[solved] livecd networkless install + ndiswrapper

isfalse · n00b Joined: 20 Jan 2007 Posts: 3

Hi all,

I've been searching through this forum about the problem that I'm having right now, but did not find clear answer what to do with my machine. I'm new to linux and all this gentoo stuff..

I'm trying to install gentoo on my AMD 64 Dual core 4200+ machine. I've downloaded amd64 version of 2006.1 livecd at first but it did not boot with both of gentoo/gentoo-nofb kernel.
So I downloaded amd64 for 2006.0 and it boots fine now. I wanted to connect to the internet to download stages, portage and etc, but I got in to a problem that my wireless network card is not detected.
lspci shows that my network card is:

dpshak · Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 2:40 pm Post subject:

I have two thoughts here, isfalse. I recently downloaded a SimplyMEPIS CD - to see if I'd actually learned something about linux in the last 2 years of working with Gentoo. I ended up downloading/burning the CD 4 TIMES! Two different versions on 2 different machines in 3 different OS's (MEPIS, Gentoo and XP) before I discovered that the CD-RW I was using had bad sectors. K3B said the md5sum was fine, the burning process from iso to cd went fine (no errors) and the install of the OS proceeded without error. It wasn't until I tried to restart in my new OS that the problems showed up! After much hollering and swearing, I traced it to a bad CD. Got a different CD (CD-R) and it worked fine. So after that longwindedness, I'm suggesting maybe you have a bad CD?

As far as the wireless install, I ran into the same problem on my laptop. My work-around was to use the built-in NIC (I have a Realtek 8139 series NIC as well as Broadcom BCM43xx wireless) to install the base system and then installed ndiswrapper. If that's not an option for you, you could follow this link: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/index.xml to "Install Gentoo on a Networkless" system. From the links on this http://sourceforge.net/projects/ndiswrapper/ page download the source file (*.tar.gz) save it to a file in Windows (i.e. C:\Linux) collect up the needed *.inf and *.sys files from your Windows install and COPY them to the same location (C:\Linux). Now when you restart in Gentoo, copy the files from C:\Linux to a folder in your /(root) partition, manually compile and install ndiswrapper. After all that, typing man ndiswrapper (you need to modprobe ndiswrapper and you need to tell ndiswrapper to use that *.inf file you copied - ndiswrapper -i /location of/ wireless/card.inf - I believe) should give you everything you need to setup and use your wireless. Because this was compiled by hand, Gentoo won't add it to the world file, and therefore when you type "emerge -uDav world" ndiswrapper will never show up to be updated if an update is available. Once your ndiswrapper is working, you may want to "emerge ndiswrapper" from Portage, this will add it to your world file and will, whenever updates are available, allow you to automatically update.

This page may also be of some interest to you if you run into errors with ndiswrapper...https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-524834-highlight-ndiswrapper.html

isfalse · n00b Joined: 20 Jan 2007 Posts: 3

Bad CD? I've actually burned 2 CDs for 2006.1.. one for live cd and one for installation cd.. both of them gave me the same result so.. I'll try burning once again with different CD..

Since I can only use wireless network.. I guess the only way is installing Gentoo with installation CD and then install ndiswrapper after..?

Anyways, Thanks so much for your help!

dpshak · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 9:54 pm Post subject:

I seem to recall seeing something about using Knoppix (and that distros wireless capabilities to install Gentoo) somewhere on this forum - but I don't know anything about that! What I suggested was the best I could come up with. Maybe somebody else has other ideas?

Good Luck...

Subversive Asset · n00b Joined: 08 Dec 2006 Posts: 40

Installing from the CD and then installing ndiswrapper won't work unless you also have the kernel source and other dependencies...

I am not sure, but I think that you could technically get a tar.gz of ndiswrapper, and then it would bypass the need for getting a whole bunch of dependencies...Personally, I don't see why gentoo livecd or minimal install disk can't just include ndiswrapper like others do...

There is a way--use the wireless capabilities of another livecd (people say knoppix, but that livecd doesn't seem to work very well with my hardware) to use that ndiswrapper and then get the gentoo stuff, but I haven't looked into it so much.
_________________
>_0 ...everything...is broken! WHY PORTAGE MUST YOU BE INSANE AGAIN WITH THE RABIES?!

dpshak · Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 4:20 am Post subject:

Subversive Asset.

I've never installed from the LiveCD. Always from a minimal install CD with internet access. Well, I take that back. The initial install on my laptop was from the Sabayon LiveDVD. (A Gentoo based LiveDVD) Complete install to include KDE, Gnome (I think), kernel sources, and a WHOLE PILE of other stuff - but no wireless. That's how I came up with what I posted before. Because I wasn't satisfied with the final product, I removed Sabayon and started over from scratch with Minimal Install CD and wired internet. I did install ndiswrapper, but after rebooting ndiswrapper failed. See last link from my first post. So unmerging ndiswrapper from portage and manually compiling and installing the one off the Windows partition was the only way I could get it to work at that point. Later, after addressing the problem from that link I reinstalled - and have since upgraded - ndiswrapper from Portage.

Well, I see that the LiveCD installs a kernel made from genkernel, but it doesn't say if the kernel sources are installed as well. I would think so, after all this IS Gentoo - but if they aren't, then my method wouldn't work.

Anyway, that's how I did it

...

Subversive Asset · n00b Joined: 08 Dec 2006 Posts: 40

Yes, dpshak, my first gentoo installation was from a minimal install CD; that took three days of wired internet that I can't afford to do again...but if it is WIRELESS, I could. And I've also installed Sabayon (but from the LiveCD, not the DVD, so I don't know about all of the apps it has), and was able to get ndiswrapper working with that because sabayon at the very least has ndiswrapper and its deps.

That, however, was when I learned that bcm43xx doesn't work very well with laptop broadcom 4318 adaptor--it was a whole different story trying to get the bcm43xx module blacklisted so I could get ndiswrapper to modprobe (the fact that the module persisted even though I had rmmod'ed and I had to RESTART to get things working made me think I was using Windows instead...>_<)

I've seen the .sys not copying problem before--I don't know how it happens; I don't even know how to replicate it (it does it in some installations, sometimes not...but I certainly don't like having to open a root konqueror so I can move files around when they should automatically be moved <_>)

I'm seriously thinking that manually compiling it is the way to do it though...I don't know why it's like that, but I don't know why a lot of gentoo things work.

When I tried installing from the LiveCD, it didn't install sources...and I really wasn't going to manually add it from a Windows partition. But from what I'm hearing....the source for ndiswrapper doesn't need deps or kernel sources, which is looking pretty good.
_________________
>_0 ...everything...is broken! WHY PORTAGE MUST YOU BE INSANE AGAIN WITH THE RABIES?!

dpshak · Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 3:31 pm Post subject:

Subversive Asset,

Sounds like you have the same problem with that Broadcom wireless that I have!! I've never been able to get that bcm43xx module to work either!

My earlier adventures with ndiswrapper (on a Sony laptop with a pcmcia wireless adapter) failed miserably. So for the longest time, knowing that Broadcom wireless was nearly impossible to get working, I didn't have Linux on this Compaq. It wasn't 'til I tried that Sabayon Linux that I found out about the bcm43xx module. When THAT failed to work, for me, I went back and tried ndiswrapper - and this time it worked.

One of the problems I had with Sabayon, like all LiveCD type installs that I've tried, was that it installs everything but the kitchen sink. This is what pushed me to Gentoo in the first place - the idea that everything could be customized to; and tweaked for, the individual machine without all the extra stuff. Thanks to the Sabayon install, I knew I could do a stage 3 minimal install - it just might be more work than usual!

You may want to look into the "Install from Stage4" from the Gentoo wiki. I used this in the past, when it seemed that every time I updated something it killed my install. What I would do is complete a stage3 install, add X, make sure everything was working properly to that point, and that would be my stage4 starting point. Then when I screwed something up, instead of the 2 to 3 hours to do a stage3 + X install, in .5 hours, or so, I would have a base install. Update that and you're ready to go! I don't do that anymore, because I've learned enough that I rarely screw up the system to the point that I have to reinstall - besides, my most recent back-up is pre GCC4. What I'm thinking is that for folks in your situation, once you have a working install, you could use this method to back-up that system. If you do need to reinstall, you would have everything you need saved to another disc, CD, etc.- no more worries about how to get your wireless to work. I always used stage3 + X to cut down on the storage requirements - kept the backup on a different partition on a different hard drive - but you could back-up your whole installation.

Subversive Asset · n00b Joined: 08 Dec 2006 Posts: 40

isfalse · n00b Joined: 20 Jan 2007 Posts: 3

I've figured out the wireless driver with ndiswrapper in Knoppix. Stage 1 installation has been finished and I'm on stage 2 right now.. Thanks for the suggestions!!