NetGear N300 Wireless Mini USB (WNA3100M) Problems

[DHeadshot]

I bought a NetGear N300 WiFi dongle for a laptop that doesn't have WiFi built in, running TinyCore 6.4 (I think?  Definitely 6.something).  I bought this exact model because it was listed in the Wiki as being supported, yet I can't get it to work.  I've managed to get hold of what I think are the Windows drivers (by installing it on a Windows machine and copying the package it stuck in Program Files) and I used ndiswrapper to install them, then made a tcz of the files it put in /etc/ndiswrapper and installed that (once I realised /etc/ndiswrapper wasn't persistent), however, iwconfig still says "no wireless extensions" and ifconfig only shows the loopback.  ndiswrapper -l gives a modprobe complaint (it seems to call modprobe with a non-existent option of 'c') but it says that the driver is installed and the "device (8046:9021) [is] present".  lsusb reports that it uses a Realtek RTL8192CU chip, but when I do modprobe -l, no reference to this chip appears, suggesting that it's not actually supported!  Here (http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,12910.msg72161.html#msg72161), Coreplayer2 reports how they got it working using ndiswrapper, but that doesn't seem to have worked for me.  The driver that I'm using is called "netrtwlanu.inf" - the installer didn't provide the "netwna3100m" driver that Coreplayer apparently used and the Realtek website doesn't seem to offer drivers anymore.

Can anyone help with this?  I'm pretty much out of ideas myself, apart from PMing Coreplayer directly (I thought this would get a better response though).  Thanks in advance.

[Juanito]

to use ndiswrapper you need both the windows *sys and *inf files

[DHeadshot]

Thanks for the quick reply.  The files I have been using are: netrtwlanu.cat, netrtwlanu.inf, oem37.inf, rtlCoInst.dat, rtlCoInst.dll and rtwlanu.sys.  As you can see, this includes the .sys file.

[Juanito]

did you blacklist various kernel drivers as per the ndiswrapper info file?

Note also that you may have to try several different sets of windows drivers before you find one that works.

[DHeadshot]

OK, I tried the XP driver from http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/NETWORK-CARD/REALTEK/Realtek-RTL8192CU-WLAN-Adapter-Driver-1021309122012.shtml, but found it didn't support the device ID that the WNA3100M uses (0846:9021), so I reverted to my original driver and added the bootcodes "blacklist=ssb blacklist=b43 blacklist=bcma" and rebooted.  No change - driver is installed and device is present (so says ndiswrapper -l) but nothing in iwconfig, ifconfig, wifi.sh, etc.  What am I missing?

[Misalf]

ndiswrapper -l gives a modprobe complaint (it seems to call modprobe with a non-existent option of 'c')

Have you tried installing  module-init-tools.tcz ?

[DHeadshot]

Have you tried installing  module-init-tools.tcz ?

If it wan't included in the CorePlus distribution, then no, I haven't tried installing that.  I'm having to download each extension from the mirror separately on another machine and transfer it via USB stick because without WiFi, the laptop has no internet (certainly, I haven't got anything to register ethernet-wise, but there might not be a card behind that socket as it didn't seem to work under Windows either).

I'm packing up for the day now it's gone 5pm, but I'll be trying again next week if I have chance.

[labeas]

> I bought a NetGear N300 WiFi dongle for a laptop
What does a WiFi USB-dongle cost ?.
I'd like to make my RPi also WiFi-able.

>I'm having to download each extension from the mirror.
> separately on another machine ...

Just a word of encouragement.
I had the same problem: fetching the files via M$/Win8.1 for the TC64
installation, which has now become my main system, thanks to help from
the TC-team members.

[Rich]

Hi DHeadshot

... the laptop has no internet (certainly, I haven't got anything to register ethernet-wise, but there might not be a card behind that socket as it didn't seem to work under Windows either).

Maybe the wired Ethernet hardware is disabled. I had a Dell Inspiron that allowed you to disable various functions through
the BIOS. Also, run this command:

Code: [Select]

dmesg > dmesg.txtThen attach the  dmesg.txt  file in your next post.

[coreplayer2]

OK, I tried the XP driver from http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/NETWORK-CARD/REALTEK/Realtek-RTL8192CU-WLAN-Adapter-Driver-1021309122012.shtml, but found it didn't support the device ID that the WNA3100M uses (0846:9021), so I reverted to my original driver and added the bootcodes "blacklist=ssb blacklist=b43 blacklist=bcma" and rebooted.  No change - driver is installed and device is present (so says ndiswrapper -l) but nothing in iwconfig, ifconfig, wifi.sh, etc.  What am I missing?

Are you sure these blacklisted modules are the correct modules for a RTL8192CU device??

Code: [Select]

blacklist=ssb
blacklist=b43
blacklist=bcma
In TC-7.x the correct driver and firmware for this hardware will be supported by rtlwifi  (But I haven't tested this in later TC versions yet)  The hardware might even be supported OOB in TC-8.x ??  Might be worth a try