20 replies to this topic

[Siguy]

I just installed Ubuntu 8.04 to play around with it. But I haven't been able to access the internet yet. My computer connects to the internet via a Netgear WG111T wireless adapter, but I don't know how to operate it while running Ubuntu. Is it possible to enable my USB wireless adapter under a different OS than Windows, and how?

[Alestance]

You need the Windows driver (netwg11t.inf) and NDIS Wrapper, according to the official Ubuntu Community Docs, the specific piece of hardware has no open source drivers.

You can get NDIS Wrapper from the official repositories via windows from here

Hope this helps.

[Siguy]

Well, I actually just downloaded a later version from the NDISwrapper site, but I'm lost at "tar.gz". I really have no experience installing stuff like this.

[Alestance]

thats probably in source. Its gunzipped, and inside it probably has the source files, which I'm not familiar with the build commands.

[Siguy]

So what do I do with it? Cut and paste into C:/ubuntu/(something)? Or download a program to unzip it?

[Alestance]

Leave it in a place you could remember, and then log into Ubuntu and take it off the Windows partition if you're allowed to, then you should be able to extract the source files. From then on, I can't help you.

[Eurysilas]

Couldn't you just snag NDIS from the official repos and have it install for you? Or am I missing something here?

[Siguy]

What if I copied the files to a CD-RW, then loaded them under ubuntu?

[sigtau]

Alright, let's get one thing straight. Linux is NOT Windows, and therefore it's NOT a click-happy OS. Expect the command line to be used a lot if you're into getting hardware drivers right. There's no such thing as "copy it into this" or "use the installer file" because no such file exists.

Siguy, what you're going to want to do is download it into some directory, say...

/home/siguy/downloads

...Your goal is to install it. Here's what you do. Go into the Terminal (which, in Ubuntu, should be under Applications > Accessories > Terminal or something like that), and type

cd ~/downloads

...Replace the word "downloads" with your "downloads" directory. Don't touch the ~/ because it basically means "home directory" to Linux. Now, you'll want to type this:

tar xzf ndiswrapper.tar.gz

Replace "ndiswrapper.tar.gz" with the actual filename of the source package you downloaded. If you can't figure it out, type "n" and press [Tab] to cycle through the list of files starting with "n."

Now you'll need to type this:

cd ndiswrapper

Once again, replace "ndiswrapper" with the filename--BUT--you should make sure you don't include the .tar.gz at the end--this is a new directory and you just extracted something like a .zip file.

Now you'll need to type this:

./configure

If that doesn't work, try

./config

and if that doesn't work, try those two again, but capitalizing the "C" in configure and config.

When that's all said and done, type this:

make

And finally, when that's finished, type this to finish it off. This is where it "installs" it automatically for you--and you should be good to go.

make install

And that's how you build a software package from source in Linux.

Hope that helps!

[Saffith]

It should be available precompiled on the Ubuntu disc.
Go to System->Administration->Software Sources and make sure the disc is checked. If it wasn't already, you'll have to run sudo apt-cdrom add before it can be used.
After that, you can install it from Add/Remove. It should be listed as "Windows Wireless Drivers" (You can also install it from the terminal or System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager, if you prefer; the package name is ndisgtk).

Or you could also just go to /media/cdrom0/pool/main/n/ndisgtk and open the .deb file there.

[Siguy]

Actually I already managed to install it by using the .deb file of the other version. But I can't figure out how to get it to use my driver yet.

[Alestance]

There should be a graphical interface but I can't seem to find it.

Edited by Alestance, 09 August 2008 - 03:01 PM.

[Saffith]

I haven't actually done any of this myself, but this seems to be the way to do it...

Start Ubuntu with the adapter unplugged. Go to System->Administration->Window Wireless Drivers (if it's not there, be sure the package ndisgtk is installed). Click "Install New Drivers" and find netwg11t.inf; it should be in the DIS5 directory on the driver disc. Open it and click "Install." Now, when you plug in the adapter, it should just work.
To be sure it still works after you restart, open a terminal and run sudo gedit /etc/rc.local and add these lines above "exit 0":
modprobe -r ndiswrapper
modprobe ndiswrapper

[Siguy]

Ndisgtk? Where do I get that?

[Eurysilas]

Siguy, do you know how to install packages on Ubuntu? I ask out of interest of helping you.