Inspiron/Linux + Wireless

I did a quick look at the documentation for SuSE Linux. It does not appear that ndiswrapper is pre-installed and it does look like you need to install it and configure it.

The documentation I looked at is here:
http://www.novell.com/documentation/suse93/

You can download ndiswrapper here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ndiswrapper/

BTW. I don't currently have a Linux installation but I did for a while run slackware linux with a broadcom device using ndiswrapper. It worked very well.

The Dell 1370 is a broadcom device.

You may find information in this thread useful.

Thanks for reply,

I downloaded it, but I am really zer0, like I can't do anything with it, I loaded linux, installed it. One of them opened YaST, and the rest was just showing text (sort of config.)

And then? I don't know how to make my wireless work :)

Well, no idea..

You have to copy the windows drivers (bcmwl5.inf) into linux. Then use ndiswrapper to run the windows drivers. Its been a while since I did this, and I didn't use SuSE linux, so I'm no help.

If the instructions which come with ndiswrapper are no help, your choice may be to purchase a card which is supported by linux.

Message Edited by Jerry Park on 02-26-2006 12:21 PM

Message Edited by Jerry Park on 02-26-2006 12:22 PM

I have a Dell 8400 with a rt2500 chip set, it is running Suse 9.3 and XP (as dual boot).
The installation for my card went OK using Ndiswrapper, and not using the direct drivers
of Ralink or sourceforge. I reinstalled the latest Ndiswrapper, over the Suse installation of Ndiswrapper, that did not work for me.

Ndiswrapper, that runs with XP windows wifi drivers, can be found at:
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net
http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/04/pohletz_ndiswrapper.html
http://www.novell.com/products/linuxpackages/professional/ndiswrapper.html

The XP windows drivers for Ndiswrapper can come from your working Windows XP installation, the CD that came with your wifi card, or from the support site of the manufacturer of the wifi card.
Supported cards: http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/List

For my 'rt2500' card I followed essentially the described installation procedure. At the end I managed even to get WPA2 (TKIP-IP) encryption working. But suggestion: first run everything without encryption.
Encryption for wpa2 using wpa_supplicant: http://hostap.epitest.fi/wpa_supplicant/

Please do not forget to remove the rt2400.ko kernels in the modules, that are left over when installing first the direct drivers. With the rt2400.ko AND ndiswrapper I had only kernel crashes. Same holds for old ndiswrapper stuff: remove it (or save all into another folder). When cleaned up to a 'fresh' state, both the Ndiswrapper installation went as it should.

Suse 9.3 is a bit clumsy, that it cannot run both wired and wifi IP connections at the same time. I choose between the two running installations with a setup script made in the Yast manager. This is OK for a home connection, but for your mobile you would need something more fancy. It is told that the last Suse's (10.x) should have a 'wlan manager', but I have only bad experiences with them.

During testing the installation, it can be very handy if you have a running wired connection on another PC to search the web (at your neighbour ? - later you can share the Wlan !), while trying out your wifi setup.

Message Edited by rolflist on 03-05-2006 12:48 PM

"""You have to copy the windows drivers (bcmwl5.inf) into linux."""

Where exactly into linux?


I'm just trying to get into linux,
hmm.. then I better use windows.

Message Edited by DavroN on 03-06-2006 08:49 AM

Maybe this link from http://tuxmobil.org/dell.html helps, where you can find several working configurations for Dell notebooks, also with Suse 9.3, e.g.
http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc/insp6000/index.html

Hey, check my links (e.g. http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/04/pohletz_ndiswrapper.html).

The following lines describe the procedure for the network card RTL8180L. You should work as 'root' for the installation, so be careful. It will be best, if you keep the old settings, make entries for two kernels in your GRUB startup, and start to play with only one of them, and keep the other as a fall back. Keep a backup of your important linux files on another place, in case you need to reinstall Suse again.

Get the manufacturer driver for your card (as a .zip or .gz) and save the relevant ZIP archive in the directory /tmp.
Unpack the file with the command:
unzip -d driver /tmp/winxp-8180(168).zip

A new subdirectory (/tmp/driver) is created when unpacking the file. This subdirectory contains the file .INF required by Ndiswrapper.

Proceed to install the driver. In this example:
ndiswrapper -i /tmp/driver/NET8180.INF

Check if the driver has been properly installed with the command:
ndiswrapper -l

Load the module with the command:
modprobe ndiswrapper

And proceed as indicated in the link.

ps. By the way, Suse 10.1 where many of these 'wireless' issues may be solved, is still in 'beta'.

Message Edited by rolflist on 03-06-2006 09:56 AM