[plug] ndiswrapper - debian

[raven at themaw.net]

On Sat, 9 Apr 2005, Onno Benschop wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm about to pull out all of my hair.
>
> I've been trying to make a Belkin Wireless Card work under Debian Woody.
>
> From google I've determined that I need the ndiswrapper.
>
> The error I get, regardless of what I try is:
>
> make -C driver
>
> make[1]: Entering directory 
> `/home/clients/mackenzie/wireless/ndiswrapper-1.1/driver'
>
> make -C /lib/modules/2.6.5-1-686/build 
> SUBDIRS=/home/clients/mackenzie/wireless/ndiswrapper-1.1/driver \
>
>       NDISWRAPPER_VERSION=1.1 \
>
>       EXTRA_VERSION= modules
>
> make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/kernels/kernel-source-2.4.27'
>
> make -C  /home/clients/mackenzie/wireless/ndiswrapper-1.1/driver 
> CFLAGS="-D__KERNEL__ -I/usr/src/kernels/kernel-source-2.4.27/include -Wall 
> -Wstrict-prototypes -Wno-trigraphs -O2 -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-common 
> -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -mpreferred-stack-boundary=2 -march=i586 -DMODULE 
> -DMODVERSIONS -include 
> /usr/src/kernels/kernel-source-2.4.27/include/linux/modversions.h" 
> MAKING_MODULES=1 modules
>
> make[3]: Entering directory 
> `/home/clients/mackenzie/wireless/ndiswrapper-1.1/driver'
>
> make[3]: *** No rule to make target `modules'.  Stop.
>
> make[3]: Leaving directory 
> `/home/clients/mackenzie/wireless/ndiswrapper-1.1/driver'
>
> make[2]: *** [_mod_/home/clients/mackenzie/wireless/ndiswrapper-1.1/driver] 
> Error 2
>
> make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/kernels/kernel-source-2.4.27'
>
> make[1]: *** [default] Error 2
>
> make[1]: Leaving directory 
> `/home/clients/mackenzie/wireless/ndiswrapper-1.1/driver'
>
> make: *** [all] Error 2
>
>
> Initially the machine had installed the current Woody 2.4 kernel, 2.4.18tsc. 
> I need to compile on my own workstation, because this machine is pretty 
> ancient - it's going to be a gateway. Things I've tried:
>
> 1. Compiling against the 2.4.18tsc headers
> 2. Compiling against the 2.4.18 source with the debian config-2.4.18tsc
> 3. Compiling against the 2.4.27 source
> 4. Compiling with gcc 2.95
> 5. Compiling with gcc 3.3
>
> The kernel on my own machine is 2.6.5-1-686, so I've made a symlink into what 
> ever source I'm compiling against from /lib/modules/2.6.5-1-686/build to the 
> current kernel source in /usr/src/kernels/kernel-source-2.4.27.
>
> Meanwhile while I've been doing this, I figured that the ndiswrapper item 
> that stated that I needed 2.4.26 or later wasn't kidding, so I've now 
> upgraded the gateway machine to Testing and is now running a Debian 2.4.27 
> kernel - self compiled, using the config from the 2.4.27 kernel image.
>
> I've googled until I'm blue in the face, spent two days on this and I'm still 
> no closer.
>
>
> Has anyone got any suggestions?

You must get a consistent and "configured" set of kernel headers for the 
kernel that is to be used.

You might like to look at this page to do this for Debian.
http://www.marlow.dk/site.php/tech/madwifi

It's not for the Belkin card but the procedure to configure the kernel 
headers should be the same.

Really the only way to do this realiably is to use the target machine. The 
kernel config setup described above is not to bad for low spec machines 
so that might be the way to go.

You problems may not end there either. I'm having trouble with ndiswrapper 
causing wpa_supplicant to segfault at startup right now.

Bummer.

Ian