To Compile ndiswrapper 1.58rc1 for Linux 3.5.4

ndiswrapper allows Linux users to use Windows drivers for PCI/USB network adapters on Linux. If you own a network device for which Linux support is still absent or premature, then you need to compile ndiswrapper yourself and install Windows driver for your network device. Fortunately, today's Linux supports most network devices out-of-box, so most distributions don't bother to include ndiswrapper. However, I am compiling ndiswrapper believing that Windows NDIS drivers would outperform native Linux drivers.

To my surprise, building the latest version of ndiswrapper (1.58rc1) did not require any patch. After compiling Linux 3.5.4, I downloaded the ndiswrapper source from the sourceforge site. I chose the testing version because I thought it would work better with Linux 3.5.x. I unpacked the source.

tar xzvf ndiswrapper-1.58rc1.tar.gz
cd ndiswrapper-1.58rc1

I typed the following commands to compile and install ndiswrapper.

KVERS=3.5.4 make uninstall
KVERS=3.5.4 make
KVERS=3.5.4 make install

Then, I generated modules.* files again.

depmod -e -m -F /boot/System.map-3.5.4 3.5.4

The following files were installed by ndiswrapper.

/lib/modules/3.5.4/misc/ndiswrapper.ko
/sbin/loadndisdriver
/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper
/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper-buginfo
/usr/share/man/man8/loadndisdriver.8
/usr/share/man/man8/ndiswrapper.8

Also read:

• Linux: Installing Windows Vista/7 Wireless Driver for use with ndiswrapper
  
• Linux: To Compile wpa_supplicant on Debian 3.1 Sarge
  

Linux: To Compile wpa_supplicant on Debian 3.1 Sarge

I was using good old Debian Linux 3.1 Sarge when I found out Sarge's wpasupplicant couldn't work well with ndiswrapper-supported Windows network drivers. So I set out to compile wpa_supplicant on my own. First, I installed the following development packages.

• gcc-3.4
  
• libssl0.9.7
  
• make
  

Then, I downloaded the wpa_supplicant source (wpa_supplicant-0.6.9.tar.gz) from http://hostap.epitest.fi/wpa_supplicant. I unpacked the source and read the README files.

tar xzvf wpa_supplicant-0.6.9.tar.gz
cd wpa_supplicant-0.6.9/wpa_supplicant

I went into the wpa_supplicant subfolder and created .config to customize my build. The following is the contents of my .config:

CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXTENSION=y
CONFIG_DRIVER_HOSTAP=y
CONFIG_DRIVER_ATMEL=y
CONFIG_DRIVER_WEXT=y
CONFIG_DRIVER_RALINK=y
CONFIG_DRIVER_NDISWRAPPER=y
CONFIG_DRIVER_IPW=y
CONFIG_IEEE8021X_EAPOL=y
CONFIG_EAP_MD5=y
CONFIG_EAP_MSCHAPV2=y
CONFIG_EAP_TLS=y
CONFIG_EAP_PEAP=y
CONFIG_EAP_TTLS=y
CONFIG_EAP_GTC=y
CONFIG_EAP_OTP=y
CONFIG_EAP_SIM=y
CONFIG_EAP_AKA=y
CONFIG_EAP_PSK=y
CONFIG_EAP_SAKE=y
CONFIG_EAP_GPSK=y
CONFIG_EAP_PAX=y
CONFIG_EAP_LEAP=y
CONFIG_EAP_IKEV2=y
CONFIG_EAP=y
CONFIG_WPS=y

Then, I began compilation by running make.

make

The compilation was successful. I installed wpa_supplicant with the following command.

make install

The following files are copied to the system.

/usr/local/sbin/wpa_supplicant
/usr/local/sbin/wpa_passphrase
/usr/local/sbin/wpa_cli

Linux: Atheros AR9285 Driver for Toshiba NB205

My Toshiba netbook NB205 was pre-installed with Windows XP. After extensive manipulation of partitions, the original Windows XP installation was gone. I booted my old Linux from a USB thumb drive but couldn't go online for lack of a Linux driver for the built-in Atheros AR9285 wireless card. So I looked for the AR9285 Windows driver because my Linux kernel has ndiswrapper support. I found a working driver (x600_wlan785_x_nb.zip) at the MSI support site.

• x600_wlan785_x_nb.zip
  
• x600_wlan785_x_nb.zip

After I downloaded x600_wlan785_x_nb.zip, I unzipped it. A new directory XP_7.7.0.348_20090701 is created.

unzip x600_wlan785_x_nb.zip

There you'll find two drivers, athw.sys and athwx.sys. Go to the ndis5x directory.

cd XP_7.7.0.348_20090701/ndis5x/

Install the Windows driver to be used with ndiswrapper.

ndiswrapper -i netathw.inf

The ndiswrapper tool will copy the Windows driver to a folder in /etc/ndiswrapper. To check your ndiswrapper installation, run the following command:

ndiswrapper -l

If you haven't, load the ndiswrapper kernel module.

modprobe ndiswrapper

Then, use your favorite Wireless configuration tool to connect to your wireless network.