I’ll be honest, in all my time in Linux and Windows, I’ve had a lot of hassles coming from my wireless card. That’s not to say that’s it’s a perfect flop or anything like that, I’ve just had what I feel is more then my fair share of issues with it. For example, when I got my present laptop home, the first thing I tried to do was access the wireless that we had at home, only to find out it couldn’t connect, let alone see any networks. We opened part of the laptop up and found one of the wires that was meant to be connected to the wireless card had come loose, and had effectively killed wireless connectivity for me that night.
At the same time, running a Marvell chip on the wireless card is one of the worst things I’ve had to face, mostly due to the fact that it is rarely supported under Linux. In fact, I’m pretty sure I had it working in Linux for a grand total of a day, thanks to an update to NDISWrapper breaking it the following morning. My grudges aside, though, NDISWrapper is a highly powerful and the essential when you are installing your wireless card or wireless USB stick under Linux. With that being said, it is also very tricky too…
so if your wireless card does not work after I show you how to work with NDISWrapper, I only tried to help, and am showing you exactly what I’ve learned.
The first thing you have to do is install NDISWrapper, under Ubuntu, it is a simple
sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper
but under Salix, you must install the front end for NDISWrapper as well. So if you’re in Salix, you have to run
su
slapt-get -i ndiswrapper
slapt-get -i ndisgtk
Once it has finished installing, if you open it up under your System menu, you should see something like so
This is how the NDISWrapper interface looks like, or at least the GTK version. From here, it’s a little simplistic my instructions, and it shouldn’t be that different for each card. Hit the ‘Install New Driver’ and point it to the Windows XP or 2000′s driver, in .INF format. If you do not have your driver’s .INF file, try installing the software for your wireless driver does give you in Wine, before going into your /home/username/.wine/program_files directory.
The worst part about NDISWrapper is that it’s not assured that it’s going to work with everyone. Check with the forum of the OS you use, the official documentation, Google, or even our forum to see if we can find you a solution. It might not be supported, but I know I’ll certainly try helping out anyone who needs help setting up their wireless.
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tnx tnx tnx… you told my heart statements!!!!!!!!!!!:D
You have no idea what a difficult time I was having getting my wireless card to work Ubuntu Studio, when it works PERFECTLY in the classic Ubuntu. I always thought that ndiswrapper was all terminal based, and that it would be unreliable as well, but I’m a little more confident after reading this article, I’ll try it later. :-D
@jeff : I am using one of the cellular USB modem ..and my ISP told me the settings for using it in linux ..you have to manually write the device driver
@Johnson NDISWrapper works wherever it is compiled and installed to work, so yes.
@Jeff, not a clue, I’ve never tried working with a cellphone modem.
@zenbob96, while I appreciate the encouragement, I do try the best I can. I’m sorry if the Linux posts tend to slip at times, I’m aware that I am trying to write to the best that I can. I know a decent amount about Linux and about Windows, and the last thing I want to do is confuse both sides when it gets into some of the more high end techno-babel. If I do that too often, too many complain. If I don’t do it enough, we’ve got people that call me a noob. Lose-lose.
I’m aware generic solutions don’t always work, but as someone that has never gotten his own wireless card working and is a poor student, I’m kinda stuck with what I’ve got. Despite what you may think, I don’t make money off ads here, so I can’t afford new hardware as quickly as anyone else could.
If you wish, you can email me on the Contact form, and we can converse more via email and I’ll try to deal exactly with precise solutions, I was honestly thinking I’d be focusing on Ubuntu when I get Salix set up and run Ubuntu in a virtual PC. I do agree on your comment on the perfect OS though… not long now, and we might have a Windows killer on our hands, Mint or Ubuntu already is our Mac killer.
First, let me preface with the blanket remark that all IP/TP and wired ethernet and wireless protocols and hardware/drivers under UNIX, Windows and LINUX have been and still are barbaric, insane and completely chaotic. The claim that there are or have been “standards” is like saying there are standards for wagon wheels — “They must be round” but have since been replaced with radial tires and racing rims. Sorry no manual on that. That being said, I have configured systems in SuSE (not a flavor of Slack as erroneously posted earlier), Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora and Mint. NDIS-Wrapper can allow a great deal of customization and is no better and no worse than most Windows wireless installations. What I find distressing is that so many laptops/notebooks use proprietary drivers or porting of otherwise “standard” installations….and a specific and totally frustrating example of that was a recent HP Notebook which used a mix of Intel chips and Drivers with (hold breath) AMD CPU, a marriage made in Hell, and orchestrated by some special form of madness. I could get touch screen, wiress and regular ethernet to load and work, but not audio, or modem, or I could get the audio and modem to work, but not with ethernet and wireless. I finally got Ethernet to work, not wireless with some audio and the modem, but only if rebooting and modem was connected. It was fabulous and in the end, the only solution for the client was to purchase the HP original install DVD and do a clean installation of Windows Vista, despite it being about 3 X slower than any LINUX distribution.
I am glad to see more comments and articles on LINUX here, but folks, honestly, the detail, accuracy and quality of these posts must improve dramatically if they are to be at Raymond’s excellent and concise level of his Windows articles. I know this is a new fledgling effort, so I want to encourage it, not kill it with harsh comments, but please make some real efforts to raise the quality and detail of the LINUX posts.
I think this could really help readers out there get some confidence and actually give Ubuntu, SuSE, Fedora, Slackware, Mint, Mandriva, or many other distros a chance, especially the LIVE CD/DVD offerings. I recommend those interested in trying LINUX, to first read a bit of the news at distrowatch.com/ and
download a Live CD or DVD of one of the top popular and easy to use choices. You can “test drive” the OS and never fear losing your existing Windows install.
I also think that the perfect OS is still a few years away, but LINUX has truly matured as a reliable, stable and full featured alternative to MW Windows. SInce most are free, there is also a very low risk factor for trying the software. Enjoy!
great article n very useful. thanks! will bookmark this page for future reference.
thank u so much..I was serching for linux driver for my card..
will this work on Fedora 13?
what about a cellular usb modem? would this wrapper work for those also or just the wifi adapters?
@Locutus, I’ve only had my card going for a day… at least you had it going to longer then that!
This is great… for people that have Windows driver discs readily available. I had to connect an old Dell to ethernet to get it to work, which was kinda hard to do with no battery. :( But luckily it had Linux drivers.