D-Link DWL 650+ support in linux.... (was: just want to confirm something...)

[LoRdMaUL]

I currently own a D-Link DWL 650+ which I have researched and discovered it takes black magic or voodoo to make work under Linux. In my reading I read that wireless cards with a PRISM chip are supported natively in Linux...not sure what kernel version though. According to http://prism54.org/supported_cards.php ...the Netgear WG511 Wireless 802.11g PC Card 54Mbps is one of the cards with a Prism chipset that will indeed work with Linux. I just wanted to verify that I was understanding that correctly before I purchased this card. Am I right in that regard?

[blobaugh]

please use the proper etiquete when creating your thread subjects. something more like

D-Link DWL 650+ support in linux would have been better

[LoRdMaUL]

ok...I changed the topic...

[Zyglow]

yes, the netgear _should_ work. As for dlink, I've had success in the past getting them to work using ndiswrapper.

[LoRdMaUL]

does ndiswrapper require recompiling the kernel?

[blobaugh]

when i installed ndiswrapper i did not have to put anything in my kernel

[Icarus]

Originally posted by LoRdMaUL
does ndiswrapper require recompiling the kernel? Shouldn't, but you didn't say what distro/kernel you are running. Most distros have the support in as modules so you don't need to worry about it. But if you built your own kernel you might need to make sure the support is there

[LoRdMaUL]

I am running the version of Debian that is installed via the netinstall ISO. I am not totally sure to be honest...here is the results of a uname -a

Linux debian 2.4.27-1-386 #1 Fri Sep 3 06:24:46 UTC 2004 i686 GNU/Linux

[Icarus]

I'll take a wild guess and say you should be ok

[LoRdMaUL]

OK...I am going the ndiswrapper route and have ran into a problem.

debian:/home/grant# ndiswrapper -i AIRPLUS.INF
ls: /etc/ndiswrapper: No such file or directory
Installing airplus
Warning: Cannot locate AIRPLUS.sys
Warning: Cannot locate WLANGEN.bin
Warning: Cannot locate RADIO0d.bin
Warning: Cannot locate RADIO11.bin
Warning: Cannot locate RADIO15.bin
Warning: Cannot locate WLANGEN.bin
Warning: Cannot locate RADIO0d.bin
Warning: Cannot locate RADIO11.bin
Warning: Cannot locate RADIO15.bin
Warning: Cannot locate AIRPLUS.sys
Warning: Cannot locate WLANGEN.bin
Warning: Cannot locate RADIO0d.bin
Warning: Cannot locate RADIO11.bin
Warning: Cannot locate RADIO15.bin
Warning: Cannot locate WLANGEN.bin
Warning: Cannot locate RADIO0d.bin
Warning: Cannot locate RADIO11.bin
Warning: Cannot locate RADIO15.bin

So I copied the AIRPLUS.INF to /home/grant/Drivers/WinXP where those *.bin files are located.

debian:/home/grant/Drivers/WinXP# ndiswrapper -i AIRPLUS.INF
airplus is already installed. Use -e to remove it
debian:/home/grant/Drivers/WinXP# ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
airplus invalid driver!
debian:/home/grant/Drivers/WinXP# ndiswrapper -e AIRPLUS
Driver AIRPLUS is not installed. Use -l to list installed drivers
debian:/home/grant/Drivers/WinXP# ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
airplus invalid driver!

I kinda stuck now....:(

[cybertron]

Originally posted by LoRdMaUL
debian:/home/grant/Drivers/WinXP# ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
airplus invalid driver!
debian:/home/grant/Drivers/WinXP# ndiswrapper -e AIRPLUS
Driver AIRPLUS is not installed. Use -l to list installed drivers

Since ndiswrapper is listing it as a lowercase name, you probably need to as well (for the -e part). Try "ndiswrapper -e airplus".

As for your other message, I think I just passed it the .inf file directly off the CD. Did you just download the drivers, or could you try them off the CD?

[LoRdMaUL]

Here is the results from dmesg after I got the driver to load via ndiswrapper...I guess I am truly SOL now eh?

ndiswrapper version 0.11 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)
ndiswrapper (call_init:252): initialization function is not setup correctly
ndiswrapper (ndis_init_one_pci:1530): Windows driver couldn't initialize the device

[bwilliam79]

Doesn't help much if you aren't running SUSE, but 9.1 and 9.2 Pro both will allow you to download drivers and set up the 650+. When you run YaST Online Update, there is an option to downlad the ACX100 drivers, and that will get you up and going. I happen to have a 650+, and it works wonderfully.

[LoRdMaUL]

just for giggles I did a iwconfig and it returned the following:

debian:/home/grant/Drivers/WinXP# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"" Nickname:"Prism I"
Mode:Managed Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00 Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=0/92 Signal level=-68 dBm Noise level=-122 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

eth1 no wireless extensions.

It seems like I read somewhere about changing some file so that eth0 would display as wlan0 or something along those lines but for the life of me I cannot find where I read that at. I guess it doesn't make a difference since the device cannot be initialized eh?

[cybertron]

Well...a long time after your last reply, but a couple of things to try might be "iwconfig eth0 essid YourSSID" (replacing YourSSID with the appropriate value), and if that doesn't work "iwlist eth0 scan" and see if it's detecting any wireless networks. I'm not really sure whether a wireless connection has to be named wlanX or if it can be left as eth0 as in your case.

Sorry about the long delay in replying. I suspect not very many people know much about this (I sure don't) because wireless support in Linux isn't very good, as you've noticed.:)