How to get your wireless card working in debian.

I have a linksys wpc54g wireless card and i want to use it in debian. How can i do this even when they dont have a linux driver made for my card? Why not use the windows driver and an emulator to get it working.

I found a great project on sourceforge called ndiswrapper.
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Installation

1) Before you begin you need to install a few things.


apt-get install wireless-tools ndiswrapper unzip


2) Next Download the windowsXP drivers from this site:

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/List

i found it by searching for the model number of my card.

If you need a little extra confirmation that this is infact the correct driver.


lspci
0000:06:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)

0000:00:00.0 0600: 8086:7190 (rev 03)
0000:00:01.0 0604: 8086:7191 (rev 03)
0000:00:02.0 0607: 104c:ac1b (rev 03)
0000:00:02.1 0607: 104c:ac1b (rev 03)
0000:00:03.0 0200: 8086:1229 (rev 0c)
0000:00:03.1 0700: 11c1:045c (rev 01)
0000:00:05.0 0401: 1013:6003 (rev 01)
0000:00:07.0 0680: 8086:7110 (rev 02)
0000:00:07.1 0101: 8086:7111 (rev 01)
0000:00:07.2 0c03: 8086:7112 (rev 01)
0000:00:07.3 0680: 8086:7113 (rev 03)
0000:01:00.0 0300: 1002:4c4d (rev 64)
0000:06:00.0 0280: 14e4:4320 (rev 03)


This code 14E4:4320 can be used as a secondary method to make sure this is indeed the correct driver. I attempted to just install another driver with the same code but it didnt work so make sure you first match the model number and then the code.

NOTE: it is also possible to just download the driver off the manufacturers website and give it a try. I only suggested the other site because there are all known working. If you cant find your card listed, by all means, download the windowsXP driver from your manufacturer web site and extract it and give it a try. You may get lucky. If your system crashes, don't blame me!

3) Unzip the drive that you just downloaded to your home directory


laptop:~/wireless# unzip WPC54G_driver_utility_1.3.1.zip

laptop:~/wireless# ls
AutoRun lsbcmnds.cat Utility
AUTORUN.INF lsbcmnds.inf WPC54G_driver_utility_1.3.1.zip
bcmwl5.sys SETUP.EXE wpc54g_ver.txt


4) install the driver using ndiswrapper


ndiswrapper -i lsbcmnds.inf

This copies all necessary files to /etc/ndiswrapper and creates the config files for your card. After installing you can run


laptop:/var/log# ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
lsbcmnds driver present, hardware present

Notice how it says 'Driver Present, Hardware Present'

If it doesn't say that, then your drive didn't work and didn't load properly.

5) Now load the driver and make it active

modprobe ndiswrapper

grep 'ndiswrapper' /var/log/syslog*
see whats going on with the ndiswrapper in the syslog too. you may be able to see any problems here. hopefully all is well.


You should get a message similar to 'wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx' in the system log if it really detected the card. If this didn't happen, then your drive isn't working or your card needs to be pulled out and put back in to reseat it.

6) Configure the interface. If all is well up to this point, you can test to see if the linux box is seeing your card, the driver is loaded and working properly.


laptop:/var/log# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

See how the wlan0 gives you some info about your setup... well hopefully your seeing this screen. if so you still doing good, if not, somethings not right.

6) Lets see if we can scan for an access point

laptop:/var/log# iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:13:10:10:3B:62
ESSID:"linksys"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-53 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Encryption key:off
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s
Bit Rate:6 Mb/s
Bit Rate:9 Mb/s
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Bit Rate:12 Mb/s
Bit Rate:18 Mb/s
Bit Rate:24 Mb/s
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s
Bit Rate:48 Mb/s
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0

If your seeing this, then your almost there!

7) set up some configurations baised on what you just saw


iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed