NO wireless_tools!!

PsykLaw · n00b Joined: 05 Feb 2004 Posts: 54

Hi folks. At the moment I'm a bit miffed. I am absolutely DEDICTATED to get gentoo to operate wirelessly on a thinkpad t21 using a dwl-g630 wireless card. I would appreciate any input anyone might have. here are the problems i am running into.

1) nothing other than "lo" listed via ifconfig command.

2) no iwconfig command. i believe this means that there are no wireless tools installed but i'm not sure. i did copy over the wireless_tools.27.tar.gz file and attempted to install it but i can't find any instructions ANYWHERE on how to install them.

3) after installing the proper *.inf file, it states that the file is invalid. that is impossible. it is the same file that i used when it did work for roughly three weeks on knoppix (although now even knoppix gives the same error). my olny guess is that this error is related directly to the lack of wireless tools but i'm not certain.

4) i have tried to uninstall the inf driver with a /bin/rm -rf /etc/ndiswrapper/net5211.inf in order to try a fresh install of the driver but again, i'm not certain that it is working.

i am at my wits end here folks. i've been at this for days with no success. i just can't seem to find anything useful. any suggestions would be appreciated. TIA

Adrien · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 9:20 am Post subject:

Hi!

First of all, do you know which chipset is on your card? 'cause it's better if you can use an appropriate linux driver instead of ndiswrapper.
Could you give us the output of # lspci ?
To see your card with ifconfig when it's not in "up" state, you have to do:

PsykLaw · n00b Joined: 05 Feb 2004 Posts: 54

lspci --> tells me that it's an atheros chipset. while i have heard of people using madwifi to set this up, i have no clue. i have been all over the madwifi site and simply don't see or understand how to set it up. ..i'm still new at this, sorry.

ifconfig -a --> comes back with "lo link encap:Local Loopback"

emerge -av wireless-tools --> worked perfectly. when i tried it i used the command "emerge wireless-tools". i guess i have a lot to learn about emerge. as a result though, iwconfig states that there are no wireless extensions.

Thank you for the reply Adrien. I am a step closer. At this point I'm not too sure where to go.

i hate to ask for an easy way out but...if anyone could direct me to an "easy to follow" how to on madwifi i would appriciate it. also, am i correct in that we can emerge madwifi? i am using the 2005.0 universal cd (as i have no internet connection on that laptop) so is it possible to emerge madwifi from it?

jmbsvicetto · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 12:19 pm Post subject:

PsykLaw,

you can search for a package in Portage by doing emerge -s string

PsykLaw · n00b Joined: 05 Feb 2004 Posts: 54

emerge -s madwifi --> does report back a similar output. i see that it is on a website but i am unable to connect to the internet with that laptop as the wireless card is the only means i have for it. i did download madwifi and burn it to a disc but i just don't see anything that makes sense on how to install it. i'm sorry...noob at work here.

jmbsvicetto · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 12:57 pm Post subject:

Ok.

When you want to search for a package you do emerge -s searchkey, when you want to install a package you do emerge -av packagename. So you'll need to do

PsykLaw · n00b Joined: 05 Feb 2004 Posts: 54

ok with that i see the list of files i need. however, google doesn't show where i can get them.

OTOH i did download the tar file for madwifi but im not sure what to do after untar'ing it. i'm begining to think that i should simply get a card with native drivers....just not sure if any local store would have one...

anyway, any idea where those required files could be found? i saw sonthing close on osu's open source lab but after connecting to it there wasn't anything even close.

golgo13 · Apprentice Joined: 24 Nov 2004 Posts: 158

you can use emerge -f to download the files you need. Of course this only helps if you have in Internet connection or another Gentoo box. Worse comes to worse, maybe I can download what you need and send them to you.
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PsykLaw · n00b Joined: 05 Feb 2004 Posts: 54

i ended up starting from scratch but i didn't emerge wireless tools. none the less, i have them at the moment and was able to get ndiswrapper to work yesterday. no i am simply emerging the apps i want. again, i'm not sure what i did differently, but its working now. thank you both for the help and support.

golgo13 · Apprentice Joined: 24 Nov 2004 Posts: 158

Now that you got ndiswrapper working it's time to buy a card with support :wink:

I recomend the D-Link DWL-G650 H/W version B5, F/W version 2.54
Works wonderfully well with madwifi!
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