Netgear WG511T using madwifi[RESOLVED]

FracturedSingleton · 2006-02-23 00:37:30

Hello all,

First time poster. I am fairly good with standard ethernet configurations on my laptop using linux in general but I am completely lost with wireless on Arch.

I bought a WG511T because I knew the Atheros chipset worked under linux. However, I did not expect for the setup to be, in my opinion, a little under-documented.

Could someone please give me some step by step instructions how to get the wireless working on my laptop using Noodle, Netgear WG511T, and probably madwifi.

I need to know what files to edit and everything. I am not new to linux, just the "Arch way" of doing things.

Thanks for helping me out.

-FS

desertViking · 2006-02-23 03:17:53

Do you have madwifi installed on your computer? I use it for an IBM card. It requires that you download the madwifi drivers from AUR:

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?do_Details=1&ID=785&O=0&L=0&C=0&K=madwifi&SB=&SO=&PP=25&do_MyPackages=0&do_Orphans=0&SeB=nd

then follow these instructions:

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?do_Details=1&ID=785&O=0&L=0&C=0&K=madwifi&SB=&SO=&PP=25&do_MyPackages=0&do_Orphans=0&SeB=nd

I've been very satisfied. In fact I'm writing this note from my madwifi enabled laptop.
Just a side note, I use Netgear PCI wireless cards on a couple of workstations with ndiswrapper and the windows driver. It's easy to do, too.
Hope this helps.

FracturedSingleton · 2006-02-23 14:03:31

desertViking wrote:

Do you have madwifi installed on your computer?

No I don't I need help from the beginning on this one...

desertViking wrote:

It requires that you download the madwifi drivers from AUR:
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?do_Details=1&ID=785&O=0&L=0&C=0&K=madwifi&SB=&SO=&PP=25&do_MyPackages=0&do_Orphans=0&SeB=nd
then follow these instructions:
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?do_Details=1&ID=785&O=0&L=0&C=0&K=madwifi&SB=&SO=&PP=25&do_MyPackages=0&do_Orphans=0&SeB=nd
I've been very satisfied.

Are those links supposed to be the same? I did not find any instructions but let me see if I can put this together and learn how to do things the "Arch way."

OK, I download the tarball, madwifi.install, and PKGBUILD files from the above into the same directory. I will call it /home/jason/MAD. I then go into the directory and try to make a package out of it.

What sequence of commands do I need here? I looked at the wiki but it assumes I know a little too much.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ABS … ild_System

Then after making a package out of it, I guess I can just use Pacman to install it with a pacman -A, correct?

I have heard that madwifi requires uudecode. I tried to find it last night but could not. Do I need this?

desertViking wrote:

In fact I'm writing this note from my madwifi enabled laptop.
Just a side note, I use Netgear PCI wireless cards on a couple of workstations with ndiswrapper and the windows driver. It's easy to do, too.
Hope this helps.

I appreciate the help. Once this the madwifi package is installed is there anything that needs to be done to get it to work?

Thanks,

-FS

desertViking · 2006-02-23 14:42:31

My bad, there are two different instructsions. One for finding madwifi, which you've already done. The other is for wireless setup. I found it searching for wireless. Try this:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_Setup

uudecode is part of shartutils, so you should be able to install those from "extra". If I recall, you're correct and you should install these first.
Extracting the madwifi tar file, you should find PKGBUILD. This tells makepkg how to compile the program, then you should be able to install it.

FracturedSingleton · 2006-02-24 00:46:24

OK, here is what I have done.

I downloaded the files from

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?do_Details=1&ID=785&O=0&L=0&C=0&K=madwifi&SB=&SO=&PP=25&do_MyPackages=0&do_Orphans=0&SeB=nd

I put them all in the MAD directory mentioned earlier. I then did a makepkg and it worked fine. I then used

pacman -A madwifi-2006.01.28-1.pkg.tar.gz

to install the package. I then went to

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_Setup

and followed the directions for madwifi.

