Ndiswrapper OK XP driver but not W98 drivers

[harrijon]

Hi, I recently thought I had cracked wireless networking with my old PCs.
I first set up two old XP machines running with a WG511T pcmcia card and WG121 USB wireless NICs respectively.
They both immediately saw their NIC under Puppy 2.1.4 when I typed the following:
[note that I have been lazy and not included the dialogue responses]

Code: Select all

su
cd /mnt/hda1/'program files'/netgear/wg511scu/driver
ndiswrapper -i WGT511.inf [size=11][i][I can't remember exactly so this might not be the exact name of the inf file] [/i][/size]
ndiswrapper -l
modprobe ndiswrapper

I then went to the network configuration interface and saw 'wlan0' which I could set up for WEP.
Next, selecting automatic 'DHCP set up' gave access to the internet via my broadband connection and it was very fast too.

Feeling triumphant I tried to get my old W98 laptops working wireless with Puppy 2.1.4. by proceeding as above.

However, this time, when I tried to run 'ndiswrapper -i wg511.inf' I got a error message:
'invalid driver, check that Prism.sys is present' [or something like this].
Runnig ndiswrapper -l gave another invalid driver message and nothing I tried beyong this got the wirless to work.

Any ideas?

[gary101]

The WG121 USB uses a completely different driver than the first card you set up.

ndiswrapper works with most but not all windows drivers.

I believe that the WG121 USB uses the prism2 driver.

Open the network connection wizard, go to load driver and you will see the prism2 USB driver listed, choose it and install. You can then either follow the wizard to finish setting up your connection or do it manually.

Gary

[harrijon]

[quote="gary101"]The WG121 USB uses a completely different driver than the first card you set up.

ndiswrapper works with most but not all windows drivers.

I believe that the WG121 USB uses the prism2 driver.

Open the network connection wizard, go to load driver and you will see the prism2 USB driver listed, choose it and install. You can then either follow the wizard to finish setting up your connection or do it manually.

Gary[/quote]

Hi Gary,

Sorry for the red herring, I only have a usb WG121 device for an XP machine that works fine with Puppylinux.

No, the error occured with the WG511 pcmcia card on an old W98 machine running Puppylinux 2.1.4. Yet thye same WG511 card works fine on another old XP machine running puppy.

It looks as if the ndiswrapper works with a windows XP driver/install but not a W98 driver/install

Basically, I'm a disallusioned Windows PC user who is trying out Linux. All I want is a simple machine that can access the internet via wireless, hassle free. I'm totally fed up with the constant troubles with windows updates, viruses and trojans et al. My family are constantly coming to me with messed up PCs and I want a quiet life.

However, if I can't get a these old PCs to work with Linux, I may also consider chucking them and going for Apple Macs.

[gary101]

Hi

Thanks for the clarification.

I know how you feel about M$ being a refugee myself a while ago, I think you will find puppy to be the alternative.

As to your driver problem, you do not need to use the 98 driver with ndiswrapper on the older machine, the version of windows on it has no relation to puppy.

You can copy the xp driver and use that on it instead, you have already proved it works with ndiswrapper so there should be no problem doing exactlty the same on the other machine.

Hope this helps

gary

[nonewmsgs]

have you tried the atheros driver??

[harrijon]

[quote="gary101"]Hi

Thanks for the clarification.

I know how you feel about M$ being a refugee myself a while ago, I think you will find puppy to be the alternative.

As to your driver problem, you do not need to use the 98 driver with ndiswrapper on the older machine, the version of windows on it has no relation to puppy.

You can copy the xp driver and use that on it instead, you have already proved it works with ndiswrapper so there should be no problem doing exactlty the same on the other machine.

Hope this helps

gary[/quote]

Hi Gary,

Of course! This suggestion is so obvious now I have read your note.
I'm so battle weary from the endless fights with MS Windows that I took a pessimistic view.

Hopefully though, it's just knowing which directory to drop in the prism54.sys file to, so I'll read the 'inf' file and see where this points.

Perhaps, after all, it is just a one file jobby and not tied up with loads of registry settings and ancillary files as is normally the case for Windows.

I'll report back.

Thanks,

Jon

[gary101]

Just copy the driver files from where ever you have them (install disk etc), windows drivers are normally in a folder XP, win 98, etc.

Copy the XP folder to your home directory and either use the network wizard to install the driver, or make open a console window from within your root folder and run ndiswrapper command from there. In both cases it is the .inf file that you are interested in. eg

ndiswrapper -i mydriver.inf will load the driver

you can then open rutilt (from the menu go to network) and set up your connection, wep etc

If you get more problems and have skype then pm me