# netgear ma521 pcmcia wireless network card help

## pasquale

I am a newbie when it comes to all the wireless networking stuff.

i have read most of the wireless networking threads, but they all work in different  directions and steps, so its hard to merge these into a working solution for my problem...

i have a netgear ma521 pcmcia card.  currently when i do cardctl ident i get socket 0:

no product info available

manfid: 0x0000, 0x0024c

function: 6 (network)

PCI id: 0x10ec, 0x8180

i have no idea if this is progress or regression in finding a solution.  nor do i now if i need wlan-ng or kernel pcmcia or pcmcia-cs or what modules to load or what drivers or what settings even i should use.

any help would be great as i only have 30 days to try it out before i can not return it anymore.

thanks again for any help whatsoever

Pasquale

UPDATE:

I got my card working using a mish-mosh of information from a linuxquestions.org thread on the wpc11 v4 wireless pc card.  they have the same realtek 8180 chipset, so here is i got the wlan working.

these are the steps i took in case it may help someone else in the future.

1. i downloaded the driver from realtek website. (v1.4)

2. i modified the Makefile to match my kernel.

3. compiled the driver.

4. insmod the driver, but it wouldnot detect my card when it was installed.

5. recompiled the kernel with the new driver installed.

6. rebooted.

7. card was finally detected.

8. ran lspci, cardctl ident, ifconfig, and dmesg to check out the information and nothing.

9. ran ./wlanup inra provided by the realtek people with the ssid2scan changed to my router information.

10. checked lspci, cardctl, dmesg, ifconfig again and had good results for card detection.

11. ran dhc<tab-completion> wlan0 and wala, my network was up connected to the router and with good speeds. sorry i don't remember which command it was either dhcpd or dhcpcd, but i used tab completion and am not in front of computer at the moment.

to get wep, all i need to do is switch the settings on my router, and change wlanup to reflect the new security information (keys, etc..)

good luck to those who have read this post if they were looking for answers.

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## KaterGonzo

Which kernel do you have? the realtek 8180 driver supports do not support the 2.6.* Kernel!

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## pasquale

I have the 2.4. something kernel, the one comes on the 1.4 live-cd version of gentoo..

I haven't made the switch to 2.6 since i have heard mixed reviews regarding speed.

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## pasquale

Hi everybody, glad to see people have viewed my post...

i have an update regarding the ma521, realtek 8180 driver and the 2.6.5-r1 kernel.  i recently upgraded the kernel to the latest gentoo-dev-sources kernel.

to get the card working i did the following:

1.  compile kernel using genkernel --gconfig all (turn on all relevant configurations)

2.  configure kernel in grub

3.  boot into 2.6.5-r1 linux kernel

4.  downloaded ndiswrapper 0.7 tarball since ebuilds wouldn't work

5.  followed ndiswrapper INSTALL instructions and performed make install

6.  downloaded the realtek8180 windows driver from their website

7.  ran ndiswrapper -i NET8180.INF

8.  ran modprobe ndiswrapper

9.  ran dhcpcd ndiswrapper and woala, the card worked and i was online just like that.

a perk, the connection seems faster than with my 2.4 kernel setup.  plus ACPI battery monitors work, my sandisk usbkey works, and the desktop with preemptive kernel feels much faster and hasn't locked up on heavy loads like the 2.4 kernel.

all in all i am very satisfied with the 2.6 kernel and gentoo for making all this possible with such few commands.

i hope this helps everyone out as i have learned so much from the forums.

 :Cool: 

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## Cursim

I am also having this problem...  I'll try out these instructions and let you know how it comes out... running 2.6.5 kernel

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## pasquale

Good luck,

if there is any other information you need or a problem you run into that i may be able to help with, let me know  :Cool: 

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## Cursim

What happens if you need to configure the card manually, ie without DHCP? I'm at work right now and the laptop with Gentoo on it is at home so I can't try until tonight, but i'm wondering what I would do after the modprobe ndiswrapper...

Thanks!

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## pasquale

check out this thread:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=125627&highlight=ndiswrapper

also, you might want to check out 

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=3

part of the handbook on dhcpcd and manual ip configuration, i.e.

it consists of using iwconfig, ifconfig, and route...

i hope this helps if your not going to use dhcpcd.  i have used this feature on my wired ethernet at work before and the ifconfig route stuff works fine.  the only difference will be after you setup wlan0 using iwconfig, you configure ifconfig and route for wlan0 instead of eth0.

i hope this helps,

if not let me know.  i don't have a continuous connection at work, so my time to post is limited.  :Cool: 

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## Cursim

Thats cool, I'll try that out. iwconfig isn't in the portage tree.. do I have to download it and compile+install manually?

Thanks!

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## pasquale

i believe its under 

emerge wireless-tools

or 

emerge linux-wlan-ng

i can't remember which as when i was setting this up under the 2.4.20-gentoo-r6 kernel i had emerged both and the command was there.

i checked the forums and i think it was under linux-wlan-ng, but i think they restructured lately and the command is different.

but i haven't looked into it at any depth, so it won't hurt to emerge both and see if its there.

hope this helps

if not, you can always search the forums for iwconfig, wlan0, wireless configuration, ma521, linksys wpc11v4, realtek8180.  any of those search terms should bring up a few threads that might provide more help than me.

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