How to make driver for Belkin F5D7000 pci wifi work?

[CatmanDru]

i really need help. i usually really try to do it all on my own but im trying to free my girlfriend from M$ and its evils and time is of the essence before she runs out of patience.

ive read the wikis, beginner's 'sticky', how-to's, and resource sites and many of the forum threads concerning wireless cards. so far none have specifically involved this model, version & chipset.

ive also successfully installed dotpups, disc-wiped (DBAN), partitioned, repartitioned, changed filesystems, and installed puppy to about 4 hdd (excluding mistakes and mind-changes ) in the last few months, so i guess im 'semi-technical,' but now im in way over my head.

1) will the MadWiFi dotpup from http//dotpups.de work with the kernel in 2.02-seamonkey (or is the 2.02 kernel incompatible with the intended kernel of the MadWiFi dotpup? [edit 6:16a.m.: it seems they have the same kernel 2.6.16.7 so they should be compatible.] however, so far, following the instructions it doesnt seem to work.

2) will the MadWiFi driver from the madwifi.org site work? so far, following the instructions it doesnt seem to either.

3) [edit ~1:00 p.m.] is there an ideal, specific, or optimal location (in root or a directory) where the madwifi driver(s) should be placed before installation or expansion?

desktop hdd install on 20Gb, ext2 & swap, 2.02-seamonkey, 450 PII, 328 ram

belkin wireless pci F5D7000 ver. 5100 P57463-B Atheros chipset printed with AR 2413A-001 B417246 0607

[CatmanDru]

the ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net list reports that ver.5000 doesnt work with the cd supplied drivers on ndiswrapper 1.10 on suse 9.2 (invalid driver error). however, the ndiswrapper list doesnt coment on 'my' ver.5100.
in xterm i ran lspci and recieved this output:
00:00.0 Class 0600: 8086:7190 (rev 03)
00:01.0 Class 0604: 8086:7191 (rev 03)
00:07.0 Class 0601: 8086:7110 (rev 02)
00:07.1 Class 0101: 8086:7111 (rev 01)
00:07.2 Class 0c03: 8086:7112 (rev 01)
00:07.3 Class 0680: 8086:7113 (rev 02)
00:0e.0 Class 0200: 168c:001a (rev 01)
00:0f.0 Class 0401: 1274:5880 (rev 01)
01:00.0 Class 0300: 10de:0020 (rev 4)


by the way the belkin is 54 g and only a few weeks old and was working in w98 and 2000 Pro. and i think pciid 1113:1211 whatever that means.

[CatmanDru]

an update:

apparently both the madwifi-0.9.2.pup (compiled sept. 06) and 2.02-seamonkey use the same kernel 2.6.16.7 so kernel compatibility shouldnt be a problem.

madwifi-0.9.2.pup is in /root/my-applications/madwifidriver. i installed (& re-installed) the dotpup. i opened an xterm terminal in that directory and, per the madwifi dotpup instructions, entered :

modprobe ath_pci

WARNING: error inserting ath_hal (/lib/modules/2.6.16.7/net/wireless/madwifi/ath_hal.ko): invalid module format
WARNING: error inserting wlan (/lib/modules/2.6.16.7/net/wireless/madwifi/wlan.ko): invalid module format
WARNING: error inserting ath_rate_sample (/lib/modules/2.6.16.7/net/wireless/madwifi/ath_rate_sample.ko): invalid module format
FATAL: error inserting ath_pci (/lib/modules/2.6.16.7/net/wireless/madwifi/ath_pci.ko): invalid module format



ifconfig ath0 up

SIOCGIFFLAGS: No such device

so it seems this is not working. 1) maybe ive done something wrong, 2) placed the madwifi dotpup in the wrong directory, 3) the madwifi dotpup wont work on this system, or 4) something else is wrong.

[JimDandy]

Anyone ever solve this madwifi problem? 2.11 still uses the same kernel version, but no luck with the madwifi dotpup. Same error as above. I've had this problem in other distros. Compiling from source has worked in some Slackware-based distros, but I'm too new to puppy to know how to compile, and I know I don't have a kernel source installed. Ndiswrapper should work if you have the right Belkin download, though.

[tempestuous]

apparently both the madwifi-0.9.2.pup (compiled sept. 06) and 2.02-seamonkey use the same kernel 2.6.16.7 so kernel compatibility shouldnt be a problem.

No, unfortunately there are significant kernel configuration differences between 2.01 and 2.02. I mentioned this here http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.p ... 88&start=0
and here http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?p=60388#60388

You need Puppy 2.01 or 2.02-regression ... or wait for Puppy 2.12, which will have the full range of wifi drivers available as standard.

[lawquest]

For what its worth, you might try puppy 2.10. I can't remember the model, but I recently installed about 10 new Belkin wireless modems in standard desktop computers and they worked fine. Didn't do anything other than

a) download puppy 2.10 and install it on the hard drive
b) insert the driver cd rom that came with the Belkin PCI card.
c) copy over the drivers to the puppy hard drive.
d) switch to that directory and click on "xterm here."
e) typed ndiswrapper -i (drivername)
f) modprobe ndiswrapper
g) ndiswrapper -l (confirm that drivers and hardware were present)
h) iwconfig (confirmed that wlan0 was there)
i) ran ruit wireless gadget from network on menu.

I guess my point was that I didn't check with CompUSA re whether the Belkin cards were or were not compatible. Perhaps I was just lucky.

John

[CatmanDru]

Thank you JimDandy, Tempestuous, and Lawquest for your input and advice. I greatly appreciate it. Within a couple of days I'll try the recomended puppy version and report back on the results.