Wireless can be challenging or easy to set up depending on your hardware. A big problem is that cards may have the same name, but have different chips depending on what Revision number they are. For example there have been at least 3 different chips used in the D-Link DWL-520. Rev A and B use Orinoco and therefore have the modules in the kernel. The Belkin Wireless G Desktop Card was Ralink RT2500, but then was changed to Atheros. Generally the chipset is not listed on the box; so you have to look at the Revision and then search to find out what the chip is and if it will be compatible with Linux.

Check for compatibility of various wireless cards here: http://linux-wless.passys.nl/

lspci lists your pci hardware. lsusb does the same for usb hardware. Run one of these and look for your wireless adapter. On my laptop I see this:

04:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)

With this information, you can look in the wireless database above to see if the card is supported and what the driver is. There are also links to more information on what you must do to install the driver if it is not a module that comes with your kernel. If it does have a module installed with your kernel, you probably will not be here looking for information, because your card will already be working.

lsmod | less will show which modules are loaded. less will show it in pages. ipw3945 shows up on my laptop.

After a fresh install of Ubuntu, your wireless may not be working only because the linux-restricted-modules package for your kernel is not installed. The solution in that case is to install that package. Atheros chips are included with that package. Install using synaptic. Search for linux-restricted-modules and select the one with the number that matches your running kernel. You can check the number on your kernel by typing ‘uname -r’ in a terminal.

If you don’t find your card listed as supported in the Wireless Database, check out the ndiswrapper “List of cards known to work” and “Installation Instructions” here: http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/joomla/index.php?/component/option,com_openwiki/Itemid,33/

Check with your package manager to see if ndiswrapper is installed. If not, install it.

Obtain the Windows driver for your card. You can try the .inf file that is included in the Windows drivers that usually comes with the card, or locate the driver on the above card list and download it. The Installation Instructions on the ndiswrapper site include how to get the drivers from .cab files or .exe files.

After you have located the Windows driver copy that folder to your Linux system (in your home is fine). Install it with ndiswrapper as follows. In a Terminal:

1. Change directory (cd) to the folder where the .inf file is
2. Become root in the terminal with one of the two commands depending on your distro
   • su -
   • sudo su -
3. Install the driver for the wireless:
   • ndiswrapper -i name-of-driver.inf
4. Confirm it is installed:
   • ndiswrapper -l
5. Configure module to automatically load on reboot:
   • ndiswrapper -m
6. Load it now instead of waiting to reboot:
   • modprobe ndiswrapper

You may see the icon for Network Manager in your icon tray. Packages for this are network-manager-gnome (Gnome) or knetworkmanager (KDE). This is a very nice tool that should show you the available wifi in your area. Select the one you want and connect.

Another tool is wifi-radar.

Quick Wireless HowTo - This link seems broken. Will check back on it. — Anita Lewis 2008/04/08 18:40