[gentoo-user] Re: Guidance requested for setting up ndiswrapper wireless under Gentoo

[Mark Knecht]

On 7/6/06, Mark Knecht <markknecht@×××××.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>    Help........I cannot seem to find any good instructions for setting
> up a wireless NIC using ndiswrapper on Gentoo. Can someone point me in
> the right direction?
>
>    The main Gentoo doc I found:
>
> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=4&chap=4
>
> doesn't mention ndiswrapper. A wiki I found here:
>
> http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Wireless_Configuration_and_Startup#Configuration_using_iwconfig
>
> barely mentions ndiswrapper. Certainly not enough to get anything
> working. (I think...)
>
>   I cannot use WPA supplicant as my NIC is not supported. I did have
> the NIC working under FC2 for a long time but am attempting to convert
> the machine to Gentoo. (well, it's converted but wireless is the only
> thing not working...)
>
>    I think I must be missing some good page on how to do this.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Mark
>

Continued.....

Again, thanks in advance for any help you can give.

1) I found a Windows driver online for my card - LinkSys DWL-G510
2) emerged ndiswrapper and installed the driver. The card and driver are found:

christmas ~ # ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
net8180 driver present, hardware present
christmas ~ #

3) The card is running but only 11Mb so far. Not important right now
but will be later.

christmas ~ # iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Auto  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   Tx-Power:20 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
          RTS thr:2432 B   Fragment thr:2432 B
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:100/100  Signal level:-95 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

christmas ~ #

4) I emerged wpa_supplicant based on info here that says
wpa_supplicant can be used with ndiswrapper:

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/WPA

5) When I emerged wpa_supplicant it said I needed to create a config
file /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf and gave a path to an
example, so I've extracted the example file and copied it to the
prescribed location. However the Gentoo pages say the right location
is /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf. Which location is correct?

6) it's so deep in examples I'm currently not clear how to modify it
or even why I'm using it. What is a wpa_supplicant and why does one
use it?

   At this point I'm pretty lost. I'm guess I'm making some headway
with ndiswrapper being that it's loaded not complaining too much, but
none of my iwconfig commands seem to change its state so far. I.e. - I
tell it an essid but it doesn't show that it changed the essid:

christmas System Stuff # iwconfig wlan0 essid LadySmithBliss
christmas System Stuff # iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Auto  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   Tx-Power:20 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
          RTS thr:2432 B   Fragment thr:2432 B
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:100/100  Signal level:-95 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

christmas System Stuff #

   I think that if someone can get me clued in about wpa's and how to
configure for real network I'll likely get there pretty quickly from
here.

Thanks again,
Mark
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