New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

[RaidoHaglaz]

So, my ethernet nic is working perfectly, but the wireless nic isn't. Kubuntu can see it, but it won't activate. After browsing around here on the forums, I found out about the ndiswrapper and I downloaded the tarfile. It just won't open with the command I got from here, it tells me it can't find the file (I'm in the directory where the file is, by the way).

So I hopped around on these forums a bit more, and found out about another commandline, and used that. The reaction was a lot more lines of text, stating that it isn't able to extract the files. So, that no worky either.
Another trek around the forums revealed other stuff to be extracted first. These files were apparently linux-headers and build-essentials. I haven't found the build-essential file yet, but I have a tar with claims to be a linux-header (I found that on a website called T2-project, here is the link).

So, the question would be, what have I done wrong, are the build and header files the files I need to get it right and if I would need those files, how would it be possible to extract those files, if I can't extract that pain-in-the-neck ndiswrapper tar?

Hope someone can help me.

[edit] I fumbled around on Google again, and found this link, which looks pretty much like the trouble I'm having. I'm going to try this later, but dinner's up first.

[RaidoHaglaz]

Re: New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

Alright, a little update.
I booted Kubuntu and tried to unpack the tarfile again, using a commandline I had already typed in before. I pressed enter and voila, it worked. Very strange if you ask me. Anyway, that problem is out of the way, so hooray.

Next, I tried the make command, to install the program. the console is apparently trying to be funny, since it stated that it did not recognize the command 'make'. Is there anyone who has had this problem before and knows about a solution?

[edit]I downloaded the build-essential .deb file and tried to unpack it. It didn't work and it mentioned it was missing some packages, among which were 'make' and 'gcc', so I think I installed Kubuntu pretty bare. So, question, can I just get these with apt-get?

[edit2] Here's a list of the packages I supposedly need to unpack build-essential.deb:
libc6-dev, libc-dev, gcc, g++, make and dpkg-dev.
Does anyone know where to get them? I know I could use apt-get, but the only webconection I have available at the moment is my wireless connection, so I keep dual booting between windows and kubuntu to get stuff from the web.

[RaidoHaglaz]

Re: New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

So I found all the packages I needed (except the libc-dev package, I found out it is a virtual package, whatever that means), but they're all .deb files too. I'm a bit confused. Is there anyone where I can find the tar files of these packages?

[sky]

Re: New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

Hi,

Why are you not using the nic card you have to connect to the internet and use adept or apt-get CLI to download, install and configure automatically all this for you ?
If you need help doing this, just ask, you just need to have access to internet by your wire card and all will be easier than all what you're doing.

Cheers

[RaidoHaglaz]

Re: New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

I know apt-get will get me there quicker (I did read a bit ), but on my laptop (on which I have Kubuntu installed) I don't have any other internet connection than wireless. Obviously there is a wire connection in the house, but since I still live at home they won't let me hook my laptop up to the wire, don't know why, don't really care to ask, I'll just get dropped into a warzone (if you now what I mean). I will have an other wire connection tomorrow at school, so I'll try that then, but right now, I'm trying to do it manually and get comfortable with the console.

I've made a list for the deb files I still need (I think I already downloaded about ten).
Also, another problem has stepped up. When I try to install the libc6 deb, I get a error message. Not one about there not being another file it depends on, but an error stating something went wrong because of a problem with the 'pijplijn' (that's Dutch, since I am, I think it would be 'pipeline' in English).

Would anyone have any idea what that would mean?

[edit]Alright, I give up, I've looked for the files I still need, but I can't seem to find them (I'm looking on packages.debian.org). I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow.

[sky]

Re: New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

Sorry it will be really hard to find how to download all these files...
Anyway I wish you good luck.

Cheers

[RaidoHaglaz]

Re: New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

Hi, I'm back.
I was quite busy with school some time, so had no time to tinker on my wifi in Linux.
I tried again yesterday and it seems I'm almost able to install ndiswrapper (I know how to configure the actual card by now, though). But whenever I want to install, it gives me trouble, stating it can't find the needed kernel files.

So I enter (I tried both as root as with the sudo command) 'make install' in the ndiswrapper directory, and get this in return:

make -C driver
install
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/rutger/ndiswrapper/driver'

Can't find kernel build files in /lib/modules/2.6.15-23-386/build;

give the path to kernel build directory with

KBUILD=<path> argument to make
make[1]:
*** [prereq_check] Error 1
make[1]:
Leaving directory `/home/rutger/ndiswrapper/driver'

make: *** [install] Error 2

(the texteditor messed the commandlines up, if this isn't understandable, I'll give another go at making a decent file.

