Get (FCCID: M4Y-XG-300) wireless NIC to work in 2.13 SUCCESS

[superscienceguy]

Puppy 2.0.2ce --> Then Puppy 2.13
In the first screen of the wireless wizard it said that it appears that I have Perl. Then in the first ndiswrapper screen it says it says the file /mnt/home/user_devx.sfs - which has Perl - must be loaded. I can't find that file in /mnt/home. I even did a file search and did find it. I have Perl directory in the /usr/lib, but not in /mnt/home.
Maybe above is the problem, BUT here is the question. When I follow the steps on the ndiswrapper screen I get this; ( I did put the files from the XP drivers folder in a directory. I am running this by right-clicking in that window and choosing XTerm here.

#ndiswrapper -i wlannic.inf
Installing wlannic
#ndiswrapper -l
wlannic driver installed, hardware present
#modprobe ndiswrapper
#iwconfig
lo no wireless extentions

The wireless NIC I got from geeks.com. It doesn't have a brand name, but its FCC ID: M4Y-XG-300 is the same as SMC 2802W and Xterasys XW-2422G and XW-2422G.

[rarsa]

try doing "ifconfig -a" and check if your wireless device shows there.

If it does: use the device name to bring it up.

for example

ifconfig eth1 up

and then try iwconfig again.

An alternative would be to use a more recent version of Puppy (2.13)

[superscienceguy]

Can I upgrade to a newer version or is it a complete reinstall?

[superscienceguy]

If it does use the device name to bring it up.

I know you put an example, but I'm so knew I don't even know which part of the example was the device name.

Can you explain "bring it up?"

[superscienceguy]

When I click on Gpccard PCMCIA monitor nothing happens. I can't tell if it's not a function part of the OS or if there are no PCMCIA devices available. The lights have have never come on on this NIC. Also, should I have PNP enable or disabled in BIOS?
Lots of questions, I know.

[superscienceguy]

An alternative would be to use a more recent version of Puppy (2.13)

Can I upgrade from the Puppy I have or do I have to do an entire install?

[rarsa]

If it does: use the device name to bring it up.

Sorry, I assumed that you knew that you can get help for almost any command with the option -h or --help. e.g. ifconfig --help.

Now you know that when someone gives you a command you don't know you can always get help for it and know how it works.

The "ifconfig -a" gives you a list of the available interfaces.

lo, eth0, wlan0, ra0, etc. The names may vary depending on what devices you have.

I know you put an example, but I'm so knew I don't even know which part of the example was the device name.

The device name in my example was "eth1".

Can you explain "bring it up?"

It means, execute the command I gave you replacing the device name with the device name you figure out by executing "ifconfig -a"

[superscienceguy]

I upgraded to Puppy 2.13 since the last post. I have an ethernet NIC installed so I can get on these forums while I'm trying to configure the wireless NIC that I want to use mostly.
Thanks for your help about "help." I can learn stuff, but sometimes need a little prodding. My dislike for Microsoft helps motivate me to learn Linux.
See below, please!
sh-3.00# ifconfig -a
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:C0:9F:00:AD:AD
inet addr:192.168.10.6 Bcast:192.168.10.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:941 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:804 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:509651 (497.7 KiB) TX bytes:123291 (120.4 KiB)
Interrupt:10 Base address:0x800

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

I assume lo is the wireless NIC, but I can't interpret any of that stuff. Furthermore I was running Puppy 2.0.? until you suggested that I upgrade. When I as trying to install the wireless NIC on 2.0.? I was doing all of that ndiswrapper stuff. I have NOT been prompted by 2.13 to run ndiswrapper at all and therefore I have not. Perhaps that is the problem.

Also see this, in case it is helpful, please.
sh-3.00# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

Please let me know what you can. I think I will try the ndiswrapper with the XP driver just to see if that will help. I'll be watching for a reply.

[trapster]

In a console try:

ifconfig eth0 up

then:

iwconfig

[superscienceguy]

This is what I get. Let me know if anyone can help more!

sh-3.00# ifconfig eth0 up
sh-3.00# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sh-3.00#

[John Doe]

See 'WiFI Up' on this page:

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/ShellScriptsExamples

I seem to recall ndsiwrapper named the connection wlan, not eth.

