WIRELESS INTERNET CATASTROPHE!!!

[MattGSX]

AKA: My shitty wireless dilemma.

So I have three wireless cards that I'm trying to get to work on my laptop. I originally wanted to run Damn Small Linux - NOT!, but we'll get into why that isn't happening below.

Card #1 - D-Link WUA-2340 "RangeMAX" Wi-Fi Card
Chipset: Unknown (as verified by the ndiswrapper site, nobody even knows what chipset the card uses for sure, so reverse engineering a driver is out of the question.
Issue: while using ndiswrapper (all versions) with any 2.6 kernel (re: almost all distros except DSL) this card has constant lockups. Ubuntu keeps it running stable for about 2 hours, or until any system updates. After the system updates, I can't even modprobe ndiswrapper AND THEN insert the card to prevent a lockup (usually a surefire solution).  Also, I'm trying to avoid the 2.6 kernel if I can because I'm doing this on an older system and I want it to be as easy on the memory as possible.

Card #2 - D-Link WUA-1340 "RangeMAX" USB
Chipset: RaLink r60? r70? I forget which
Issue: Not a bad little card, but the internal antenna is weaker than shit. I have to practically be ON TOP of my AP, which makes it useless everywhere except for at work. Otherwise, I can just re-compile the driver and use it natively.

Card #3 - Buffalo WLI-U2-KG54-AI (aka: Nintendo Wi-Fi Adapter)
Chipset: RaLink rt2570
Issue: The 2.6 kernel dropped native support for this card and all rt2500 cards because of an issue stemming from DHCP-Host... I think. running DSL, after installing Windows driver via ndiswrapper, wlanconfig doesn't recognize hardware as present, even if it shows "hardware present" when query'ing ndiswrapper -l. This DOES have an open-source driver which could be installed on DSL's 2.4 kernel, except that the driver doesn't support SMP kernels, which DSL is. I don't know of any non-SMP kernels, even if I go up to the 2.6

My ideal solution: a lightweight distro, running either the 2.4 kernel or 2.6, preferably with either Xfce or stripped down KDE (though I'm fine with blackbox/fluxbox). If the rt2500 support isn't packaged with the distro, then It would have to be a non-smp kernel so I could repackage the driver OR have a wlanconfig that can be made to read from more than wlan0 as a device (the ralink cards are ralan0 or something like that).

Any ideas?

[Robert_]

AKA: My shitty wireless dilemma.

So I have three wireless cards that I'm trying to get to work on my laptop. I originally wanted to run Damn Small Linux - NOT!, but we'll get into why that isn't happening below.

Card #1 - D-Link WUA-2340 "RangeMAX" Wi-Fi Card
Chipset: Unknown (as verified by the ndiswrapper site, nobody even knows what chipset the card uses for sure, so reverse engineering a driver is out of the question.
Issue: while using ndiswrapper (all versions) with any 2.6 kernel (re: almost all distros except DSL) this card has constant lockups. Ubuntu keeps it running stable for about 2 hours, or until any system updates. After the system updates, I can't even modprobe ndiswrapper AND THEN insert the card to prevent a lockup (usually a surefire solution).  Also, I'm trying to avoid the 2.6 kernel if I can because I'm doing this on an older system and I want it to be as easy on the memory as possible.

Just from doing a bit of Googling. I found that this card is using the Atheros chipset.

[MattGSX]

No, it's using an "atheros?" chipset. Unless there's been some recent release stating that, it was always speculation, because the madwifi drivers should work for the card if it's a supported atheros chipset. But they don't.

I found a solution, btw. I just don't like it. I'm going back to Ubuntu 7.04 (more stable than 6.10 IMO) and re-compiling the rt2570 driver. If that doesn't work, then I'll just run it via ndiswrapper (I just didn't want to).

[trevelyn]

ndiswrapper blows.  And it blows bad.  why taint your *nix with an INF file?

try this http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=596797 for help.

and Gutsy is better than Feisty IMHO.

if you do use ndiswrapper here is the tutorial (like its hard in the first place) https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Device/D-Link_WUA-2340

i say try a lspci (list pci devices) or lspcmcia you should see something like:

trevelyn@celeritas:~$ lspci | grep Network
02:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5418 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

or something, then google "the name you see+linux" Ew, the nintendo card uses Ralink? try a serialmonkey driver and see if you can packetforge-ng with it.  Ralink cards are rausb0 kthx, and wlanconfig is for madwifi-ng.

dmesg should also help, try everything.  Are you gnu to linux? xfce is so 1999. and maybe try different live distros like Backtrack 3, warlinux, knoppixSTD, etc.. sometimes they have good driver support.  also, do modprobe -l to see what kernel modules you can set.

hope it helps.

trev.

[PHISH-PHREAK]

you make my pants tight.

