11 replies to this topic

[Aghaster]

Yeah, I have to say ndiswrapper is a very nice tool.
I have been trying to find kernel modules for my wireless adapter for some time, without success. And then I decided to go on the ndiswrapper website, I didn't really know what it was but people told me about it. Hum. As I understood it, it is able to emulate a windows driver, converting windows API calls to calls in the Linux kernel. It loads as a module and uses unmodified windows drivers. Quite nice.

It looked harder to install than it was. It worked just as the installation guide expected it. A few commands for building and installing, then loading the driver and all that stuff... and voila! internet connectivity. Yipee.

I googled for an equivalent for Solaris, and there seem to be an ndiswrapper 0.1 project for it. I'll try it when I'll have the time, it'd be very nice to get wireless on solaris

I'm quite impressed. I didn't know this could be done at all.

[tiocsti]

deleted.

Edited by tiocsti, 08 December 2007 - 01:07 AM.

[Ohm]

Haha, oh no It seems Mr. Open Source purist crusader takes the easy route when it suits him.

[m3747r0n]

People using proprietary drivers have a lot of negative effects on those of us who choose not to use them.

[Aghaster]

Do you really think I stopped my research there? lol.

You probably all know Broadcom is one of these companies that really don't care about open source OSes and release no information about their hardware so people could write drivers for them. I searched for a reverse engineering effort, and I found one (bcm-specs.sipsolutions.net). However, it is still incomplete. My skills in reverse engineering wireless cards and writing linux device drivers are non-existant yet. Maybe I could try to do something.

[BigBrother]

You cant go into passive mode with a emulated driver.

No kismet, aircrack, ariodump or the like for you.

[Ohm]

You probably all know Broadcom is one of these companies that really don't care about open source OSes and release no information about their hardware so people could write drivers for them. I searched for a reverse engineering effort, and I found one (bcm-specs.sipsolutions.net). However, it is still incomplete. My skills in reverse engineering wireless cards and writing linux device drivers are non-existant yet. Maybe I could try to do something.

The sensible thing to do in this situation is to hock the card and get a better supported one. There's just no sense in expending hours to get the thing working (not knowing if it'll work at all in the end) with a reduced set of features. WiFi cards are pretty cheap these days.

[tiocsti]

deleted.

Edited by tiocsti, 08 December 2007 - 01:06 AM.

[Aghaster]

You cant go into passive mode with a emulated driver.

No kismet, aircrack, ariodump or the like for you.

crap. I wanted to use these tools.

It's funny to see how everybody here takes me word to word on what I said on dedicating my life to open source. lol.

[tiocsti]

deleted.

Edited by tiocsti, 08 December 2007 - 01:04 AM.

[Aghaster]

okay, I think I might have to clarify myself on that.

Yeah, open source rocks, and I like it. But I don't restrict myself to that and only that, in this case refusing proprietary software would mean no wireless internet on my laptop running linux. yeah, this sucks. well, I'd still like to work for open source, and not be the cause of such problems to other people.

[Alk3]

I don't know why this is so funny, really.

You can use a bcmxx card, but it does not support packet injection. You can't switch to monitor mode, where you can see all raw data activity from a access point. Ndiswrapper is just a way to have internet access. Buy a USB wireless card that does support this, like a D=Link. They can be found on Ebay for cheap, but used.