Playing with Ndiswrapper- still no wireless

[pmrphs2002]

Hey guys, long time no talk!

Ive been playing with it for a couple months here and there, but the girlfriend is starting to get on me about stringing this cat5e cable through her kitchen...

My laptop has a broadcom integrated WLan card. Mandriva recognizes the card but only my ethernet works. I installed ndiswrapper (trying to do this by memory- im on one of the campus computers now) and did a -i bcmwl5 (guessing)

I know this subject has been beaten dead, but it seems ive been out of linux enough to have no idea what to do.........

Ill get you guys some more technical info when I get out of school...

Anybody?

[Syngin]

Ubuntu has similar problems (especially with WPA) which, I believe have been addressed in Feisty Fawn and defaulting to using Network Manager. To complicate matters further, some of the walkthroughs on Linux and Broadcom wireless aren't correct or things have changed since they were written (one of the big problems with an accelerated release timetable like Ubuntu is that documentation gets outdated much quicker). Primarily, these problems were with WPA (Edgy worked with my Broadcom Wireless NIC out of the box with WEP)

Haven't tried Mandriva yet so I'm not much help in that arena. Sorry.

[VoiDeR]

I have a broadcom wireless in my laptop and setting it up is a breeze under ubuntu. Post the out put of lsmod for me. Ubuntu loads a module by the name of bcm43xx i think it is, and it has to be removed before ndiswrapper will work properly.

[jbarnes8]

I had this same problem a while ago. It was about a year ago so I can't remember the exact steps (and i no longer use wireless). I was using a linksys card, but I do remember seeing "broadcom" quite a bit in my readings (same company?).

If i remember right, i had a problem loading the driver after ndis was installed. If your having the same problem, you got a long road ahead. But at least now you know where you're going.


I had to recompile my kernel (i'm 99% sure it HAD to be 2.6+...get the newest possible). But not only that, I had to recompile my kernel with the same version of compiler that glib was compiled with (read the INSTALL if you don't believe me). If you're using an .iso (as opposed to linux from scratch), the chances of this happening is unlikely. So most likely you'll have to recompile and reinstall glibc (might as well update while you're at it). Then, reconfigure, recompile and reinstall the kernel. The configuration is important, but honestly I can't remember the exact settings you need. Select anything that might look promising. Or better yet, find out for yourself. Reboot with new kernel. Install the ndiswrapper. Restart the computer. Just do it. Try to run ndiswrapper from the command line. I remember i got an error or warning message at this point, but everything seemed to work ok.

I'm serious about the kernel/glibc thing. They have to be compiled with the same compiler. (which may lead to having to first upgrade the compiler) I tried just about everything before I finally resorted to that. Sure enough it worked.

Review:
1. recompile glibc (double check this in ndis INSTALL file)
2. recompile kernel (2.6+)
3. reboot with new kernel (I wasted 45 minutes because i'm stupid)
4. install ndiswrapper
5. restart computer (not sure why, but it seemed to help)
6. run ndiswrapper (go ahead and test it out if you get errors)

[jbarnes8]

i just did lspci for an unrelated matter and saw my card is a Broadcom Lynksys. I can almost guarantee it has to do with the glibc/kernel/compiler and using the same headers or something like that. Read the INSTALL and README real close. I'm pretty sure it only says it once.

[thefoolisme]

Have you tried using WiCD? It was in the Ubuntu repository, probably in yours too. I tried for ages to get network Manager to work with my wireless. Someone suggested WiCD to me. I installed it and was online...boom.. like that.

[XiaoKJ]

I've never encountered a broadcom WLAN card myself, but I've got an idea how troublesome it is.

basically, if I am in your shoes, I'll follow the prescription below:

1) check http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/?go=devices for my card. If its already supported by bcm43xx, I'll just use it with the fwcutter. I'll even compile my own kernel to use it.

2) If you really have to resort to ndiswrapper, do remember that you cannot just use your own driver. AFAIK, its best to use the tried and tested drivers on its list.

3) remember to blacklist the kernel's bcm43xx when using ndiswrapper. Toxic when mixed...

That pretty much sums up the most potential potholes in using broadcom WLAN chips in linux.

jbarnes8: I don't exactly get what you mean, but more or less, distro maintainers would be sane enough to distribute kernel images on the glibc version they distribute. Only if you update through the repositories will you see differences.

