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Linksys (BroadCom) wireless - ndiswrapper - PCI problem ...

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Mr.Hulot
Posts: 2
Joined: 2005-10-20 19:12

Linksys (BroadCom) wireless - ndiswrapper - PCI problem ...

#1 Post by Mr.Hulot »

I have just added debian 3.2 to my system. It also inludes FC4 and in Fedora I have my wireless card up an running using ndiswrapper + wpa_supplicant. Although I tried to do the same steps in debian I got this error message. I suppose it is generated when modprobe tries to insert ndiswrapper in the kernel, I am not sure though. It says to try an option (pci=biosirq) but I cannot figure out where. I must point that lspci does show my card in place but from what I understand there is a problem in the IRQ settings.
Here is the dmesg output :

ndiswrapper version 1.1 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)
ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5 (Linksys,02/19/2004, 3.50.21.11) loaded
PCI: Enabling device 00:0a.0 (0004 -> 0006)
PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 00:0a.0. Please try using pci=biosirq.
ndiswrapper: request for irq 0 failed
ndiswrapper (ndiswrapper_add_one_pci_dev:188): Windows driver couldn't initialize the device (C000009A)

any suggestions ?? thx in advance

pigah
Posts: 189
Joined: 2005-03-29 23:20

#2 Post by pigah »

You'll probably want to edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst file so that that you include pci=biosirq on the end of the line that says kernel. then reboot.

Mr.Hulot
Posts: 2
Joined: 2005-10-20 19:12

#3 Post by Mr.Hulot »

Thanx for the answer but after a veeery long night I managed to figure it out. I am writing it down in case someone finds it usefull. The pic=biosirq option in grub did not work so I went seeking other causes. It may sound stupid of me not to check what kernel version I had, but coming from fedora I assumed I had a 2.6 kernel. That was not the case (a 2.4 was installed) so I logged into fedora and downloaded a 2.6 kernel. I installed it and like magic everything was recognized. There was still one more problem when trying to set up wpa_supplicant. It required one more argument (i don't know if this is because I compiled it in a weird way or not). the full command to run wpa_supplicant before I execute ifup wlan0 is:

Code: Select all

wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -wB -Dndiswrapper
the difference being in the -Dndiswrapper option.

So I am now a happy,running debian user... although I have a question. Is there an equivelant ifup-wireless script in debian so I don't have to type the command above each time? In fc4 it is in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-wireless

Thanx again for your answer pigah

pigah
Posts: 189
Joined: 2005-03-29 23:20

#4 Post by pigah »

Are you using the wpa_supplicant package from debian? or did you compile your own. If you're using the debian package, there is a files you can modify and it will run wpa_supplicant as a daemon and will automatically do the authentication.

I'm not at my laptop, so this will be from memory (or you can look in the doc directory), but I think you need to modify /etc/default/wpasupplicant so that it includes all the options you showed below. Also in this file is an option as to whether wpasupplicant should start. make sure this is set to go.

After you modify this file, as root do a "/etc/init.d/wpasupplicant start" and all the authentication should be automatic.

There are ways to set it up so it wil automatically detect and connect to networks (I think you need to modify hotplug stuff), but I haven't quite figured that out yet. If you do, please tell me.

hope this helps

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