And if you have a network card plugged in also, your wireless will most likely be eth1 not eth0 if it's named that way.

[marksouth2000]

superscienceguy: some points for your attention.

The "10 base" entry in the ifconfig entry for eth0 shows it is a wired 10baseT connection.

PnP should be turned off in the BIOS for preference.

"ifconfig" on its own should show all active interfaces, "iwconfig" on its own should list all interfaces and show if they have wireless extensions.

PCMCIA wireless cards under Linux typically do not light up until the interface acquires a lock on an AP and/or an IP address. It depends on the exact driver, but that's how most work.

Cheers,
Mark

[superscienceguy]

Thanks Mark and John. I thought I might pass this informaiton along as well. When I click on RutilT I get an error window with this message:

Critical error :
Can't find any wireless network interface.
Do you have the wireless extensions compiled in your kernel?
Code : 130

I don't know what it means, perhaps it is messed up because nothing else is correct in the wireless world on this machine.

I guess I mislead myself into thinking that if I had the XP driver I could use ndiswrapper and all would be well. I read many posts on this forum before I started and so I chose a wireless NIC that had an XP driver. Then it was suggested that I update to a newer version of Puppy, which I did. I haven't seemed to get any further along in this process for awhile.

I am about to go read the wibsite recommended in the last post.

Thanks to all for helping free myself from Windoze!
You know, even though I can't figure out how to install Open Office or Firefox OR get my wireless NIC to work, I still like enjoy telling people I use Linux.

[superscienceguy]

See 'WiFI Up' on this page:

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/ShellScriptsExamples

Thanks, but I don't know what the WiFi Up section is telling me on this page.

[superscienceguy]

This is what I get when I run WAG after using modprobe/ndiswrapper to use the XP driver provided with the wireless NIC.

wireless card active
wireless card not responding

no module loaded
dhcpcd running
wifi-beta not installed

could not find interface in /proc/net/wireless
ap test failure

no wireless networks detected
error when scanning

I wish I knew what the interface in /proc/net/wireless was and what the ap test failure meant.

[GeoffS]

A couple of questions:-
Are you still using ndiswrapper or are you relying on 2.13 having the driver built in?
Is your NIC a PCI card or are you using a PCMCIA card in a laptop?
We'll keep thinking in the meantime
Geoff

[superscienceguy]

A couple of questions:-
Are you still using ndiswrapper or are you relying on 2.13 having the driver built in?

I have tried both. I do not know if the driver is built in, I haven't been able to find it. I have the XP driver, so I'd say I'm still using ndiswrapper. I think. I'm learning a lot, but I still get confused and lost.

Is your NIC a PCI card or are you using a PCMCIA card in a laptop?[Geoff

My wireless NIC is a PCMCIA card in a laptop. Does that make a difference?

I thank everyone for their help on this problem that is now two pages long!

[jonyo]

if willing to use & buy a usb dongle (ebay ~ 20-30 bucks), quite sure I can get you goin wifi quick. Works A-1 for me so far on all computers I've tried (~ 5) with ver 2.12 & just worked out with ver 2.13. All running live cd.

[krumpli]

superscienceguy,

What mfgr pcmcia card do you have? Do you know what type of driver?
I just finished a rather easy & successful pcmcia card install a few days ago.
[/url]http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... =14182[url]

My research beforehand led me to use Asus wl-107g pcmcia. It has ralink 2500 driver. This has a native Linux driver and is in Puppy 2.13. Purchased mine from NewEgg for 30.00. I read reviews at NewEgg that indicated the pcmcia card worked in other Linux distros.

Paul M

[tempestuous]

superscienceguy,
According to this http://www.xterasys.com/faq.htm
a device having FCC ID of M4Y-XG-300 contains the Intersil Frisbee chipset. If true, there is a native Linux driver suitable: prism54, and Puppy contains this ... but the firmware is missing. Get the firmware here http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Wifi/wifi-dri ... extras.pup
Install the dotpup, reboot, and run "lsmod" to see if Puppy has automatically loaded the prism54 module. If not, load it manually -

modprobe prism54

If there are no errors, you can now use the Network Wizard to connect to your wifi access point.