I tried the first line

wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode sta

and there was no wlanconfig found. I thought this was installed with madwifi. So I then performed an updatedb followed by a

locate wlanconfig

and it could not find it. So, I uncompressed the tarball of madwifi, went under tools and performed a make, make install. It installed wlanconfig to /usr/local/bin. So I tried the line again...

/usr/local/bin/wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode sta

this time I get a

wlanconfig:  ioctl: No such device

What does this mean and how do I get around it? Is there some other package that I am missing?

Thanks,

-FS

desertViking · 2006-02-24 04:21:19

You've gone a long way! Good job!

Ok, here's some thoughts.

First, you may want to run "slocate -u" to refresh the database. This should help locate find your files.

I had to refresh my memory and go back and read the instructions in the wiki and INSTALL from the madwifi tools.

I assume that you've got the wireless tools installed. To be sure, "pacman -S wireless_tools" looks like it would work (or some subtle variation allowning for my own fat fingers).

Next, it *appears* to me that before you run the wlanconfig directive, you must first probe the module. I would try:

modprob ath_pci

.

You should then be able to see some positive feedback using the "ifconfig" command. This will list known network devices. I don't remember which is the alias, whether it's ath0 or wifi0. But, the wlanconfig establishes the alias. Try the wlanconfig directive at this point.

If you get that far, you'll be using the iwconfig command to configure the card. A lot of what I learned was from the ndiswrapper installation instructions on SourceForge. So, you may need to poke around the edges of what I suggest.

Let's assume that you get the wlanconfig command going, you should see evidence of ath0 and wifi0 using ifconfig and iwconfig. To see if the network is available, you can "iwlist ath0 scan". This will list network hosts nearby.

You use "iwconfig ath0 key xxxxxxx" assuming you have WEP enabled on your router.
You use "iwconfig ath0 essid ESSID" to connect to one of the named hosts found in the list command above.

From there you'll need to bring up the interface. This is done using the ifconfig command, thus, "ifconfig ath0 up".

You should be able to execute iwconfig again, and if all is good it will show you attached to the right ESSID. # iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
sit0 no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
wifi0 no wireless extensions.
ath0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"ESSID"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:09:5B:C5:60:CE
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s Tx-Power:17 dBm Sensitivity=0/3
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=29/94 Signal level=-66 dBm Noise level=-95 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:8505421 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
but you will probably not show an access point, assuming you are using DHCP.
To get an IP address, you use "dhclient ath0", or possibly "dhcpcd ath0".
If all is good, you can ping www.google.com.

As you can see, there's a lot of places where this can come apart, so just check your status as you go. Move to the next step when your sure about the current one.

Once you can do it by hand, it's a relatively simple matter to make this stuff persistent using rc.conf, and a unique profile in network-profiles.

BTW, everything I've done is DHCP. If you use a fixed IP address, you'll have to configure it manually.

You are very close. Once you've got this figured out, you'll be able to do it again, anywhere. That's what Arch has done for me. Hang in there!

FracturedSingleton · 2006-02-24 15:23:37

Yep, I had to work around the edges a bit but I got it working. I appreciate the help!

After work tonight, I will post the complete process from start to finish of what I did.

Thanks Again,

-FS

desertViking · 2006-02-24 17:45:11

Great news!
Now, of course, the next PC you configure will have a *different* wireless card and you'll have to learn all about ndiswrapper 8)

FracturedSingleton · 2006-02-26 21:55:14

Better late than never I suppose...

Here is a complete rundown on how I got my Netgear WG511T wireless laptop card to work using madwifi. First, I made sure I had the dependencies covered by installing wireless_tools and sharutils

#pacman -Sy wireless_tools
#pacman -Sy sharutils

Then I went here to get the files I would need.

