Debian wireless help

[FireSBurnsmuP]

I just got Debian, and I kinda need it to have working wireless internet. I have a pressy r3k, and the wireless adapter is broadcom adapter.

I don't care how, I just want it to work.

[John A]

Broadcom drivers haven't gone open source, so that means you will need to wrap the Windows drivers of Broadcom in ndiswrapper -- a utility that allows Windows network card drivers to run under Linux.

First of all, download the Windows drivers for your Broadcom device:
http://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet_nic/downloaddrivers.php

Once you've downloaded the drivers, visit the ndiswrapper wiki, which has excellent help for installing ndiswrapper, and wrapping the drivers:
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page

Hope this helps

[FireSBurnsmuP]

alright, well the site said I needed a wireless toolset, and I downloaded it, but I can't figure out how to install it. I know I have to use make install but I don't know how to use make

[sn4rf3r]

cd directory
./configure --help | less
./configure
make
make install
make clean

[FireSBurnsmuP]

Alright, I got that one from my neighbor.

Now I am having troubles installing ndiswrapper. The installation sites say you need to have the version headers. I can't get those. I can't connect to the sites or something like that. I tried installing it but the kernel versions weren't in the build directory, and I know I can't build them because the "src" directory is empty.

I think there might be some serious problems here, but any help would be nice.

[John A]

Ah yes, the issue you're experiencing right now is the fact that ndiswrapper needs the kernel source code to build its drivers, and you don't have the source code installed right now.

This opens up a whole new can of worms, as you'll need to download the kernel's source code, untar it into /usr/src/linux, and then configure and compile the kernel. Installation is not necesary, as long as you download the same kernel version as the one you're currently using (you can check by entering uname -a at the command prompt).

Then you can continue with ndiswrapper. I know this is a setback, but this has happened to me many times after a fresh install of Linux.

[FireSBurnsmuP]

Alright, I can't get ahold of my version of the linux kernel, 2.6.16, would it hurt anything to upgrade it when I use the ndiswrapper?

[John A]

Alright, I can't get ahold of my version of the linux kernel, 2.6.16

Try going into the kernel repository. Direct download link for 2.6.16.16.

would it hurt anything to upgrade it when I use the ndiswrapper?

No, it wouldn't hurt, but if you misconfigure something when compiling the latest version, you'll be stuck with that configuration, because you'll have to actually use the kernel after compiling, unless you reconfigure -- not so critical if you're just building drivers with the kernel source (that's if you use the same kernel version).

[FireSBurnsmuP]

Alright, I got ahold of the kernel source .deb file. Should I use dpkg --install [i]file[/i].deb to extract and install them properly? I assume that will put them in /usr/src/linux-2.6.16-amd64-k8/ which doesn't currently exist. File Roller won't let me extract it to that folder (I have to create the folder, and access is denied).

[John A]

Alright, I got ahold of the kernel source .deb file. Should I use dpkg --install [i]file[/i].deb to extract and install them properly?

Yes, you can do that, although you'll need to first su or prefix the dpkg command with "sudo".

I assume that will put them in /usr/src/linux-2.6.16-amd64-k8/ which doesn't currently exist. File Roller won't let me extract it to that folder (I have to create the folder, and access is denied).

Access is denied because you don't have sufficient privileges. To access anything under the /usr branch, you will need root (administrator) privileges.

[FireSBurnsmuP]

hold up, I need the modules...

Do I need just the source, here? or do I need the whole image?

[John A]

hold up, I need the modules...

Do I need just the source, here? or do I need the whole image?

Modules are compiled from the main kernel source. You don't need any external files. The command make compiles them after you've selected which ones you want in the kernel configuration.

If in doubt, just download the full kernel source from kernel.org.

[FireSBurnsmuP]

Okee dokee... I really need just the source code to be in the usr/src/linux-2.6.16-2-amd64-k8/ directory. What format are the source code files in?

and, looking back, will this operation be making a tool at the kernel level, or a driver using the source? I was under the impression that this tool was installed at the kernel level, as like a patch to the kernel.

[John A]

Okee dokee... I really need just the source code to be in the usr/src/linux-2.6.16-2-amd64-k8/ directory. What format are the source code files in?

They're either in .tgz or .bz2 . To extract them, you use a command like this for Tarballs:

tar -xfz somefile.tgz

Or this for BZip2:

tar -xjf somefile.bz2

If you want to extract them to a specific directory, the easiest way is to cd to the directory that you want the files extracted in, and then run the tar command with the full path to the archive.

and, looking back, will this operation be making a tool at the kernel level, or a driver using the source? I was under the impression that this tool was installed at the kernel level, as like a patch to the kernel.

I think it's a driver using the source, as the installation of the driver uses its own installation script, and not the kernel's generic one.

[FireSBurnsmuP]

alright, well I apt-get install ed it, and, for whatever reason, that worked without questioning me.

I got the driver installed, but now I have to modprobe ndiswrapper and that replys with FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found . I have a feeling that is a bad thing, but I don't know precisely what went wrong. The wiki doesn't account for this one, as far as I've found.

[John A]

Are you sure you installed it right? To the correct directory? When the installer is installing, it determines the directory based on the kernel version you're running (actually, I've had this problem before when I was installing another wireless driver). Try something like the following:

cd ~/wherever_ndiswrapper_was_unpacked
make clean
make
make install

And no, it's not really that serious, it just means that either the module wasn't installed, or wasn't installed in the right directory.

[FireSBurnsmuP]

Well, I determined that I need to recompile my kernel so I can install the module using the module-assistant package. However, when I rebuild the kernel, it makes a kernel with a name 2.6.162.16.?[D?[D?[C where the ?s are wierd boxy characters with number in them. So I changed the name of the kernel file, directory, and the name in the modules directory and in the pathnames in the modules.dep file. However, when I try to boot it it won't find the modules.dep file in the lib/modules/2.6.162.16/modules/ directory, even though it's there. What do I need to do to make this thing work?

When I built the kernel I used make, make modules-install install, and make install. Was there something else I needed to do? The file is there, but it won't find it. I'm confused.

[John A]

Well, I determined that I need to recompile my kernel so I can install the module using the module-assistant package. However, when I rebuild the kernel, it makes a kernel with a name 2.6.162.16.?[D?[D?[C where the ?s are wierd boxy characters with number in them. So I changed the name of the kernel file, directory, and the name in the modules directory and in the pathnames in the modules.dep file.

...not good. If you're getting weird charecters, it probably won't do any good to change the pathnames, as the internal files will be messed up. Perhaps you need to do a make clean (saving your kernel config first, of course) and another make to see if the filename problem corrects itself.

I've had problems with module files in Linux, where it can't find the module directories and such, but you know what I would suggest right now: probably the easiest thing to do right now is to download the latest kernel version (2.6.18.3), and install it. It'll probably be easier than messing with this one. It'll rebuild your module directories, so those problems should go away.

For the record, here's how you should compile your kernel:

[B]Configure the kernel[/B]
# make menuconfig
[configure kernel]

# make bzImage
# make modules

[B]Install the kernel[/B]
# su
# make modules_install
# make install

[B]Create a ramdisk image[/B]
# cd /boot
# mkinitrd -o initrd.img-2.6.18.3 2.6.18.3

[B]Update GRUB[/B]
# vi /boot/grub/menu.lst
(change filenames to reflect new images in /boot)
# update-grub