help need for install: Wireless LAN (linksys WMP54G wireless-G PCI Adaptor)

I thought I knew how to install the WMP54G and a WMP11, until last night.

First, make sure ndiswrapper is installed. (It should be).

Second, copy the WIndows drivers for the card into a convenient directory. THey will include WMP54G.inf and sys and cat files. Also in that directory will be LDISNDS.inf and lcdnds.inf (IIRC) plus their sys files.... You need to install all three drivers.

As root, cd into the directory where you installed the WIndows drivers. THey could be in a subdirectory of that directory.
Issue
ndiswrapper -i whaterverthedrivernameis.inf
for all three drivers.
Do
ndiswrapper -l
to see them listed. One will have both driver AND hardware listed.
Issue
modprobe ndiswrapper
That will create a wlan0 port. Issue
iwlist wlan0 scan
to see your wireless card listed. It won't be secured and will probably have 'any'as the essid.
Issue
iwconfig wlan0 essid youressid enc yourhexkey
to set your wireless card up.
Issue
ifup wlan0
to see if it will mount. If it did you can issue
ifconfig
to see both your loopback (lo) and wlan0 listed.
If your wireless router issued you an IP address it will be listed by ifconfig. Make sure it didn't bind to your eth0 card instead.
If you are connected then issue
ndiswrapper -m
to install it in modules. The next time you boot up your wireles should connect automatically. If it doesn't then start it using the OS Center.

Now, my problem.
My wireless worked great for several months on my box. Then, last Saturday, two other wireless appeared when I did an iwlist. My wireless was unsecured so I added a single WEP 40 bit key.
My Gateway M657 laptop, running a Broadcom 811g/b internal wireless, had no problems when I used OS Center to add the new essid and key.
When my laptop boots the wireless starts up automatically.
My major desktop PC had no problem connecting when I didn't use a WEP. But now, with a key, it connects only 90% of the time. My second desktop use to run SUSE and had no trouble connecting a WMP11 wireless in the unsecured mode. But, when I added a WEP key SUSE refused to connect. I figured it was time to switch that box to MEPIS. Strange thing though, SM 3.3 refused to connect on the second box.

I am not going back to an insecure mode, but some other Linux OS may be on the second PC in the future.

--
GreyGeek

I have just installes SMP noticed that my network was not working.
I went to look where the directions above indicated but found no such folder

I am as green as green can get when it comes to linix

==========
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

This is my first install of linux other than using Knoppix to surf so please tell it to me in a way I can understand because none of these forums are for novices or newbies everyone assumes we know someithing about linux. I have a linkys 80211b usb adapter and I want to install the driver and so far as I know use ndiswrapper. I have copied the driver to my desktop and home folder with no luck. The commands I got from this link mepis.org/node/4841 is what I was trying but I think I don't know where to copy the files because when I run the command line it says no host or invalid host and other such nonsense at least to me so please step by step I need it to make sense in a language I understand. I work on Windows systems and rebuild them so I am not new to computing just linux

I have followed the above instructions from GreyGeek and yielded the following trace:

sh-3.00# ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
wmp54gs driver present, hardware present
sh-3.00# modprobe ndiswrapper
sh-3.00# iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:06:25:F1:70:88
ESSID:"linksys"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-84 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Encryption key:off
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s
Bit Rate:6 Mb/s
Bit Rate:9 Mb/s
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Bit Rate:12 Mb/s
Bit Rate:18 Mb/s
Bit Rate:24 Mb/s
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s
Bit Rate:48 Mb/s
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0

sh-3.00# iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"linksys"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: 00:06:25:F1:70:88
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-82 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

sh-3.00# ifdown eth0
eth0 device: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet (rev 91)
eth0 configuration: eth-id-00:14:2a:0a:f1:b7
sh-3.00# ifup wlan0
wlan0 device: Broadcom Corporation: Unknown device 4318 (rev 02)
ERROR: No configuration found for wlan0
sh-3.00#

-----------------------------------------------

1) There were no LDISNDS.inf or lcdnds.inf files. The only infs in the linksys driver package are WMP54GS.inf and WMP54GSa.inf. I installed WMP54GS. It refers to the Broadcom driver (CopyFiles = BCM43XX.sys.files), so this inf should be all that is required to access the Broadcom chip.

2) The call to ndiswrapper -l shows the driver is loaded and the hardware is present.

3) The call to iwlist wlan0 scan shows that the wlan is present and working.

4) The call to iwconfig wlan0 seems to show everything is OK (so far as I can tell). I am not using a special ESSID or WEP encryption.

5) I added a call to ifdown eth0 because somewhere someone suggested that eth0 might conflict with wlan0. Actually, it makes no difference if I disable eth0 or not.

6) The call to ifup wlan0 appears to reveal that the Broadcom 4318 chip is unknown, implying that the subdriver either does not know about this chip or is not in fact loaded.

7) This same Windows driver works fine under XP.

Any ideas on what might be going on?

-------------------------------------

tlr

Actually, mine fails on the 'scan' saying "Interface doesn't support scanning", and I can get no further. I'd prefer to use this card but if no one can help I guess I'll look for supported cards.

TRY THIS IF YOUR CARD IS A WPC54G and have ndiswrapper and tools and utils insalled properly
GET DRIVER HERE ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pub/network/wpc54g_v2_driver_utility_v2.0.zip
extract the zip to a folder called linksys in your /home
Open terminal, and enter the following commands
cd linksys
ndiswrapper -i lsbcmnds.inf
cd /etc/ndiswrapper/lsbcmnds
THEN Edit ALL the .conf fileswith your favorite text editor i used nano right from command line like so as an example......
nano 14E4:4301:1737:4301.conf
now look for the lines RadioState|1 and change them to RadioState|0
IN ALL the .conf files within /etc/ndiswrapper/lsbcmnds
then do
modprobe ndiswrapper
(optional)echo ndiswrapper >> /etc/modules
iwlist wlan0 scan (find your access point in the list)
iwconfig wlan0 channel essid mode Managed (the X and ESSID come from the iwlist)
ifup wlan0
These are from my notes its been a while but it works! if you still cant get it maybe try this as your last resort http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/ its $20 but may be worth it to you!

ooops upon DETAILED reading i see you were talking about the pci card however the radio state trick MAY work not sure the linuxtant drivers may too i also read further that the wpc54g works out of the box in mepis i did not know this i had to do what i show above in ubuntu for my wife i like kde however and have been using libranet with kde as default and wanted to check out mepis especially the forums etc. anyway good luck

This drive works with Fedora Core 4. However, you will need to do the following;

1. After modprobe ndiswrapper, add an ifcfg-xxx to /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts. I copied ifcfg-eth0 and named it ifcfg-wlan0.
2. Edit ifcfg-wlan0 and change the following.
DEVICE=wlan0
HWADDR=correct_mac_adr
TYPE=Wireless
ESSID=your_ssid
3. Bring up your network
> ifup wlan0
4. Enjoy

Cheer!