first day, ndiswrapper kernel panic, madwifi nonsense

kersten78 · n00b Joined: 11 Jan 2005 Posts: 7

Hello everybody. I'm just ending my first day using gentoo. Everything has gone pretty smooth so far, with the exception of wireless internet.

I've been googling all evening and I can't seem to find any solution for the ndiswrapper kernel panics. I did read that there are bugs with versions 0.11 and 0.12, so I emerged ndiswrapper-0.10 (which has worked flawlessly on my other systems--mainly slackware w/ kernels 2.4.26, 2.4.27, 2.6.8.1, and 2.6.9). Here are a few more details:

i'm using kernel 2.4.28 on a desktop pc, so no pcmcia stuff applies
wireless-tools are installed
ndiswrapper -l shows driver properly installed/hardware present
also tried downloading ndiswrapper source and got same kernel panics
the kernel panic seems to be interrupt related, but i can't remember the exact error.

I'm sure I'm leaving out some vital info, but it's been a rather long first day using gentoo. Once emerge x11 has finished (probably tomorrow), I'll crash it and post exact errors if necessary. LIke I said, I haven't been able to find any pertinent information either searching google or these forums, so if anyone has any advice/solutions, I'd love to hear.

And now for the madwifi nonsense. After becoming terribly irritated by ndiswrapper, I emerged madwifi-driver and madwifi-tools. Modprobe ath_pci seemed to work fine (albeit with warnings). iwconfig lists the ath0 interface, and i've been able to set the essid and key. But it will not list an AP, only 00:00:00, etc. So I tried ifconfig ath0 up, and suddenly iwconfig shows the proper AP. And running iwlist ath0 scan shows my network. But if I run dhcpcd -t 10 ath0, I don't get an IP. Furthermore, after running dhcpcd, ath0 is no longer listed in ifconfig, and running iwconfig shows an AP of FF:FF:FF.... The only way to get the correct AP is to repeat the process. And it's the same situation, I can only get the correct AP after running ifconfig ath0 up. nonsense. Anyway, dmesg shows all the madwifi modules loaded properly and also shows that the proper drivers are being used for the a/b/g atheros chipset/firmware.
If I'm missing something obvious here, please enlighten me. I'm at wits end, and I'm tired of having an ethernet cable running through my kitchen.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Gherald · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2005 10:13 am Post subject:

madwifi is definately the way to go.

have you played around with:

kersten78 · n00b Joined: 11 Jan 2005 Posts: 7

No, I haven't bothered working on the net.ath0 script yet. I'm just trying to get an IP manually before I do anything else.

I have been able to get it to keep the correct AP by using the dhcpcd -o tag, but still no IP. And scanning seems to work fine once I issue ifconfig ath0 up. It seems to be an issue with the encryption. I've seen some problems using restricted mode, and the need to use iwpriv... but I have the AP set up with open encryption, and my other two boxes work fine (using slackware and ndiswrapper).

And using dhcpcd -d shows that dhcpcd is using the correct MAC address, but still no luck in getting an IP. weirdness.

Gherald · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2005 9:21 pm Post subject:

I haven't had much luck with manual commands either, but the net.* script works perfectly for me. Worth a shot anyway.

kersten78 · n00b Joined: 11 Jan 2005 Posts: 7

I'm still researching. I'll have to give the net.ath0 script a try. If I have any luck, I'll post back.

If anyone else has any ideas, let me know.

thanks.