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Setting up a wireless driver under Linux

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6 replies

by jck

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I've had 2 issues when attempting to setup the ADMTek 8211 driver source under Linux:

1) When attempting to install under Mandrake Linux 10.1, I received an error from the gcc compiler that it could not find the source in /usr/src/linux2.6.8-10, or something similar to that.

2) When attempting to install under Xandros Linux, I received an err that "gcc: file not found" or something close.

My question:

Can someone tell me under Mandrake where the source (I assume for the OS that the driver needs to rebuild with gcc) is located, or can someone tell me how to setup gcc under Xandros?

I just want to get my Linux box running on the network so I can go out and download tools directly.

Thanks

6 replies

by jaqui

the directory tree under usr/src/lunix*** is the kernel sources
if you didn't install the full sources you will have to to compile the driver.

you may also need to compile it as root as the kernel tree is protected from non-priveledged user alteration.
best is to copy the tree to your user directory and chown to non priveledged user to build the driver module.
then on the last step ( make install ), su to root.
this protects the original source tree, which allows you to keep system from being crashed.

build the driver as a module, then it can be loaded as needed. ( usually at boot )
mdk's kernels are bilt using mostly modules for drivers like this, as then you don't need to rebuild entire kernel, only the module and run insmod afterwards.

by jck

I did have to load the source from Mandrake, which I reloaded.

Although I did compile the driver, did modprobe -r, depmod -a, insmod -f 8211.ko (that's the module to use), the lsmod would show my 8211 as loaded, it shows 8211 as being used by 0. yet, ifconfig shows the eth1 (wireless card) as there, but it seems to have these issues when I do an iwconfig:

eth1 shows as: no wireless extensions

eth2 shows as active with these qualities that seem wrong:
-) no Access Point MAC address
-) IEEE 802.11-DS instead of 802.11g
-) ESSID:""

I'm lookin for more advice. The default install of Mandrake seems to go bad with its autodetect. Thanks for any that can help.

by jck

The true issue with the 3rd party driver was that it did not want to support WEP-128.

I used NDISWrapper 1.1 with the Windows 1.79 driver for the ADMTek 8211 from infineon (who bought admtek) and it seems to work fine.

thanks for all the help!

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