Debian Wireless Setup

[Silicone_Milk]

Didn't want to fully hijack the vista->ubuntu thread so I'm splitting off in to my own topic.

I'm trying to get a WPC300N linksys wireless card working with Debian.

Kernel: 2.6.26-2-686
Dump of ndiswrapper -v:

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ryoko:/home/broadcom# ndiswrapper -v
utils version: '1.9', utils version needed by module: '1.9'
module details:
filename:       /lib/modules/2.6.26-2-686/misc/ndiswrapper.ko
version:        1.53
vermagic:       2.6.26-2-686 SMP mod_unload modversions 686 

Dump of ndiswrapper -l:

Code: Select all

lsbcmnds : driver installed
	device (14E4:4329) present (alternate driver: ssb)

Dump of iwconfig:

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lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

There're not really any error messages. The card simply isn't being seen/recognized when I try to configure a wireless connection.

Any thoughts on how to resolve this?

Thanks

[^misantropia^]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p= ... ostcount=4 - this is all you should need to get up & running

[Silicone_Milk]

That was one of the first tutorials I had followed although I skipped the deletion of wec600n.sys and wpc54*

I'll give those a shot and see if they were conflicting with the rest of the install or not.

Thanks

EDIT: nada. Still the same story. Rebooted after deleting those files and still nothin.

[Silicone_Milk]

Dump of "lspci -v | less":

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03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43XG (rev 01)
Subsystem: Linksys Device 0058
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 10
Memory at 40400000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16k]
Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
Kernel modules: ssb

Thought that might be of some use.

[^misantropia^]

Ah, so it's really a Broadcom chipset. Check this out: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p= ... ostcount=3

[Silicone_Milk]

hmm... still doesn't work. Nothing has changed after following the steps and restarting. =\

I'm wondering if I fucked up and grabbed the wrong driver..... I really don't think I did but I'll have to double check when I get home and have an wired connection for the laptop.

[Silicone_Milk]

Going to try seeing if the drivers for a slightly older card might work.

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/n ... sys_WPC54G

drivers for device 14E4:4320 and my card is 14E4:4329

It's a long shot but I'd have a good laugh if it manages to work.

[Silicone_Milk]

HA!

I was diggin through the junk drawer for a nail file 'cause my nails were getting a bit long (classical guitar player...) and happened across this ancient cisco aironet 300 wireless adapter.

I popped it in and SHAZZAM! EDIT: Not working. It's just recognized as an "unknown device" and listed as a wireless adapter. Doesn't actually send or receive any data though. Just sits... broken. Drivers dont do jack shit. *sigh*

Dump of iwconfig:

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wifi0     IEEE 802.11-DS  ESSID:"linksys"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:1A:70:4A:22:42   
          Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   Sensitivity=0/65535  
          Retry limit:16   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=100/100  Signal level=-45 dBm  Noise level=-93 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:538   Missed beacon:0

I'm stoked. I feel that the all is well and my laptop is whole now.

[^misantropia^]

So it isn't working after all? If your AP uses encryption, you're going to need wpa_supplicant. For reference, I have the below in my /etc/network/interfaces:

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auto ath0
iface ath0 inet dhcp
        pre-up /sbin/wpa_supplicant -B -iath0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
        pre-up /sbin/iwconfig ath0 essid NRCNEXT
        post-down pkill wpa_supplicant

/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf is a list of passphrases created with `wpa_passphrase some_essid mypassword >> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf`.

I suppose that is the geek's way to wireless networking. There are a few GUI tools in apt that do most of the configuring for you, like network-manager-gnome, kwlan and wpagui.

[Silicone_Milk]

Using the cisco Aironet 350 series wireless adapter I get results when typing in iwconfig.

It shows up under an interface called wifi0 (not ath0).

network-manager-gnome sees the device and when I go to configure the wifi connection it even sees that my lan exists with a high signal strength.

I disabled security and MAC filtering on the lan router (just to see if I could get the card working) but the card just refuses to connect to the lan even if I manually enter the connection info instead of relying on the router to dish one out automagically.

I feel like I'm closer with this Aironet card though than I was with the WPC300N card.

[Silicone_Milk]

dumbass.

Was trying to clear up the packets I've installed to start fresh. Let it be known that it's all kinds of bad juju to execute "apt-get remove dhcp-*"

On a Vista machine downloading all the dhcp packets that I need again...

[Silicone_Milk]

Interesting fact: Upon doing a complete reinstall of Debian using a minimal image (net install) the installer detects my cisco card, and even autoconfigured the net settings and made use of it to download the needed packages to finish installation.

It looks like the issue's been resolved. I'm crossing my fingers to see if the card still works after finializing the installation.

[Silicone_Milk]

Yep. Posting from Debian wirelessly. Rock on.

I guess it was a good thing I messed my install up and decided to reinstall the system.

[obsidian]

System Log:
> User error
> Does not compute
> *Smacks Silicone_Milk*
> All better now