[Glastonbury] Hello again and thanks

[Martin Wheeler]

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Phil Wood wrote:

> At the end of the month I hope to have the time for another attempt to get my 
> laptop wireless using Linux. So the next meeting could be just at the right 
> time for me. In the mean time of any of you have been successful in this I'd 
> love to hear from you. Which distribution? Which wireless card?

How apposite!

It just so happens I lost five full days over Christmas, desperately 
trying to get a Netgear WG511 card to work with my Toshiba Satellite 1110 
laptop under Debian testing.

Ha!  Insanity incarnate.

To reduce the full horror story down to manageable proportions, this is 
what I had to do:

1) Upgrade the kernel from 2.4.27 to 2.6.8
  -- because the 2.6.xx kernels have a load of inbuilt card drivers.
This is easy enough under Debian -- just apt-get install appropriate 
kernel-image, edit lilo.conf and re-run lilo.  I have to play around with 
the boot options a little in order to stabilise the laptop video display 
-- it doesn't really appreciate 2.6 kernels.  (Although Ubuntu runs fine.)

2) Card still doesn't work, so google around for more info.
Find a page which gives me instructions on how to download a driver from
the prism site, and rename to prism54.ko in kernel wireless net 
driver modules. Also make a couple of entries in my 
/etc/network/interfaces file to set up wireless network properly.
Instructions say use wlan0 as device name; but I eventually realise my 
software doesn't like wlan and wants it to be eth1.  Wotthehell.

3) Card still doesn't work, so google around a bit more, install 
wireless-tools for good measure, and fiddle with network settings.

4) Card still doesn't work, so ring Andy and rant at him.  Doesn't make my 
card work; ruins Andy's Christmas; but makes me feel a lot better.

5) We both Google around, and find that there are two types of WG511 cards 
-- one made in Taiwan (which works with what I've already done); and one 
made in China with a totally different chipset.  This version, of course, 
doesn't.  My card has "MADE IN CHINA" stamped all over it.  Bugger.

6) Andy plays classical music and ruminates; I blow my top.

7) Andy suggests I install module-assistant, which will then allow me to 
install ndiswrapper -- which will then allow me to use the Windows XP 
driver on the CD that came with the card, suitably wrapped-up to work 
under Unix.  I realise I've gone off trying to use wireless cards under 
Linux; but do it nevertheless out of sheer cussedness.  Somehow I manage 
to use module-assistant to install the kernel module ndiswrapper has 
produced for me and get it installed at boot-time.  (insmod and 
/etc/modules are my friends here.)

8) Card now sort of works; but actually still doesn't.  It makes feeble 
attempts.  But I'm obviously getting closer.  Green light goes on; system 
recognises card is there -- occasionally even, yellow light flickers. And 
from time to time wireless gateway recognises that card is there, and 
assigns it a network address.
But will they talk to each other?  Will they buggery.
I decide I don't want to play wireless under Linux any more, and test it 
under XP.  Instant karma.  Nae problems.  Flashing green lights and 
flashing yellow lights everywhere.  Cool.  Walk round house accessing 
internet from inside airing cupboard, underneath stairs, etc.
Andy gets an earful on the perfection of Microsoft.  But having helped me 
with every install I've done over the past ten years, he isn't listening 
any more.

9) Some days later, by pure chance, I realise that the default netmask 
setting on the wireless router will never in a month of Sundays work with 
my home network; although it's working with my network webserver -- whose 
address I had to change to get it to work.  Now realise why.
Change netmask to a more appropriate value.
Stuff card in laptop.
Bingo!
Instant problem-free wireless networking under Linux.

10) Phone Andy and get him to ssh into wireless laptop via my network to 
prove it works.

Moral:
When setting up stuff like this, forget the incantations over the chicken 
entrails, and check the validity of *every* stage of the signal route -- 
even those bits you aren't currently configuring.

[I had exactly the same problem with my wireless router when I first 
installed it -- I had technical experts from Demon tell me they could see 
it from their end of the line; I could definitely see it from my end of 
the line; but no signal would go through.  After a day and a half, I had 
it replaced.  On unpacking the new router I could see immediately where 
the problem had most likely been -- NOT with the router, or any of its 
settings; but with the micro-filter between it and the phone line. 
Netgear had obviously moved to a different micro-filter manufacturer for 
the same model router -- and this time the installation worked without a 
hitch, exactly as said in instructions.]

This any help?
-- 
Martin Wheeler   -   StarTEXT / AVALONIX - Glastonbury - BA6 9PH - England
mwheeler at startext.co.uk                http://www.startext.co.uk/mwheeler/
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