[trevelyn]

your factorizer didn't do factor my expressions correctly.

[MattGSX]

Thanks trev.

The WUA-2340 kinda blows, so that was an "if I can't get my Ralink card working". I'm familiar with wireless networking, so it's not like I'm stupid. The 2340, however, uses a completely unsupported chipset, so the only choice is to run ndiswrapper for that card.

The WUA-1340 uses the... rt40 () driver, I think. It's definitely a Ralink. The problem is, though, that the 2.6x kernel dropped full support for that driver just like the rt2570 because the legacy drivers are made for non-SMP kernels and the beta drivers aren't yet stable enough to package with the new kernel for most distros.

And trev, I wanted to run xfce because, for major desktop environments, it and kde are much easier on the memory than GNOME(gde) is. I like fluxbox/blackbox, too, and I tried that as well. The notebook I'm doing this on is an HP Pavillion that's about 5-7 years old with a Celeron processor and 768(?)MB RAM. The mini-pci card was removed, as well. Because of this, I'm also giving preference to either systems still using a legacy kernel or systems that are more lightweight and have only basic productivity tools. I have enough RAM that I should be able to run most smaller/older distros completely in RAM and still feel like I have a decent machine.

I tried:
Ubuntu Hoary, Gutsy, Feisty, and Dapper (I can't find my Edgy CD). In Hoary/Gusty/Feisty, the system locks up using the WUA-2340 using the recommended version of ndiswrapper (suggested on the sourceforge site) compiling from source. Dapper sorta works, but I really don't like Dapper.
Now, Kubuntu and Xubuntu are both supposed to have support yet for the rt2570 driver (at least, they were supposed to for feisty and dapper), so I tried those. Xubuntu wouldn't even recognize a device was inserted (Ubuntu would, but it would keep searching for DHCP offers if I had it on and would just lock up if I used a static ip). Kubuntu Dapper kinda sux, and Kubuntu Gusty and Hoary both won't boot on my computer - the liveCD freezes about halfway through no matter what.

Damn Small Linux and Damn Small Linux - NOT. I'd LOVE these if I could get networking to work, but DSL is A) Still the 2.4 kernel (so I can't use beta drivers) and B) An SMP Kernel (so I can't use legacy drivers) for my two Ralink cards, and the packaged version of ndiswrapper doesn't recognize my windriver with my 2340. I'm running DSL off of a pendrive, and after an hdd install attempt, grub won't load and my machine just sits dead. I've tried it twice following both the official (in the bootup on the liveCD) and the wiki instructions to no avail.

Bonzai - LiveCD doesn't boot. Tried burning two different versions, each twice. None booted. Fuck that.

Gnewsense - a completely free system, it's basically just Ubuntu Dapper without any proprietary graphics, sound, or video drivers. It states in the release notes that the rt2570 driver is still supported, but the network config tool didn't recognize that I had the device inserted (though lsusb listed it), and I just got an error with wlan0 and rausb0.

Lame.

[trevelyn]

omg that sucks bad man.  sound like you should buy a better card.  hell i even got my broadcom chipset apple airport extreme card up and running fine in one of my desktops in no time.  do what ethermine does and go around to all the walmarts in your area and buy up all their usb/pcmcia cards.  take em into the parking lot and try them in your computer in your car, then if they dont just return them.  walmarts usually alwyas have WEP networks too, so you can even test if injection is supported.  I mean if you go anywhere else, like best buy or circuit city you might get stuck with a restocking fee er something.  iunno, i never tried that.  I just got lucky with my cards and got the right ones.      

[ataxicwolf]

that does suck. I was kind of in the same situation when I installed Fedora with my D-Link wireless adapter. After like, 6 weeks of setting up ndiswrapper, I realized that it slowed down my adapter to the point of it being unusable. Then I moved my computer to my basement where I wired an ethernet cable through the walls for a few hours and now I get flawless connection 

[trevelyn]

that does suck. I was kind of in the same situation when I installed Fedora with my D-Link wireless adapter. After like, 6 weeks of setting up ndiswrapper, I realized that it slowed down my adapter to the point of it being unusable. Then I moved my computer to my basement where I wired an ethernet cable through the walls for a few hours and now I get flawless connection 

HAHAHAHAHA LOLORTOFLROFL

[MattGSX]

So I went against trev's advice and installed ndiswrapper and using D-Link's new "stable" driver for the wua-2340 and got wireless and wpa supplicant. Using the rt2500 and rt2570 serialmonkey drivers, my card would not get recognized, even after following instructions on ubuntuforums.org. I think my card may actually be burned out (I got it used from a pawn shop)

I'm currently running Xubuntu and KDE 6.1 on a 2.4 non-smp kernel. It's the fastest this laptop has ever run. I love it.