wireless on laptop with Redhat 9

[lepricaun]

hi guys,

i'm trying to get my wlan to work on my laptop, i'm using a dualboot system with windows xp and redhat 9.

with windows xp everything works fine, but with redhat 9 i can't get it to work!
i've been working on it for 3 weeks now, and i'm really getting tired of this!

here's what i've done so far:
dowloaded and installed ndiswrapper-0.8-rc2 (also tried ndiswrapper-0.8, 0.4 and 0.6)
everything goes well until i load the module:

i got this error in dmesg:
ndiswrapper version 0.8-rc2 loaded
ndiswrapper adding w22n51.sys
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 01:02.0
divert: allocating divert_blk for wlan0
wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:0e:35:08:eb:a5 using driver w22n51.sys
spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7.
wlan0: getting configuration failed (C0000001)

and this is my current ifcfg-wlan0 file in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ :

DEVICE=wlan0
MODE=Managed
ESSID=wireless
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
KEY=open
IPADDR=
NETMASK=
NETWORK=at_home
BROADCAST=
ONBOOT=yes
NAME=wireless
PEERDNS=yes


as you can see i'm not using WEP at the moment and mac filtering is also disabled.

but somehow i still can't access my network, i don't even get an IP!

i know it is the right driver, cause when i use a static ip with a netmask and broadcast, i can ping the static ip like a loop, also the output of "ndiswrapper -l" gives a present state.

i've read almost a dozen tutorials, howto's etc, about configuring wireless on linux, but this is the best i can come up with!

so if someone please can give me some advise, i would be extremely happy!!


thanks in advance :)

[Mangoti]

What wireless device are U using?

[D0pp139an93r]

I never really like using drivers like that. Nowadays, many of the WLAN drivers are available for Linux, check SourceForge and the manufacturer's site.


Also.. I don't know how new you are to Linux.... There may be a kernel driver already included in your system... It may just need to be loaded.

[lepricaun]

Well, there is not yet a working driver for my device (intel 2200bg) from sourceforge, but i did manage to get it to work with ndiswrapper since yesterday :)

only problem now is that i can't use WEP and dhcp :(

this is what i've did:

loaded the driver with ndiswrapper

created an alias:
alias wlan 'modprobe ndiswrapper;iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed;iwconfig wlan0 essid wireless;ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.112 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.254;route add default gw 192.168.1.1'

then added 'nameserver 192.168.1.1' to /etc/resolv.conf

and then ran "wlan"

this works, but as soon as i try "iwconfig wlan0 key restricted s:<key>" or "iwconfig wlan0 key restricted <key>" (note the "s:" before the key) , i get an error message.

also with the config file "ifcfg-wlan0", as soon as i use it to use dhcp the NIC doesn't connect to the router :(

how should i solve this??

[KeyserSoze]

Originally posted here (http://www.AntiOnline.com/showthread.php?threadid=258813#post765877) by lepricaun
Well, there is not yet a working driver for my device (intel 2200bg) from sourceforge, but i did manage to get it to work with ndiswrapper since yesterday :)


Did you try to use the driver here: http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/ ?

The requirements seem kind of minimal. I was just curious.

[thehorse13]

I had a bitch of a time with WiFi on RedHat too. I upgraded the version of pcmcia_cs (found on sourceforge), upgraded to the newest driver release from Cisco and after some tweaking with the Cisco ACU, I was off and running.

Have you installed the newest card services RPM?

[lepricaun]

well keysersoze, as i can see now it is working, BUT Linux (of course) with a 2.6.4+ kernel [link]. See README.ipw2200 for information on specific options required to be enabled in the kerne not with the default redhat kernel though..

but that's not the problem anymore, i've deleted redhat, and installed slackware 9.1 and FC2, with slackware it is working with ndiswrapper 0.8, just as with redhat, but with FC2, when you "modprobe ndiswrapper" the system hangs completely, this is with the default kernel, not with the upgrade...
but like i said in my last post, the main problem is now getting dhcp and WEP to work..

thanks for your reaction though...

as for thehorse13: i think i did, i did do a update with redhat using up2date, which gave me a download of around 260 mb's, so i think i did do that, not sure though...

[KeyserSoze]

Originally posted here (http://www.AntiOnline.com/showthread.php?threadid=258813#post766104) by lepricaun
well keysersoze, as i can see now it is working, BUT not with the default redhat kernel though..

but that's not the problem anymore, i've deleted redhat, and installed slackware 9.1 and FC2, with slackware it is working with ndiswrapper 0.8, ......but like i said in my last post, the main problem is now getting dhcp and WEP to work..


Well, there's no time like the present to try that first kernel compile....it's really not that difficult, and I think it might solve your problem. However, it's your call. Good luck! :)

[lepricaun]

well, i did recompile my kernel a couple of weeks ago on my desktop, but this wasn't such a success either... i am playing ut2004 on it, and with the custom kernel it ran a hell of a lot slower then with the standard one :(

this is even so when i just use the standard settings when you first do a make xconfig or make menuconfig. so before i know why that is, i'm not trying another compile..

but i'm working on it and i will find out :)

[KeyserSoze]

Well, as far is why it ran slower with the stock kernel, it could be a number of things: a module left out, a change to your XF86Config, etc...
But at least you have the right attitude! ;)

[lepricaun]

i know there are dozens of options, but like i said, when i first installed rh9, and the first thing i ran is "make menuconfig", then the .config file would have my config as my default kernel is as far as i know, and when compiling it again just with that config, things goes wrong.. i haven't made any changes to the config file. this is very strange to me, but i've also got slackware 9.1 and FC2 installed, so i'll give it a go with these distro's :)

[Vorlin]

In your /etc/resolv.conf, you have both nameserver and domain set, right?


nameserver 192.168.1.1
domain localdomain.com


And lame-o question for the day, you're not using static addressing on the router while trying to get a dynamic IP (dhcp) through the card, are you?

It sounds to me more like an issue with network settings, not necessarily a module problem.

One major issue I've seen with wireless (especially in our work environment), setting the ESSID was the key. Might check that too...

[lepricaun]

In your /etc/resolv.conf, you have both nameserver and domain set, right?


nameserver 192.168.1.1
domain localdomain.com

yes i have...

And lame-o question for the day, you're not using static addressing on the router while trying to get a dynamic IP (dhcp) through the card, are you?
haha, no it's just the opposit, i'm running dhcp on the router, but have to use a static ip on linux, on windows it uses dhcp though...



It sounds to me more like an issue with network settings, not necessarily a module problem.

One major issue I've seen with wireless (especially in our work environment), setting the ESSID was the key. Might check that too...

i think it is a setting problem too, but i can't find the right settings anywhere, i've tried about everything i can think of..

the ESSID is set to "wireless" (since this is my ESSID on my router) but i've tried "any" also, and this doesn't work either...

the goal is to get dhcp running with wep encryption for my private network, but i would like to use any other network as well, with or without WEP, just like you are able to do in windows.