HOWTO: WG111T and Other Wireless Cards with NDISwrapper...

[icanfly0307]

Hi,
I noticed that a lot of people were having problems getting certain wireless cards and USB sticks working with openSUSE. I had these problems way back in January so I got rid of openSUSE because I couldn't get my WG111T to work. However, I reinstalled openSUSE yesterday and figured out how to get my wireless working. Here's how:

1. Open up GNOME Terminal or Konsole and type: sudo zypper install kernel-default. This will install a default kernel other than the regular PAE kernel.

2. Reboot and you should have an extra kernel entry like "openSUSE 11.1 -- kernel_version (default). Highlight it and press enter. Login and open up a terminal again.

3. Type sudo zypper install kernel-source gcc. This will get the necessary tools to build ndiswrapper against your new kernel.

4. After the installation is complete, get the ndiswrapper tarball from it's sourceforge website. I recommend getting 1.54 (the latest version) because it works flawlessly while compiling. Extract the tarball to a temporary location.

5. Open a terminal again and go to the ndiswrapper directory where you extracted the tarball. Type make. This will compile ndiswrapper. After you get dropped back to "username@hostname:-", type "make install". This will install ndiswrapper.

6. Login as root by typing "su -". Enter your password. Type ndiswrapper. If you get the program's options list, ndiswrapper has been successfully installed.

7. Get your wireless card's drivers from a CD or online. You need the files that end in .inf.

8. Plug in your wireless card and type: "ndiswrapper -i drivername.inf". This instals the driver for your wireless card. Check to make sure that it has really been installed by typing: "ndiswrapper -l". It should show up with something like:

driver netwg11t.inf installed
<device present 123:344>

9. Type: "ndiswrapper -m".

10. Type: "modprobe ndiswrapper". This should activate your wireless card. You will see it's light come on (if any). You can now configure your wireless card the normal way with YaST or with NetworkManager.


Hope this helps someone....