Need help with DWL-650 PCMCIA wireless

[distortedstar]

Thanks for the great distro! I've been loving Puppy for the past 3 days I've had it installed.

I just need a little help with wireless.

I found my card listed under the supported hardware section of the wiki, with the following notes:

D-Link DWL-650 PCMCIA adapter ndiswrapper + packaged drivers (driver must be bound to the pci-id found with lspci)

Can someone help me figure out exactly what I need to do install ndiswrapper and hte packaged drivers (I'm not sure what that means) and how to bind the pci-id to the driver?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[distortedstar]

It seems like I made some progress. I followed the instructions provided with the wireless wizard, and everything seemed to work.

I did get this message, however, after I issued

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modprobe ndiswrapper

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Note: /etc/modules.conf is more recent than /lib/modules/2.4.29/modules.dep

I don't know if this is a problem.

I changed MODDATA='' in wag-conf to MODDATA='ndiswrapper'

WAG reports:

wireless card active
wireless card responding

module ndiswrapper running
dhcpcd running
wifi-beta not installed

could not find interface in /proc/net/wireless
ap test failure
no internet ping test

no wireless netowrkds detected
error when scanning

Any insights would be appreciated.

[danleff]

This is PCMCIA on a laptop, correct?

Disregard the modules.conf message...it doesn't mean anything important.

The driver...you need to use ndiswrapper to install your Windows drivers that are on the CD disk that came with the card.

Just to clarify...it is working and you have an internet connection?

If not, we can use my old guide to get it running, which is located on the wiki here.

[distortedstar]

Yes, it is a PCMCIA card, and unfortunately, it's not working.

I followed your instructions and installed the winxp drivers with ndiswrapper, which seemed to go without problems. I then used your guide to link the manufacturer's id with the driver, which also seemed to go smoothly. When I ran dmesg, however, there was no mention of wlan0.

These are the last and only lines that appear to have anything to do with ndiswrapper.

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ndiswrapper version 1.1 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)
usb.c: registered new driver ndiswrapper

Thanks so much for replying.

[keenerd]

I would be worried about the "could not find interface in /proc/net/wireless" part.

Your computer (or at least WAG) doesn't recognize that you have a wireless card hooked up to it.

Confirm this by typing
ifconfig
and also by typing
iwconfig
at the command line.

Manually check /proc/net/wireless as well, see if anything is in there.

I'll be testing WAG in 1.0.6rc this afternoon.

[distortedstar]

I checked all that, to no avail. This is kind of discouraging. I don't see why it wouldn't work...I've got the ndiswrapper installed and the module loaded...wag seems to recognized that there is a card there (hence the "wireless card active" message in WAG.

Maybe I performed this step wrong?

driver must be bound to the pci-id found with lspci

Thank you for your continued help.

[distortedstar]

tired the wlan-ng drivers today...no luck. I don't understand why ndiswrapper is not working, and why interface wlan0 is not being created. Working wireless is what keeps me tied to my windows partition.

[tempestuous]

Older Prism2-based wireless adaptors like your DWL-650 are supported by the Orinoco driver, a standard kernel module. Run "lsmod" to see whether Puppy has loaded the orinoco_cs module.

If so, you can just go ahead and use this module, or remove it with "rmmod orinoco_cs" before installing a more modern driver like linux-wlan-ng or HostAP.

If this is not the problem, you now need to do some troubleshooting.
With your card in place, run "lspci -v" to make sure the DWL-650 and the PCMCIA bridge are recognised by your system.
If not, you may need to stop, then restart cardmgr. (I don't know how to do this).

Once you know the DWL-650 is recognised, run "cat /proc/interrupts" to see what IRQ it has been assigned. If this same IRQ is listed more than once, then you have a hardware conflict. Or if the card is assigned IRQ3, this will possibly conflict with your 2nd serial port, which is typically an internal modem with laptops.
To fix this problem, open /etc/pcmcia/config.opts in a text editor and comment out the line "exclude irq3" ... or whatever irq is in question.

[distortedstar]

Thanks so much for your helpful reply. I feel like I'm making progress.

I ran "modprobe orinoco_cs," put in my card, and lo and behold, the "searching for network" light started blinking. WAG reports that wlan0 has been created! I'm at my university right now, so I will be heading over to a building with wireless access to see if I can actually connect in just a few minutes (got to charge the battery a bit)

Thanks again. I will be reporting back.

[Guest]

A quick update: connection to my university network failed.

The module loaded successfully, wag reported wlan0 as enabled, and in the bottom portion of of wag there was notice stating that I was "connected to:" and then displaying all network info. However, I still recieved "no ip address" and "no networks found" errors. I tried to create a profile with the information from iwconfig and ifconfig, but it didn't work, I didn't do it correctly. I checked to see if there were any hardware conflicts and there didn't seem to be any.

[keenerd]

You missed one step - and its most confusing and inconsistent step in WAG.

To connect: Allow you card to automatically connect to a network, or choose one from "Scan". Then, if dhcpcd is not running, press "Dhcp Toggle". This will give you an IP address.

Other thing - if it's a university network, then it is probably encrypted. You'll need to make a profile with the password.

[rarsa]

The orinoco driver does not support scanning.

You need to manually provide the essid of the network you want to connect to.

I have been unsiccessfull compiling the patched orinoco version that supports scanning. (Of course, I haven't tried hard enough)

[tempestuous]

iwconfig wlan0 essid MY_SSID key 1234567890 mode managed
dhcpcd -t 20 wlan0

These commands should be carved into the side of a mountain somewhere.

[distortedstar]

I isssued that command at the terminal, only to be met with "SET ESSID failure, operation not supported." *Sigh.*
Thanks for the try though.

[rarsa]

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iwconfig wlan0 essid MY_SSID key 1234567890 mode managed 
dhcpcd -t 20 wlan0

I actually prefer the 60 seconds time out, sometimes -t 20 is to short.