WLAN/PCMCIA Problem

[TeeLicht]

Hi folks!

After installing Ubuntu a while ago, I just switched to Kubuntu as I prefer KDE over Gnome. I use a PCMCIA wireless card (Linksys) with a Broadcom chipset. I got it working perfectly with ndiswrapper under Ubuntu. Now in Kubuntu, I can't activate the wireless network. The system settings show that the PCMCIA controller is not recognised. On the other hand, ndiswrapper shows that the hardware is available. Seems weired to me ...

So, how do I activate the PCMCIA controller? And why does it work under Gnome but not in KDE?

[TeeLicht]

Re: WLAN/PCMCIA Problem

Nobody any idea?

iwconfig brings up the following:
eth1 IEEE 802.11b/g ESSIDff/any Nickname:"Broadcom 4306"
Mode:Managed Access Point: Invalid Bit Rate=1 Mb/s
RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

As mentioned, the pcmcia controller is undetected and I'm not able to activate the eth1 adapter.

Thomas

[bmr5770]

Re: WLAN/PCMCIA Problem

There's 2 other similar threads on wireless stuff showing up as eth1 (one of which is mine). Neither have gotten any solution.

I don't know if this will work for you, since you use pcmcia, but I found this to work with my usb wireless:

Have the device installed with ndiswrapper, etc.
Boot *without* the device plugged in.
After you're done booting, open a console and type "iwconfig" and you should then see your adapter listed something like "wlan0" instead of eth1.
then type "sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid XXXXXXX" where "XXXXXXX" is your ssid for your network.
If you use wep encryption (like me), use "sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid XXXXXX key YYYYYYYY" where "YYYYYYY" is your encryption key.

You can make a script of course to do that so you just run the script after bootup.

There's something wrong with how the boot process interacts with ndiswrapper I think. If I boot with my usb wireless installed, it comes up as eth1 and simply will not take any command, via iwconfig, except setting the ssid.

Beemer