And yet, I don't see any reason for it to matter unless there is a break in glibc compatibility. its supposed to just work...

Moreover, most mainstream distros will want to work with ndiswrapper out of the box... so I don't see the need to get new glibcs and kernels.

[jbarnes8]

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/m...doesn.27t_work

At the very bottom of page....


The kernel running should have been compiled from the same sources as ndiswrapper is.
The compiler used for compiling kernel should be same as the one used to compile ndiswrapper. To make sure these conditions are met, run cat /proc/version and modinfo ndiswrapper and make sure that they match both compiler and kernel versions. If they do not match, you need to recompile either ndiswrapper or kernel or both. One sure way to get it right is to make sure that you have proper kernel headers installed: check that ls -l /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build/include/linux/version.h does not give error and shows the information about that file.
If you use precompiled kernel, make sure also that your kernel sources have exact same kernel configuration used for compiling kernel e.g., copy kernel configuration from /proc/config.gz or /boot/config-<version> into /lib/modules/uname -r/build/.config, such as gunzip < /proc/config.gz > /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build/.config. Then recompile and install ndiswrapper.


That ^^^ used to be in the INSTALL...I don't know why it's not anymore

Perhaps the glibc came into play because I had to update that before I could compile the 2.6 kernel...it was over a year ago so I can't remember exactly.

I literally tried for months and that's the only way I got it to work.

[XiaoKJ]

notice the word "should".

I understand that using the same toolkit (glibc + gcc + binutils) for the kernel and ndiswrapper will surely reduce the possibility of conflicts, but its not exactly necessary IMO. I reckon that such possibility is very small in itself.

[jbarnes8]

Allow me to retort:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/should

[XiaoKJ]

haha... nice to know that...

anyway, as I've stated, the possibility of a mismatch causing the problem is rather small. And with distro maintainers being rather eager to be compatible with ndiswrapper...

[bwkaz]

ndiswrapper is only a kernel-side thing, isn't it? glibc shouldn't have any bearing on ndiswrapper if it is, because nothing in the kernel uses glibc (it's for userspace only).

Using the same compiler to compile ndiswrapper as you used to compile the kernel is an absolute must, though -- different compilers create different object code from the same declarations in the headers. So if you don't use the same compiler, the module's version of (e.g.) the spinlock might be one size, but the kernel's version will be a different size. Now whenever the module needs to talk to the rest of the kernel about a spinlock (e.g. to initialize it), the machine goes boom because the kernel writes outside the extent of the spinlock structure. (Or the module writes outside of it later; it depends on which side thinks it's bigger.)

In short: every kernel module must use the same gcc version as the kernel itself. ndiswrapper isn't any different from nvidia's or ATI's kernel modules. But I've never seen a requirement to use the same compiler for the kernel as for glibc; glibc is "just" a wrapper around the raw syscalls, and the interface to those doesn't depend on the compiler version.

The only thing that would make glibc make any difference is if the ndiswrapper stuff has a user-mode component, and both the user-mode and kernel-mode stuff shares a structure definition that's missing an explicit memory-layout (so the compiler is free to use any layout it wants). But even then, the interaction with glibc is a bit strange, as the compiler you use to compile glibc shouldn't ever have to match the compiler you use to compile any userspace program.

Hmm...

[Pikidalto]

I haven't read the above posts above, so I don't know if this was resolved or not, but here are my two cents:

Cent 1: Some wireless Broadcom cards don't work well with Linux

Cent 2: http://wiki.arklinux.org/index.php/W...tworking_HOWTO
These might be at the Ark Wiki, but they should work for most Linux distros. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that dhclient might be replaced be replaced be a similar command on some distros, so you might have to do a little research at www.google.com/linux if you don't know what it is.

[pmrphs2002]

Well.... That does seem a bit complicated.....

So the broadcam WiFi cards are the ones that Ive been reading about since my conversion? The ones that require an arm, leg, and days of time to get working right?

Suddenly ..... suddenly thinking about the DLink that didn't require much tinkering (but tinkering nonetheless) to work perfectly .... (almost)

[wh666-666]

Ive got a broadcom mini pci card in a laptop as well .. Linky to my thread as it might have a helpful insight

http://justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=148532


Ive found netgear cards work very well in linux. one of my laptops is bios locked under warranty to broadcom, probably deliberately to keep users using windows which is a gross indency of software freedom.