Re: wireless network configuration

[Florian Kulzer <florian@molphys.leidenuniv.nl>]

On Wed, Oct 18, 2006 at 08:04:09 +0530, L.V.Gandhi wrote:
> On 10/17/06, Florian Kulzer <florian@molphys.leidenuniv.nl> wrote:
> >
> >On Tue, Oct 17, 2006 at 07:25:43 +0530, L.V.Gandhi wrote:
> >
> >[ snip: earlier discussion about different wireless hardware ]
> >
> >> I am having broadcom chip 94306 for wireless (dell trumobile 1300) in my
> >> dell inspiron 600m. In sid I used to work without any problem with
> >> ndiswrapper. After reinstalling sid, now 43xx module is being loaded.
> >With
> >> ndiswrapper with alias wlan0 ndiswrapper line in
> >/etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper
> >> I don't get wlan0. lsmod shows ndiswrapper. When I try to use iwconfig
> >with
> >> I get wlan0 no such device. I stopped 43xx module by blacklisting, still
> >I
> >> am unable to make my wireless work. Any solution please?
> >
> >Are your sure that wlan0 is the correct device name?
> 
> 
> I think that may be the main problem.  Previously with kernel 2.6.15, I
> thought the device was made by /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper line alias wlan0
> ndiswrapper
> 
> What happens if you run "iwconfig" without any parameters?
> 
> lo        no wireless extensions.
> 
> eth0      no wireless extensions.
> 
> eth1      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"default"
>          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:13:46:87:88:1E
>          Bit Rate:54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:13 dBm
>          RTS thr:2347 B   Fragment thr:2346 B
>          Encryption key:off
>          Power Management:off
>          Link Quality:100/100  Signal level:-55 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
> 
> sit0      no wireless extensions.
> 
> I think 43xx module makes this eth1.
> 
> What is the output of "ls -l /sys/class/net/"?
> 
> 
> lvgdell600m:~# ls -l /sys/class/net/
> total 0
> drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 2006-10-18 07:49 eth0
> drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 0 2006-10-18 07:49 eth1
> drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 2006-10-18 07:49 lo
> drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 2006-10-18 07:49 sit0
> 
> I think eth1 is created by 43xx module. Should I use this module and eth1.
> If so how?
> If not how to get rid of this and use ndiswrapper?

There are to separate issues here:

1) Which module is used for the device? If you blacklisted the 43xx
   module then it should not be loaded. It should be possible to
   identify the module in the output of "ls /sys/bus/pci/drivers".

2) The name of the device node is determined by udev if your system is
   set up normally. If you prefer a different name you have to adapt the
   rule in /etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules.

At the moment it looks like you have a working wireless device named
"eth1" which is already associated with an access point. Why not try
this one first, for example with "dhclient eth1" if your access point
uses DHCP.

Personally I would try to avoid ndiswrapper as much as possible.
However, since I don't have any Broadcom hardware I cannot say how well
the bcm43xx driver works.

-- 
Regards,
          Florian