Re: [gentoo-user] realtek 8197 wireless card setup

[Jeff Cranmer <jcranmer01@earthlink.net>]

-----Original Message-----
>From: Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com>
>Sent: Dec 22, 2007 2:01 PM
>To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
>Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] realtek 8197 wireless card setup
>
>On Saturday 22 December 2007, Jeff Cranmer wrote:
>> On Saturday 22 December 2007 10:30:45 am Hans-Werner Hilse wrote:
>> > > I think I'm getting closer now.
>> > > I removed the driver from the kernel, and installed ndiswrapper.
>> > > I got the inf driver from a guy from realtek, and used
>> > > ndiswrapper -i drivername.inf  to install it.
>> > >
>> > > Now, when I run
>> > > iwlist wlan0 scanning, I can actually see my access point listed, plus
>> > > lots of other local wireless networks.
>> >
>> > That's good. It actually receives.
>
>Yep, you're half way there.  The radio communication part of the equation 
>seems to be working.
>
>> > > connecting to it is a different matter, however, as the connection
>> > > always appears to time out.  I'm using iwconfig to manually set the
>> > > ESSID, wep key etc. at the moment, and have tried the trick of setting
>> > > the speed manually to 5.5M to avoid timeouts.
>> > >
>> > > When I try to run dhcpcd wlan0 the first time, I get Error, wlan0:
>> > > timed out The second time I try to run it, I get an error because
>> > > dhcpcd is already running.
>
>Try to kill it first (dhcpcd -k) and then re-run it.  I would run with 
>defaults (re. channel, speed, etc.) and perhaps only add a small delay in 
>your /etc/conf.d/net to allow the device to come up:
>
>sleep_scan_wlan0="1"
>
>> > Try the minimal approach first and configure it manually using
>> > ifconfig/route and ping some host on your network (or the AP if it does
>> > IP). If that does not work, there's something wrong with the driver, if
>> > it does, the culprit is dhcpcd (vram USE flag?).
>>
>> Just to clarify, how would I ping a host on my network?  I only have one
>> other PC connected to the router.
>
>You use the LAN IP address of the router/host.  I don't know what options 
>Belkin gives you, can you turn on responses to pings (ICMP packet requests) 
>both on the router and on the other PC?
>
>> If that is not possible, due to wireless router firewall stealthing (I have
>> a rather crash-prone Belkin wireless router at the moment), the next
>> attempt would presumably be to ping the AP.
>> If I have an AP MAC address, 00:15:E9:19:73:F2 (for example), how would I
>> ping this?
>
>You could use arping (net-analyzer/arping) - but that assumes that the router 
>accepts broadcast messages.
>
>> I have checked the dhcpcd install, and the vram USE flag is presently
>> unset. Does this flag need to be set?
>
>Well, it may need to be set depending on your router.  Certain dhcpcd server 
>implementations won't play nicely with the latest stable version of the 
>dhcpcd client and you end up getting time outs and no IP address.  
>Re-emerging with vram USE flag set solves this problem.  Manually setting up 
>an available/suitable static LAN IP address may also work (e.g. ifconfig 
>wlan0 192.168.0.2).
>
>> > Start with WEP, if that works switch to WPA.
>>
>> I've given up on WPA for now.  If I can get WEP to work, I'll be happy at
>> this point, though WPA operation would be the ultimate goal.
>> Is ndiswrapper meant to work with the 2.6.23 kernel?  I don't want to have
>> to step down to an earlier kernel, as that causes problems with changing
>> Xorg configurations, but I could go through the pain of this if it were
>> strictly necessary.
>
>ndiswrapper works fine with this kernel.  I would start with the dhcpcd vram 
>flag to take this time out problem out of the equation and then I would edit 
>the /etc/conf.d/net to set up all necessary parameters instead of having to 
>enter everything via iwconfig at the command line.  This will also minimise 
>the chance of typos at the CLI.  Following a process of elimination I would 
>start with no encryption whatsoever at the router and if it works I would 
>then gradually add WEP and finally WAP.
>
>PS. Assuming you get ndiswrapper going you can retry the in-kernel driver in 
>future versions as it is likely that more and more devices will be added.
>
>HTH.
>-- 
>Regards,
>Mick

I tried recompiling with the vram USE flag set in dhcpcd, but that didn't help.
I then uninstalled ndiswrapper, and installed the modified rtl8187 driver from http://www.datanorth.net/~cuervo/blog/2007/09/26/no-more-vista.

SUCCESS!! :-D

Finally, I have a working wireless card.  I've not tried WPA yet, but WEP definitely works.  It isn't quite perfect, as knetworkmanager can't recognise the connection, and i haven't quite figured out how to implement the required startup script to run automatically, but it's up, and only requires a single root user command to execute.

Jeff


I think I'll give it a couple of kernels and see if the built-in RTL driver improves.
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