Re: D-Link wireless card

Mark Phillips wrote:
> Eric,
>
> Your email inspired me to get my wireless card working, and I did, sort of!
>
> I downloaded the latest ndiswrapper source, compiled it, installed the
> correct XP driver, and lo and behold the lights started flashing on my
> wireless card. I even got the card to go out and get an address from dhcp!
>
> However, I am rather stumped on how to set up the a wireless interface
> in Debian. How do I automate the process of loading the ndiswrapper
> module and then making wlan0 the default network interface if the card
> is in the computer? What conf files do I modify to automatically detect
> the presence of the wireless card and have dhclient get an address for
> that interface instead of the built-in wired interface?
>
> I tried adding ndiswrapper to /etc/modules, but that did not work. The
> module was loaded (dmesg shows it loaded without an error) but I think
> it loaded before pcmcia services, so it did not see the card. If I
> reboot with ndiswrapper in /etc/modules, I cannot get ndiswrapper to
> recognize the card even if I modprobe it again. If I boot without
> ndiswrapper in /etc/modules, I can use modprobe and the card works (i.e.
> the lights flash).
>
> I read /usr/share/doc/wireless-tools/README.Debian and setup
> /etc/network/interfaces with:
> # The loopback network interface
> auto lo
> iface lo inet loopback
>
> # The primary network interface
> auto eth0
> iface eth0 inet dhcp
>
> # The wireless network interface
> auto wlan0
> iface wlan0 inet dhcp
> wireless_essid PhillipsMarketing
> wireless_mode Managed
>
> eht0 works just fine, but I can't seem to get ndiswrapper loaded so that
> the wireless part works.
>
> My manual process:
>
> modprobe ndiswrapper
> ifconfig wlan0 up
> dhclient wlan0
>
> Now, when I run ifconfig I get wlan0 with a valid ethernet address on my
> network.
>
> Any references to the correct man pages or docs would be greatly
> appreciated!
>
> Thanks!
>
> Mark Phillips
>
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>
Way to go, Mark. As you say, sounds to me like you just need to get
ndiswrapper loaded during startup after pcmcia/cardbus services, and
before network services. I'd expect there to be something for that in
the ndis docs, but I haven't read them (no need for me).

I'm afraid I'm not much help on this one, as I've only worked on RH/FC
so far, and I'm not even sure exactly where to do that on this distro
without looking it up. Any Debian sysadmin-types out there who can help
out with this? (Alex?)

-- 
-Eric 'shubes'
"There is no such thing as the People;
  it is a collectivist myth.
  There are only individual citizens
  with individual wills
  and individual purposes."
-William E. Simon (1927-2000),
     Secretary of the Treasury (1974-1977)
  "A Time For Truth" (1978), pg. 237

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