slaxworkshop

This is a work in process...

Acknowledgement: I want to thank all the SLAX forum people and the SLAX website for supplying much of the information found here. Without it, this document would not have been possible.

Quick Guide to Setting up your Wireless Card on SLAX.Wireless Network Interfaces are a challenge for even the most savvy of Linux users. Wireless cards in general, no matter the operating system, can take DAYS to setup. The purpose of this guide is to reduce the amount of time it takes to configure the wireless adapter. There will be quite a few steps to take depending on your configuration.

Analyzing your wireless configuration.

Do you have an existing Wireless setup?

If you DON'T have existing hardware, do your research to assure that you can get it to work with Linux first. You can check on the Internet to see compatibility or you can check a verified list in the appendix of this document. The Access Point and Router are not really important from a Linux standpoint- it is important from the Wireless card compatibility standpoint.

If you DO have existing hardware, you will need to verify if your hardware works by checking the Internet or the Appendix at the end of this document.

Selecting Drivers

When selecting drivers, a Native Linux driver may already be available in the kernel. If it is, you are ready to configure your card. If it is NOT already available in the kernel, you should check to see if there is a SLAX module available. If there is not then you should proceed with an available ndiswrapper driver. This is because ndiswrapper setups are usually much simpler to implement since they don't require compiling a kernel module. Your last option is to compile a kernel module and that is something to be avoided if possible.

The Linux community is a very resilient group of people. They will write their own software and hardware drivers if need be. They will reverse engineer a companies product and create Linux compatibility when possible. With technology rapidly changing, and little vendor support, the Linux community tends to lag behind the bleeding edge for hardware support.

The creator's of ndiswrapper have created an abstraction layer to leverage the existing NDIS (Network Driver Interface Specification) wireless drivers for MS Windows. Though not completely optimal, this solution gives a faster turn around time for utilizing wireless network cards. Ndiswrapper not only addresses the lacking vendor support for Linux by supplying a viable solution, it gives vendors the opportunity to sell their product without developing a totally separate branch of driver code, as well as gives the Linux community more time to develop native network drivers which are faster and better integrated into Linux itself.

There are many native Linux wireless network drivers but the cards they are available for have tended to be the more expensive of the available cards. Laptops with built-in wireless adapters also tend to be a problem unless the chip set that they utilize are available in a standalone product. With Ndisdrivers and the fact that Windows drivers are always available, a laptop owner has a much better chance of utilizing their wireless hardware.

There are some pros and cons with ndiswrapper. Cons include: not all ndis drivers are supported with ndiswrapper; the stability of ndiswrapper, though getting better all the time, may cause some issues; ndiswrapper is not always easy to configure or figure out; you must have the tools to extract the Windows drivers from the Windows media. The pros are: that it allows wireless hardware without native Linux drivers to function using the Windows ndis drivers; it allows a user to not have to deal with compiling any kernel modules; ndiswrapper it is fairly straightforward to use once you figure it out and even easier if you use a separately available GUI.

Card Setup

There are three major aspects that you must consider with your wireless card set up:

1) The Wireless Adapter

2) The Wireless Adapter driver - kernel vs. ndiswrapper

3) Encryption

Other aspects include, protocols such as DHCP, SLAX module creation, and GUI interface for configuration and management.

Wireless Adapters

USB adapters

lsusb

PCI Card Adapters

lspci

PCCard adapters

Protocols

DHCP

WEP

WPA

Wireless Adapter Drivers

Kernel

NDISWrapper

Configuring NDISWrapper

The first thing you will need to do is research. I know that may not seem appealing but it won't be so bad. First, you need to know what type of network adapter you have. There are two commands that may be quite helpful. lspci and lsusb. If you have a "built-in" or PCI card use the lspci command and look for the "Network Adapters" It should be quite obvious what the adapter you have is from there. If you have a USB dongle, use lsusb. The output can help in quite a few ways. Using this information, I would then search for a driver. Also possibly helpful, would be the computer "model" name (esp if it is a built-in adapter).

Three places I recommend are looking are: The NDISwrapper's Installation and Driver List page, SLAX Forums, and Google. The NDISWrapper Driver List page lists all the supported network NDIS drivers. If you find your network adapter there, chances are you shall be good to go! You will need the actual windows drivers, which should have been shipped with your adapter, but if you don't, the Driver List usually will have a reference link to the needed driver. If for some reason they do not have a driver reference, try Network-Drivers.com, they usually have the driver listed under the Vendor's name and Model type. If you are really stuck, check out the SLAX forum's, the helpful members there may be able to point you to the proper drivers. See? The research was not so bad.

Quick Configure Instructions:

mkdir -p /etc/ndiswrapper/driver_name cp driver_name.inf driver_name.sys /etc/ndiswrapper/driver_name ndiswrapper -i /etc/ndiswrapper/driver_name/driver_name.inf modprobe ndiswrapper iwconfig wlan0 essid My_ESSID iwconfig wlan0 key My_Encryption_Key iwconfig wlan0 channel My_Channel_WAP_is_set_to ifconfig wlan0 up dhcpcd -d wlan0

Setting up and Diagnosing Problems

Commands

lspcilsusb

Setup

modprobe

ndiswrapper

wlassistant

wifimanagern

disgtk

Configure

ifconfig

iwconfig

iwlist wlan0

route

Diagnose

ndiswrapper

ifconfig -a

iwconfig –a

iwlist wlan0

lsmod

ping

Sample Output

root@slax:~# ifconfig

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet Hwaddr 00:D0:59:37:23:4D
inet addr:192.168.1.5 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::2d0:59ff:fe37:234d/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:705 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:491 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1020128 (996.2 Kb) TX bytes 35933 (35.0 Kb)
Interrupt:11

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask 255.0.0.0
inet6addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:69 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0
TX packets:69 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:5076 (4.9 Kb) TX bytes:5076 (4.9 Kb)

wlan0 link encap:Ethernet Hwaddr 00:0F:B5:4B:B1:3A
inet6 addr: fe80::20f:b5ff:fe4b:b13a/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes 0 (0.0 b) Interrupt:11 Memory:22010000-22020000

root@slax:~# iwconfig

lo no wireless extensions

eth0 no wireless extensions

sit0 no wireless extensions

wlan0 IEEE802.11b ESSID:off/any

Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00

Bit Rate:1 Mb/s Sensitivity:-200dBm

RTS thr:2346 B Fragment thr:2346 B

Encryption key:off

Power Management:off

link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0

Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0

Tx excessive Retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Wireless Card Configuration using Ndiswrapper

# Get the ndis drivers from where ever they are located. wget if they are
# on the web or just copy them from CDRom if you have them from the
# installation directory.
cd /tmp
wget ftp://ftp.wherever_the_drivers_are.com/wirelesscard_ndisdrivers.zip
unzip wirelesscard_ndisdrivers.zip
cd /tmp/wirelesscard_ndisdrivers

# Put the drivers someplace accessable
mkdir /etc/network/ndiswrapper/drivers/driver_name/
cp * /etc/network/ndiswrapper/drivers/driver_name/

Use ndiswrapper to initialize the cards
# Sometimes the card needs to load firmware and this is accomplished with a firmware_download.inf file
ndiswrapper -i /etc/network/ndiswrapper/drivers/driver_name/athfmwdl.inf
# Need to load the ndis driver ndiswrapper -i /etc/network/ndiswrapper/drivers/driver_name/NetA5AGU.inf
ndiswrapper -m
modprobe ndiswrapper

# Use iwconfig to configure wireless interface settings
iwconfig wlan0 essid My_ESSID
iwconfig wlan0 key My_Encryption_Key
iwconfig wlan0 channel My_Channel_WAP_is_set_to

# Use ifconfig to initialize the interface itself
ifconfig wlan0 up
# Configure the IP information for the interface
# Use dhcp to setup the information for the card
dhcpcd -d wlan0

# Manually you can set it like this
ifconfig wlan0 netmask broadcast
route add -net default gw

Know working adapters and their method of configuration

Card Name	Method	Location of Driver
D-Link DWL-G132 Rev A2	ndiswrapper athfmwdl.inf, NetA5AGU.inf	ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Wireless/dwlg132/Driver/DWLG132_driver_102.zip
Sitecom WL115v2	kernel module	rt2x00.serialmonkey.com
Broadcom 54G	ndiswrapper bcmwl5a	ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_1500/drivers/80211g.zip
Belkin Pre-N F5D8010 Notebook card	ndiswrapper	Netgear driver on Toshiba M1

Asus wl-107g (PCMCIA, Ralink RT2500 chipset) ndiswrapper
Asus wl-138g (PCI, Marvell W8300 chipset) ndiswrapper
Linksys WPC11 v4 ndiswrapper net8180.inf
DWL-G650+ (pcmcia, D-Link) ndiswrapper
DWL-G650+ (pcmcia, D-Link) kernel module acx (you need to compile it)
MA521 (pcmcia, Netgear) ndiswrapper
NKRCB200B (pcmcia, Acer) ndiswrapper
WG111 (usb, Netgear) ndiswrapper
WG511 (pcmcia, Netgear) ndiswrapper
Ralink RT2500, ndiswrapper<>

Helpful Links

Helpful pages:
ndiswrapper home page
ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/
ndiswrapper Installation Wiki page
ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Installation
ndiswrapper network drivers page
ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/List
www.network-drivers.com home page
www.network-drivers.com/

KWiFiManager Docs
docs.kde.org/stable/en/kdenetwork/kwifimanager/index.html
Linux Magazine Article (PDF File)
www.linux-magazine.com/issue/52/KWiFiManager.pdf
KWiFiManager Home Page
kwifimanager.sourceforge.net/
KWiFi FAQ
kwifimanager.sourceforge.net/html/faq.html

WiFiRadar home page
wifi-radar.systemimager.org/
Linux.com article about WiFi Radar
www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/07/11/1354237

Misc Docs
http://www.utexas.edu/its/wireless/install/config_linux.html

posted by TheGuardian  # 1:29 PM