Wireless on a D600 (7.04 Alt CD)

I have the command-line-only install of 7.04

im trying to get my wireless to work

info:

1) i installed NDISWRAPPER
apt-get install ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 ndisgtk

2) lspci
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5705M Gigabit Ethernet (rev 01)
02:03.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter (rev 04)
--I WENT WITH THE WIRELESS--

3) lspci -n
02:00.0 0200: 14e4:165d (rev 01)
02:03.0 0280: 8086:1043 (rev 04)

4) x-ref to find proper drivers
# Chipset: Intel PRO/Wireless Lan 2100 3B
# pciid: 8086:1043
# Driver: w70n51.inf

5) download driver exe from support.dell.com
Release Title:	Network: Intel (R) Pro/Wireless 2100 LAN miniPCI Adapter, Driver, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Multi Language, Multi System, v.1.2.4.35, 7.1.4.4, A21
Release Date:	7/27/2005
Criticality:	Optional
Description:	Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3A Mini-PCI Adapter Customer Installer Package

5a) unpack...i get 3 files
-w70n5.sys
-w70n51.sys
-w70n501.inf

6) install driver
ndiswrapper -i w70n501.inf

7) ndiswrapper -l
w70n501 : driver installed
        device (8086:1043) present (alternate driver: ipw2200)

8) load driver
depmod -a
modprobe ndiswrapper

9) tail /var/log/messages
--no messages related to anything im doing--

10) ifconfig and iwconfig
NEITHER SHOW WLAN0

however under iwconfig i get:

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 unassociated ESSID:off/any Nickname:"ipw2100" Mode:Managed Channel=0 Access Point: Not-Associated Bit Rate=0 kb/s Tx-Power:16 dBm Retry limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Encryption key:off Power Management:off Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0 Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

is eth1 valid??? if so how can i edit the encryption settings?

what am i doing wrong???

i followed this: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/Ndiswrapper

and x-ref'd with: http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/joomla/index.php?/component/option,com_openwiki/Itemid,33/id,list/

any ideas?

so after some more reading i figured that maybe i need to use the broadcom driver instead of the one im using... so i uninstalled the intel one:

ndiswrapper -r w70n501

and installed the XP drivers

the log file now reads: Jun 7 21:41:58 ICBA kernel: [ 134.820000] ndiswrapper version 1.38 loaded (preempt=no,smp=yes) Jun 7 21:41:58 ICBA kernel: [ 134.856000] usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper

but when i do a iwconfig i get the same stuff eth1 unassociated ESSID:off/any Nickname:"ipw2100" Mode:Managed Channel=0 Access Point: Not-Associated Bit Rate=0 kb/s Tx-Power:16 dBm Retry limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Encryption key:off Power Management:off Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0 Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

annnnnnnnnnnyone?

p.s. i did blacklist the standard driver

so i wussed out and installed KDE... it sees my wireless just fine... howeve ri cannot connect to my WAP network nor ANY network in my building... help!

If you are referring to WPA network, then it is possibly because the current network manager is unable to do dual layer authentication on wpa-eas type networks. However, those kinds of networks are not that common and usually you know if you have that kind of network because they are deffinatly a standard type of protection on a wireless network. Might I inquire as to why you went with KDE and not Gnome, I find KDE to be a little more system heavey then Gnome and it sounds like you are trying to keep your system from getting to bogged down with a window manager, correct me if I am wrong though.

well i got WPA to work... i had to reboot (odd)... i went with KDE b/c idk... im not a x-windows kinda person so ive never experienced one that really grabbed my attention... i just wanted to see if the GUI would make this wireless work...

and now it does...

begs the question... if i uninstall the desktop, will my wireless still work???

what desktop does DSL use (damn small linux)