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?d … s=0&SeB=nd

I downloaded all three of them: the tarball, the madwifi.install, and the PKGBUILD. I then performed the following steps(//are comments and should not be entered):

//uncompress the tarball
#tar xvfz madwifi.tar.gz

//this will create a madwifi directory, move the PKGBUILD and madwifi.install files inside it.
#mv PKGBUILD madwifi
#mv madwifi.install madwifi

//then create an Arch compatible package
#makepkg

//this will create madwifi-2006.01.28-1.pkg.tar.gz


//next install the package
#pacman -A madwifi-2006.01.28-1.pkg.tar.gz

//for some reason this did not install wlanconfig they way I thought it would
//so go to the tools directory and use a make, make install
//this will install the tools to /usr/local/bin
#cd tools
#make
#make install

//Now that this is done lets see if we cannot get it working
//load the module
#modprobe ath_pci

//run the wlanconfig next
#/usr/local/bin/wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode sta

//this command returned a warning for me, but I found out by pushing
//on that I could ignore it.  here is what it returned, do not enter it.
wlanconfig:  ioctl: No such device

//next we need to enter the WEP key, if you have that enabled on your 
//router, mine does so here is what I entered.
#iwconfig ath0 key xxxxxxx

//then enter the ESSID of your router
#iwconfig ath0 essid ESSID

//bring up the network interface
#ifconfig ath0 up

//then get an ip address using dhcpcd or dhclient
#dhcpcd ath0

This is the point where everything should be working and you can go about your internet usage. That was the good.

This is the bad
Unfortuantely it is not that simple for me. Things seem to be a bit buggy in places. After any given command above my laptop has a chance hard locking where I have to turn the power off. It does not happen all the time but enough to annoy me. Also, I have yet to get the dhcpcd command to get me an ip. Yes, it is the proper command for my system. Sometimes it even shuts down the interface and I have to issue another ifocnfig ath0 up. To get it to work, I had to open the KWifiManager and enter in my WEP key and ESSID and select the "Activate" button. As with the other commands, this has the chance that it will hard lock the system or force another ifconfig ath0 up.

About 70% of the time these commands were flawlessly. When they work, the connection runs at full speed and is quite stable.

If anyone has more to add to this little howto, please do so. I am not a complete expert by any stretch. As such, there may be unnecessary information here.

I hope this helps others who are new to Arch or even new to linux. Please let me know if you found this helpful.

Acknowledgements:
My most sincere thanks to desertViking without whom I would still be floundering about on a wired connection.

-FS

tomk · 2006-02-26 22:45:23

I don't use madwifi, at least not on Arch, so I can't help with your instability issues, but for future reference, whenever you're building something from the AUR, you just need to grab the tarball - it will provide the PKGBUILD, .install file, and anything else the package requires for a successful build and install. The separate links to the individual files are there for anyone who wnats to review the files before downloading them.

It would also be a good idea to leave a comment for the maintainer regarding wlanconfig - as described, it sounds a bit messy, files are installed to /usr/local, and pacman knows nothing about them.

Arch Linux

#1 2006-02-23 00:37:30

Netgear WG511T using madwifi[RESOLVED]

#2 2006-02-23 03:17:53

Re: Netgear WG511T using madwifi[RESOLVED]

#3 2006-02-23 14:03:31

Re: Netgear WG511T using madwifi[RESOLVED]

#4 2006-02-23 14:42:31

Re: Netgear WG511T using madwifi[RESOLVED]

#5 2006-02-24 00:46:24

Re: Netgear WG511T using madwifi[RESOLVED]

#6 2006-02-24 04:21:19

Re: Netgear WG511T using madwifi[RESOLVED]

#7 2006-02-24 15:23:37

Re: Netgear WG511T using madwifi[RESOLVED]

#8 2006-02-24 17:45:11

Re: Netgear WG511T using madwifi[RESOLVED]

#9 2006-02-26 21:55:14

Re: Netgear WG511T using madwifi[RESOLVED]

#10 2006-02-26 22:45:23

Re: Netgear WG511T using madwifi[RESOLVED]

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