Arch Linux

Jonhoo

Member

Registered: 2009-05-23

Posts: 118

64-bit driver for WN111 ( Marvell TopDog chipset )

Hello all fellow archers!

I've been playing around with my fresh Arch install over the last few days, but one perservering problem is that I cannot get my USB wireless device to work. The relevant output of `lsusb` is the following:
Bus 002 Device 016: ID 0846:9000 NetGear, Inc. WN111(v1) RangeMax Next Wireless [Marvell TopDog]

In other works, it uses the Marvell TopDog chipset. After doing quite a bit of research I have found many potential drivers to pass through ndiswrapper ( which is, as far as I've gathered, the only way of making this chipset work on a linux distribution? ), however they all fail for one of the following reasons:
1. The driver is a 32-bit driver, and so I get errors from ndiswrapper saying: ndiswrapper (check_nt_hdr:150): kernel is 64-bit, but Windows driver is not 64-bit;bad magic: 010B
2. Some files are lacking, and so ndiswrapper says that it's an invalid driver
3. Ndiswrapper swallows the driver, but shows no device present.
3a. If I then try to do `ndiswrapper -a 0846:9000 <driver>`, it says it's present, and, in what seems completely arbitrary, I either get a message such as: "loadndisdriver: load_driver(358): couldn't load driver netmw245" in my everything.log, or I get nothing at all, but also no wlan0 or similar. It just fails silently..

It seems like the only driver Marvell/NetGear do not provide are the 64-bit ones for XP.. Everything else seems to be available..
Has anyone here found a way to get the Marvell TopDog chipset working on a 64-bit arch install?

Fingers crossed...
Jon

BTW: For those of you wondering, I'm writing this through a wireless bridge connected to my neighbours network. And before you ask, no, I cannot just use that bridge for connecting to my own network as it does not support WPA2, and WPA encryption makes it restart every 5 seconds...

Jonhoo

Member

Registered: 2009-05-23

Posts: 118

Re: 64-bit driver for WN111 ( Marvell TopDog chipset )

I've added Marvell TopDog to the missing drivers list at linuxdrivers.com: http://linuxdriverproject.com/twiki/bin … work_cards

Still no-one with a plausible solution for this issue?

mordervomubel

Member

Registered: 2009-07-29

Posts: 2

Re: 64-bit driver for WN111 ( Marvell TopDog chipset )

I have a mini-pci Marvell Topdog. I've had this in a laptop for about 2 years now. I directed my complaints to Marvell, and they replied that they don't deal with end-users, and that I should contact Gateway for the linux driver. There is STILL no native linux driver for this. As much as I like running 64-bit linux, I think I may install 32-bit arch on here so I can use ndiswrapper with the 32-bit windows xp driver. What's a laptop without wireless? Hopefully AMD-v will work in 32-bit mode...

I will do my best to avoid buying ANY Marvell product ever again.

The closest thing I can find to a native driver for Marvell Topdog devices is mwl8k. Unfortunately, it's pre-release status and doesn't yet support my wireless-N device.

Since your device is USB, you may also want to try the libertas driver.

I hope that helps. If not, you're stuck with ndiswrapper like me . Maybe one day the LUK project will make Windows obsolete. Till then, research before you buy hardware.