15 replies to this topic

[deickos]

I just installed Ubuntu on a usb flash with persistent changes and had no internet, after a while i discovered i had to install windows drivers for wireless ( atheros ) and i did that and still have no internet - what can be wrong?

[phasma]

I just installed Ubuntu on a usb flash with persistent changes and had no internet, after a while i discovered i had to install windows drivers for wireless ( atheros ) and i did that and still have no internet - what can be wrong?

Does the internet work on the Windows side?

[Ohm]

I have to use the Windows drivers for my Eee PC, which also uses Atheros.

First, do this.

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils-1.9

Or, if you don't have Internet access at all, download the .deb files onto the USB drive. These files can be gotten directly from the Ubuntu repositories from the following link.

http://packages.ubun...amp;section=all

And then install them with dpkg.

sudo dpkg -i ndiswrapper-common_1.52-1ubuntu1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i ndiswrapper-utils-1.9_1.52-1ubuntu1_i386.deb

Download and extract your Windows wifi drivers. Next, add them to ndiswrapper like this.

sudo ndiswrapper -i your_driver.inf

Then you have to blacklist your native wifi driver if there is one loaded (check with lsmod). On my Eee PC, I do this.

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
# Then add the following line
# Replace ath5k with your wifi drivers
blacklist ath5k

Almost there! Remove that module from the currently running OS.

sudo rmmod ath5k

Then load ndiswrapper.

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

Then make sure it gets loaded next time you reboot.

sudo gedit /etc/modules
# Add the following line
ndiswrapper

That did the trick for me, works great! Though I do have one problem with it taking forever to connect to a wireless network. I have to rmmod then modprobe ndiswrapper and then it works. Not sure what causes it, but it's not a big problem.

[deickos]

I have to use the Windows drivers for my Eee PC, which also uses Atheros.

First, do this.

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils-1.9

Or, if you don't have Internet access at all, download the .deb files onto the USB drive. These files can be gotten directly from the Ubuntu repositories from the following link.

http://packages.ubun...amp;section=all

And then install them with dpkg.

sudo dpkg -i ndiswrapper-common_1.52-1ubuntu1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i ndiswrapper-utils-1.9_1.52-1ubuntu1_i386.deb

Download and extract your Windows wifi drivers. Next, add them to ndiswrapper like this.

sudo ndiswrapper -i your_driver.inf

Then you have to blacklist your native wifi driver if there is one loaded (check with lsmod). On my Eee PC, I do this.

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
# Then add the following line
# Replace ath5k with your wifi drivers
blacklist ath5k

Almost there! Remove that module from the currently running OS.

sudo rmmod ath5k

Then load ndiswrapper.

sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

Then make sure it gets loaded next time you reboot.

sudo gedit /etc/modules
# Add the following line
ndiswrapper

That did the trick for me, works great! Though I do have one problem with it taking forever to connect to a wireless network. I have to rmmod then modprobe ndiswrapper and then it works. Not sure what causes it, but it's not a big problem.

thanks you're great
I'll try it all and then post again

[SwartMumba]

I just installed Ubuntu on a usb flash with persistent changes and had no internet, after a while i discovered i had to install windows drivers for wireless ( atheros ) and i did that and still have no internet - what can be wrong?

Have you checked out the madwifi drivers? That is what I used for my atheros card.

[deickos]

I have to use the Windows drivers for my Eee PC, which also uses Atheros.

First, do this.

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils-1.9

Or, if you don't have Internet access at all, download the .deb files onto the USB drive. These files can be gotten directly from the Ubuntu repositories from the following link.

http://packages.ubun...amp;section=all

And then install them with dpkg.

sudo dpkg -i ndiswrapper-common_1.52-1ubuntu1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i ndiswrapper-utils-1.9_1.52-1ubuntu1_i386.deb

(...)

that's what happened

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils-1.9
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
ndiswrapper-common is already the newest version.
ndiswrapper-common set to manually installed.
ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 is already the newest version.
ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 set to manually installed.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$



ok if i go there you say and download those files from ubuntu repositories where should i put them - just throw them in the usb flash?

[mirrorshades]

If you already have them installed, then just follow Ohm's directions starting with the next step. He really broke it down step-by-step, you can't get much more explicit than that.

[deickos]

here is what i got after i followed all the steps above


ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

pan0 no wireless extensions.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1e:ec:88:6f:25
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 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:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 TX bytes:0 (0.0
Interrupt:16 Base address:0x1000

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:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:376 (376.0 TX bytes:376 (376.0

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

[Ohm]

Is the ndiswrapper module loaded? What is the output of lsmod | grep ndiswrapper?

Are your drivers configured to work with ndiswrapper? What is the output of ndiswrapper -l?

[tekio]

It would help if the exact chipset was posted, as atheros has dozens. Like SwartMumba said, try MadWifi first. With those you can inject (with patches) and capture in promiscuous mode, and offer overall better performance. Much better than the Windows drivers, depending on the exact chipset.


EDIT:
Don't do an apt-get for these drivers. Go to the project site and get the very latest stable release (or unstable with newer chipsets), and build them from source. The binaries are usually way out of date and do not run newer chipsets very well, ie poor performance, take too much power, etc....

Edited by tekio, 16 March 2009 - 01:30 PM.

[SwartMumba]

It would help if the exact chipset was posted, as atheros has dozens.

Yes, do a

lspci | grep Atheros

and post back the results.

[Ohm]

I think I'm going to try the MadWifi drivers tonight. The ndiswrapper drivers were so handy though For most cases, they work fine, but can I use Kismet with the MadWifi drivers?

[tekio]

I think I'm going to try the MadWifi drivers tonight. The ndiswrapper drivers were so handy though For most cases, they work fine, but can I use Kismet with the MadWifi drivers?

Yep, you should be able to.

[Ohm]

It's really nice of them to tell you that madwifi.org is dead. Every link there is dead or broken in some way. I guess I need madwifi-project.org.

On Ubuntu, you can just apt-get install linux-backports-modules-intrepid and it works fine for me. I don't know what version these drivers are though. It's convenient at least

[phr34kc0der]

I think I'm going to try the MadWifi drivers tonight. The ndiswrapper drivers were so handy though For most cases, they work fine, but can I use Kismet with the MadWifi drivers?

Why did you use ndiswrapper in the first place? Any specific reason?

BTW, I use backtrack with my asus eee which includes the madwifi drivers, and it supports everything. Packet injection, monitor mode etc

[Ohm]

It was easy and I already knew how to do it. I had no idea what version these binary drivers I installed are, but the array.org kernel I'm running doesn't seem to have a /build directory to build from source. I'll sort it all out though.

Monitor mode is a bonus, I'm mostly having trouble connecting to access points. Most of the time it'll connect in 15 seconds or so, but sometimes it just won't connect at all.