> a rather crash-prone Belkin wireless router at the moment), the next
> attempt would presumably be to ping the AP.
> If I have an AP MAC address, 00:15:E9:19:73:F2 (for example), how would I
> ping this?

You could use arping (net-analyzer/arping) - but that assumes that the router 
accepts broadcast messages.

> I have checked the dhcpcd install, and the vram USE flag is presently
> unset. Does this flag need to be set?

Well, it may need to be set depending on your router.  Certain dhcpcd server 
implementations won't play nicely with the latest stable version of the 
dhcpcd client and you end up getting time outs and no IP address.  
Re-emerging with vram USE flag set solves this problem.  Manually setting up 
an available/suitable static LAN IP address may also work (e.g. ifconfig 
wlan0 192.168.0.2).

> > Start with WEP, if that works switch to WPA.
>
> I've given up on WPA for now.  If I can get WEP to work, I'll be happy at
> this point, though WPA operation would be the ultimate goal.
> Is ndiswrapper meant to work with the 2.6.23 kernel?  I don't want to have
> to step down to an earlier kernel, as that causes problems with changing
> Xorg configurations, but I could go through the pain of this if it were
> strictly necessary.

ndiswrapper works fine with this kernel.  I would start with the dhcpcd vram 
flag to take this time out problem out of the equation and then I would edit 
the /etc/conf.d/net to set up all necessary parameters instead of having to 
enter everything via iwconfig at the command line.  This will also minimise 
the chance of typos at the CLI.  Following a process of elimination I would 
start with no encryption whatsoever at the router and if it works I would 
then gradually add WEP and finally WAP.

PS. Assuming you get ndiswrapper going you can retry the in-kernel driver in 
future versions as it is likely that more and more devices will be added.

HTH.
-- 
Regards,
Mick