Arch Linux

azurepancake

Member

Registered: 2009-01-19

Posts: 42

Setting-up Wireless Card (Using Ndiswrapper) [Solved]

I've recently setup Arch-Linux on my laptop and I am now trying to get my wireless card to work. I've got this card to work with Ubuntu Linux using Ndiswrapper, so I know it should be possible. The card is 'Atheros AR5007EG' and my laptop model is a Toshiba p205-s6307.

I have the drivers that I used on Ubuntu and I installed Ndiswrapper from source. I then went through the following steps (I didn't document my original driver installation, so I will just write what the commands now output. The installation had no errors):

[tristan@asuka wdriver]$ pwd
/home/tristan/wdriver
[tristan@asuka wdriver]$ ls
ar5211.sys  net5211.inf
[tristan@asuka wdriver]$ sudo ndiswrapper -i net5211.inf
Password: 
driver net5211 is already installed
[tristan@asuka wdriver]$ sudo ndiswrapper -m
module configuration already contains alias directive

[tristan@asuka wdriver]$ sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
[tristan@asuka wdriver]$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

To my knowledge, this should work. But, unfortunately 'wlan' is not showing. I was hoping someone might have some tips or advice to help me resolve this. Any information will greatly be appreciated. If you need anymore information about my system, please ask!

Thank you very much.

Last edited by azurepancake (2009-01-27 05:43:45)

azurepancake

Member

Registered: 2009-01-19

Posts: 42

Re: Setting-up Wireless Card (Using Ndiswrapper) [Solved]

I've been doing a little experimenting and still haven't been able to get wlan0 up. I uninstalled the driver and reinstalled it using the ArchWiki:

ndiswrapper -i filename.inf
ndiswrapper -l
ndiswrapper -m
depmod -a

(Add 'ndiswrapper' to '/etc/rc.conf' modules section)
modprobe ndiswrapper

Still nothing.

Results of ndiswrapper -l:

net5211 : driver installed
    device (168C:001C) present (alternate driver: ath5k)

But, I have found a few things that might be related to the problem.

When I attempt to run 'ndiswrapper -m' - I get the following error:

[tristan@asuka ~]$ ndiswrapper -m
module configuration contains directive install pci:v0000168Cd00000013sv*sd*bc*sc*i* /sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper
;you should delete that at /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper line 868, <MODPROBE> line 4.
module configuration contains directive install pci:v0000168Cd00000013sv00000406sd00001468bc*sc*i* /sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper
;you should delete that at /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper line 868, <MODPROBE> line 5.
module configuration contains directive install pci:v0000168Cd00000013sv00000407sd00001468bc*sc*i* /sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper
;you should delete that at /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper line 868, <MODPROBE> line 6.
module configuration contains directive install pci:v0000168Cd00000013sv00000408sd00001468bc*sc*i* /sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper
;you should delete that at /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper line 868, <MODPROBE> line 7.
module configuration contains directive install pci:v0000168Cd00000013sv00001025sd0000168Cbc*sc*i* /sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper
;you should delete that at /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper line 868, <MODPROBE> line 8.
module configuration contains directive install pci:v0000168Cd00000013sv00001026sd0000168Cbc*sc*i* /sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper

This pretty much repeats its self for quite a bit.

I've noticed that when I boot my system up, it complains about the following:

FATAL: Module ath_pci not found
FATAL: Module ath_hal not found
FATAL: Module wlan not found

I found a post about my particular card saying to blacklist ath_pci and ath_hal. So I added the following to my /etc/modprobe.d/framebuffer_blacklist

blacklist ath_pci
blacklist hal_pci

Still no luck. So I then noticed that these were part of my modules in /etc/rc.conf:

So I then removed them, making my MODULES line look like so:

MODULES=(r8169 ath5k wlan snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm-oss snd-hwdep snd-page-alloc sn$
ndiswrapper)

I'm afraid this hasn't resolved the issue yet. If anyone has any advice at all, please share!

Last edited by azurepancake (2009-01-26 22:10:04)

neowolf

Member

From: North Carolina

Registered: 2008-01-27

Posts: 105

Re: Setting-up Wireless Card (Using Ndiswrapper) [Solved]

Don't think wlan is actually a module? ath5k is potentially a native driver for your card, so disabling it's probably a good idea too.

azurepancake

Member

Registered: 2009-01-19

Posts: 42

Re: Setting-up Wireless Card (Using Ndiswrapper) [Solved]

Genius. Pure genius.

That did the trick! Thank you so much. I saw that module and was thinking about removing it, but I ended up just loosing hope a little early. Now wlan0 is up! I'll let you know how it goes when I actually try to connect

Thanks once again!

azurepancake

Member

Registered: 2009-01-19

Posts: 42

Re: Setting-up Wireless Card (Using Ndiswrapper) [Solved]

Yep, I was able to install netcfg and can connect to wireless networks! It works like a charm.

Once again, thank you very much!