-----Original Message----- >From: Mick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Dec 22, 2007 2:01 PM >To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org >Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] realtek 8197 wireless card setup > >On Saturday 22 December 2007, Jeff Cranmer wrote: >> On Saturday 22 December 2007 10:30:45 am Hans-Werner Hilse wrote: >> > > I think I'm getting closer now. >> > > I removed the driver from the kernel, and installed ndiswrapper. >> > > I got the inf driver from a guy from realtek, and used >> > > ndiswrapper -i drivername.inf to install it. >> > > >> > > Now, when I run >> > > iwlist wlan0 scanning, I can actually see my access point listed, plus >> > > lots of other local wireless networks. >> > >> > That's good. It actually receives. > >Yep, you're half way there. The radio communication part of the equation >seems to be working. > >> > > connecting to it is a different matter, however, as the connection >> > > always appears to time out. I'm using iwconfig to manually set the >> > > ESSID, wep key etc. at the moment, and have tried the trick of setting >> > > the speed manually to 5.5M to avoid timeouts. >> > > >> > > When I try to run dhcpcd wlan0 the first time, I get Error, wlan0: >> > > timed out The second time I try to run it, I get an error because >> > > dhcpcd is already running. > >Try to kill it first (dhcpcd -k) and then re-run it. I would run with >defaults (re. channel, speed, etc.) and perhaps only add a small delay in >your /etc/conf.d/net to allow the device to come up: > >sleep_scan_wlan0="1" > >> > Try the minimal approach first and configure it manually using >> > ifconfig/route and ping some host on your network (or the AP if it does >> > IP). If that does not work, there's something wrong with the driver, if >> > it does, the culprit is dhcpcd (vram USE flag?). >> >> Just to clarify, how would I ping a host on my network? I only have one >> other PC connected to the router. > >You use the LAN IP address of the router/host. I don't know what options >Belkin gives you, can you turn on responses to pings (ICMP packet requests) >both on the router and on the other PC? > >> If that is not possible, due to wireless router firewall stealthing (I have >> a rather crash-prone Belkin wireless router at the moment), the next >> attempt would presumably be to ping the AP. >> If I have an AP MAC address, 00:15:E9:19:73:F2 (for example), how would I >> ping this? > >You could use arping (net-analyzer/arping) - but that assumes that the router >accepts broadcast messages. > >> I have checked the dhcpcd install, and the vram USE flag is presently >> unset. Does this flag need to be set? > >Well, it may need to be set depending on your router. Certain dhcpcd server >implementations won't play nicely with the latest stable version of the >dhcpcd client and you end up getting time outs and no IP address. >Re-emerging with vram USE flag set solves this problem. Manually setting up >an available/suitable static LAN IP address may also work (e.g. ifconfig >wlan0 192.168.0.2). > >> > Start with WEP, if that works switch to WPA. >> >> I've given up on WPA for now. If I can get WEP to work, I'll be happy at >> this point, though WPA operation would be the ultimate goal. >> Is ndiswrapper meant to work with the 2.6.23 kernel? I don't want to have >> to step down to an earlier kernel, as that causes problems with changing >> Xorg configurations, but I could go through the pain of this if it were >> strictly necessary. > >ndiswrapper works fine with this kernel. I would start with the dhcpcd vram >flag to take this time out problem out of the equation and then I would edit >the /etc/conf.d/net to set up all necessary parameters instead of having to >enter everything via iwconfig at the command line. This will also minimise >the chance of typos at the CLI. Following a process of elimination I would >start with no encryption whatsoever at the router and if it works I would >then gradually add WEP and finally WAP. > >PS. Assuming you get ndiswrapper going you can retry the in-kernel driver in >future versions as it is likely that more and more devices will be added. > >HTH. >-- >Regards, >Mick
I tried recompiling with the vram USE flag set in dhcpcd, but that didn't help. I then uninstalled ndiswrapper, and installed the modified rtl8187 driver from http://www.datanorth.net/~cuervo/blog/2007/09/26/no-more-vista. SUCCESS!! :-D Finally, I have a working wireless card. I've not tried WPA yet, but WEP definitely works. It isn't quite perfect, as knetworkmanager can't recognise the connection, and i haven't quite figured out how to implement the required startup script to run automatically, but it's up, and only requires a single root user command to execute. Jeff I think I'll give it a couple of kernels and see if the built-in RTL driver improves. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