[sky]

Re: New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

On the alternate cd you should be able to find the kernel headers...

So if you don't have it, download it and add it to your apt config (should be something like sudo apt-cdrom add)
Then sudo apt-get update
finally : sudo apt-get install linux-headers-386

Cheers

[javierrivera]

Re: New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

Download the following deb from some official mirror:


http://es.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/...n/ndiswrapper/


Transfer it to your computer and type:

$sudo dpkg -i ndiswrapper-common_1.18-1ubuntu2_all.deb

It should be enough to have ndiswrapper installed.

Javier.

[RaidoHaglaz]

Re: New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

Hi. Thanks for the reply, but I managed to fix it all by myself in the meantime.
I've got the driver installed, but of course, Murphy's Law won't get off my back. I have the driver, I checked it, ndiswrapper doesn't give any errors and says the driver is installed (driver present, hardware present), but it won't get connected. Every time I want to connect, I enable the connection, it flips to on and after that goes immediately off.
I've got one of these nifty (and annoying) buttons on the front of my laptop, that would light up if the nic was active, which won't happen in Linux, so I take it the driver isn't active (really easy way to check, actually). So, erm, anyone have an idea to get my adventure ended?
(By the way, I'm pretty proud of myself, taking care of it all through the terminal, since I'm a firsttimer. )

[javierrivera]

Re: New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

I checked it, ndiswrapper doesn't give any errors and says the driver is installed (driver present, hardware present), but it won't get connected. Every time I want to connect, I enable the connection, it flips to on and after that goes immediately off.

I does happen sometimes with ndiswrapper. Some windows drivers work some others don't.

(By the way, I'm pretty proud of myself, taking care of it all through the terminal, since I'm a firsttimer. )

.

Javier.

[lingenfr]

Re: New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

You should probably do some googling for your specific NIC to see if there are any how-tos. For most, you need the driver and the firmware in order for ndiswrapper to work. The fact that ndiswrapper shows the driver as loaded and the hardware as present doesn't mean much, but is a good sign.

[RaidoHaglaz]

Re: New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

Hoorah! The nic works.
But I'm not able to connect to the router at home. I've seen some other trouble with WEP, so I'm going to try and see if I can help myself.
Thanks for the help all.

[sjuraud]

Re: New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

I'm a first timer to Linux as well (and using the cli this much). I usually use OS X. I had to install a card with the Marvell chipset and it took me a few hours to get it to work (with the excellent support of other Ubuntu / Kubuntu users). A few tips you might not know though to get you started. 1.) Sometimes you might have already installed a windows driver in ndiswrapper that doesn't work. Use sudo ndiswrapper -l (which will list all of the drivers you have installed and will tell you if they work or not). You should remove all of the ones that are installed before adding another one (don't remember actual commands to remove, it's something like sudo ndiswrapper -e [bad driver name here you got from ndiswrapper -l]. I actually installed one driver that said it was active but wouldn't show up in the Network settings. I had to try a bunch of different ones to see which one would work. 2.) Don't use the gui app for ndiswrapper on Edgy, it is broken and will not work correctly. 3.) You can actually drag the .INF file (or any file or folder) off of the desktop or where ever it's located directly into the terminal (konsole or whatever it's called) and it will automatically put the path in for you (if you type the location manually you'll have to make sure that the single quote marks are used around the path i.e. ' this mark. If anybody else sees this and something doesn't look right, please correct me. Thanks! I hope it works out for you.

[RaidoHaglaz]

Re: New Kubuntu user, and another wifi question...

Thanks for the reply, Sjuraud.
I have configured my NIC and it works. I am replying to you via Konqueror while on an unencrypted router (not mine, it's one in the neighbourhood). So there is nothing wrong with the NIC, it's working fine. I'm just trying to figure out what to do about the encryption of the router in house (it's not mine and I'm not allowed to change anything on it, so I'm forced to find out how to configure the WEP). I have rad through the troubleshoot at the website of ndiswrapper, but I don't seem to be able to get the encryption right. If anyone has an idea, please share it with me, until then, I'm going to search the forum for some answers.