Linksys WMP54GS and Gentoo 2004.3 Stage1

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I am compiling my fourth Gentoo OS and I have run into a serious problem. I need drivers/firmware for my wireless network card that will work flawlessly with my distro - which is based on Linux kernel 2.6.x

Your help is greatly appreciated.
 
If the issue was that simple I would not have created this thread. Linksys does not provide linux drivers for their products as of yet. They do offer source code released under the GPL for some of their drivers and firmware. Unfortunately, my card, nor its laptop counterpart, are not available. Therefore, I am seeking a third party linux driver which will work flawlessly with my wireless card and my new OS. I am also aware that there are many projects who claim that they work with all the popular wireless cards but that is not the case. In reality, I would have to spend days debugging and recompiling to get them to recognize my card for what it is and to install; in the end, after compiling KDE and all my server apps, it will have all sorts of run-time issues and thus will be useless.

There is a module that will allow me to port the windows drivers into the linux kernel but there are some issues with the security and reliability of this "solution". As I am interested in setting up cluster of workstations on a wireless-G infrastructure with the ability to run them as a distributed computing unit, security and reliability are very important.

My need for the "perfect" linux driver for my WMP54GS is even more dire as I have allready replaced all of the firmware on my router, the WRT54GS, with fully customized linux-based firmware.

Again, all help in aquiring a solid, flawless, linux driver for the Linksys WMP54GS is greatly appreciated.
 
Oh Linux. Sorry I'm a Windows guy.

I searched around for yah, and read up a bit on that module that you spoke of. The one I know of is called "ndiswrapper". That sounds like your best bet if you want to get it working. The process that you have to do doesn't look like it should take days or more than a day to get working correctly.

I have found the process in google, which you may have already found, but I'll post it here anyways just in case.
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download the windows drivers. Extract them to c:\temp\linksys
- Now burn them or put them on a media or somthing so you can transfer these files over to linux (note: linux wont beable to extract the exe file)
- Download ndiswrapper for linux located at http://sourceforge.net/project/show...?group_id=93482
- Now make sure you have all the development tools installed.
- Now download dhcpcd from http://www.phystech.com/ftp/dhcpcd-1.3.22-pl4.tar.gz
- log into your linux box as root
- Now make make sure all the files (*gz files, and linksys driver files) are in the root partition on the linux machine (/root/wireless_driver) if "wireless_driver" is not there make the directory (which u will have to do) "mkdir /root/wireless_driver"
- now at the command prompt (terminal) go into the "wireless_driver" directory "cd /root/wireless_driver"
- now type "tar xvfpz ndiswrapper-0.12.tar.gz"
- "cd ndiswrapper-0.12"
- "make install"
- "cd .."
- "tar xvfpz dhcpcd-1.3.22-pl4.tar.gz"
- "cd dhcpcd-1.3.22"
- "./configure"
- "make && make install"
- "cd .."
- "source /etc/profile" (note: you might want to edit root's .bashrc and add source /etc/profile there, some how fc3 doesnt have root source /etc/profile for some reason)
- "cd /root/wireless_driver/WMP54GS_20040423/Drivers"
- "ndiswrapper -i BCMWL5.inf"
- "ls /etc/ndiswrapper/bcmwl5" u should get a list of alot file in here
- "modprobe ndiswrapper"
- "dmesg wlan0" show see wlan0 if its there your good if not then somthings wrong - please post everything thats comes out of dmesg "dmesg > demout"
- now for a little script open your favorite text editor and copy the following code:

#Sample ndiswrapper script - By: Derrick Rose

#Load ndiswrapper module
echo "Starting Ndiswrapper Driver..."
/sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper

#Setup Essid
echo "Setting up ESSID..."
iwconfig wlan0 essid "your essid here"

#Setup WEP Key if you have one
#Uncomment below for WEP
#echo "Setting up KEY..."
#iwconfig wlan0 yourkeyhere

#Setting up DHCP on wlan0
echo "Starting DHCP on wlan0 [ 10 sec timeout ]"
dhcpcd -t 10 wlan0


- the script above will setup your wireless card for. Now save this to a file in roots directory (/root) called wireless
- "chmod +x wireless"
- to run manually type "./wireless" as root
- If you want to automaticly load on startup do the following
- "cat wireless >> /etc/rc.d/rc.local"
 
LOL, thanks. Unfortunately that is a quick solution to a problem which I wish I had. My problem is different in the respect that I must compile my linux system with the proper and working driver embedded into the kernel. Even though it is possible to recompile my kernel after initially compiling the entire OS; this still does not help me as all the source needed to compile my OS is on the net and therefore I must access the net during the initial compile of the OS onto the new, and blank, HDD. Furthermore, ndiswrapper has problems runtime issues with the linksys drivers. The script you pasted is uselfull indeed, but usefull for another task. The problem with ndiswrapper and the linksys drivers is first that ndiswrapper does not support SPEEDBOOSTER which means that, since my router does, it will drop the connection to the router frequently and periodically. Second, ndiswrapper will only allow me to use the linksys driver's encryption, namely 128-bit WEP; but my router only uses 256-bit WEP. I can set my router to designate a channel as an open channel and use that to connect to the internet, but I will not be able to connect to the intranet, for obvious security issues. And, at that point, there is no point to wireless on that computer anymore.

Thanks for looking that up tho :)
 
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