Can not get wireless card to even show up

[pytheas22]

Lamp: like others, you may have more success by installing Ubuntu 8.10. The official stable release is tomorrow; check ubuntu.com. That might be the simplest solution.

If you can't or don't want to install 8.10, I'm still happy to help; please post the output of:

lshw -C Network
uname -m
lspci -nn
lsusb

Also, you may want to try connecting using wicd instead of Network Manager. Installation instructions are on wicd's site.

Finally, to clear things up: do you have two wireless cards that you're trying to get working--one with an Intel 3945 chipset and the other one with some kind of Atheros chip? And do you have any idea what the network interface named 'ham0' is? I've never seen an interface named ham before...

[spwn3d]

Still lack of card detection.

*I have a W500 Thinkpad its got the 5300 AGN card, lspci -nn:

Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation Unknown device [8086:2a44] (rev 07)
Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Coporation Unknown device [8086:10f5] (rev 03)
Network controller [0580]: Intel Corporation Unknown device [8086:4236]

I've completed each step, during the sudo make load each of the files are loaded except iwl4965 which i believe is what i need

...
Loading rtl8180...
Loading rtl8187...
Loading p54pci...
Loading p54usb...
Loading iwl3945...
Loading iwl4965...
FATAL: Module iwl4965 not found.
Loading rtl8180...
Loading rtl8187...
...

Everything else is successful, in the compat-wireless folder i have the following files so none should be missing: iwl-4965.c, iwl-tx.c, iwl-4965-hw.h, iwl-dev.h, iwl-commands.h, iwl-eeprom.h. all coming from \drivers\net\wireless. Any ideas?

Thanks.

Oh also, the driver is supported by Intel it's supposed to be built into the kernel as I have Kernel 2.6.27.4 here is their note:

*After 2.6.26 the intree driver iwlagn also supports the new 5100BG, 5100ABG, 5100AGN, 5300AGN and 5350AGN series hardwares.

[tamias]

I found that my wireless card (and sound card) drivers had been removed during the upgrade to Intrepid. Installing the linux-generic package solved this for me.

[spwn3d]

I found that my wireless card (and sound card) drivers had been removed during the upgrade to Intrepid. Installing the linux-generic package solved this for me.

Interesting, any idea what's in the linux-generic package that made it work? I want to try and get the wifi card working on an additional computer - same problem, it has Ubuntu, Vista and Backtrack installed, I was trying to get Backtrack to run them.

[pytheas22]

spwn3d: iwl4965 has been replaced by iwlagn in Intrepid. Is your wireless card being claimed by iwlagn? What is the output of:

lshw -C Network
sudo modprobe iwlagn
dmesg | grep -e iwl -e wlan
modinfo iwlagn

[spwn3d]

modinfo iwlagn
modinfo: could not find module iwlagn

dmesg | grep -e iwl -e wlan:

iwl3945: Intel(r) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG/BG Network Connection driver for Linux, 1.2.25k
iwl3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2008 Intel Corporation
usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_wlan
usbcore: deregistering interface driver rndis_wlan
iwl3945: Intel(r) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG/BG Network Connection driver for Linux, 1.2.25k
iwl3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2008 Intel Corporation
usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_wlan
usbcore: deregistering interface driver rndis_wlan
iwl3945: Intel(r) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG/BG Network Connection driver for Linux, 1.2.25k
iwl3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2008 Intel Corporation
usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_wlan
usbcore: deregistering interface driver rndis_wlan
iwl3945: Intel(r) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG/BG Network Connection driver for Linux, 1.2.25k
iwl3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2008 Intel Corporation
usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_wlan
usbcore: deregistering interface driver rndis_wlan
iwl3945: Intel(r) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG/BG Network Connection driver for Linux, 1.2.25k
iwl3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2008 Intel Corporation
usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_wlan

modinfo iwlagn:
modinfo: could not find module iwlagn (but this distro isn't ubuntu it's backtrack I just was having the same problem in ubuntu before figured someone here might be able to help me fig. this one out. I was about to give up since i've exhausted all my knowledge

[pytheas22]

Yes, it appears that neither iwlagn nor iwl4965 exist on your system. You need one of these drivers (preferably iwlagn) to get your wireless card to work.

I've never really used Backtrack, so I can't help you much there. On a standard 2.6.27 Linux kernel, iwlagn should be included by default in the compat-wireless stack, I think, but I don't know what Backtrack does; they probably screw around with their wireless drivers a lot and deviate from the stock kernel. After all, Backtrack is made more for specific tasks (including wireless sniffing and cracking, which in many cases requires hacked-up wireless drivers that aren't included in the default kernel) and is not really a general-purpose desktop distribution.

I am positive that on Ubuntu 8.10 (but not earlier), iwlagn is included by default. If you use 8.10, your card should work out-of-the-box.

It should also be possible to install iwlagn manually by downloading the compat-wireless source and compiling it, although again, I'm not sure what things the Backtrack developers do in hacking up their kernels, so I can't guarantee that the standard compat-wireless will compile in Backtrack. It definitely compiles on Ubuntu 8.04 (using compat-wireless-old) and 8.10 (using just compat-wireless-2.6), however.

So I would recommend that you give Ubuntu 8.10 a shot. If things don't 'just work' there, you can compile compat-wireless from source. If you need specific instructions on doing that, let me know.

[spwn3d]

First off, thanks for your insight.

Yes you are correct it does work natively in Ubuntu, I have a tri-boot of vista, backtrack and ubuntu right now. Backtrack uses an older kernel, which i installed the compat-wireless-old drivers for but that didn't work out to well, instead I ended up updating to the latest linux kernel and manually installing but that one driver errors of course all the rest work, just as my post at the top says:

Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation Unknown device [8086:2a44] (rev 07)
Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Coporation Unknown device [8086:10f5] (rev 03)
Network controller [0580]: Intel Corporation Unknown device [8086:4236]

I've completed each step, during the sudo make load each of the files are loaded except iwl4965 which i believe is what i need

...
Loading rtl8180...
Loading rtl8187...
Loading p54pci...
Loading p54usb...
Loading iwl3945...
Loading iwl4965...
FATAL: Module iwl4965 not found.
Loading rtl8180...
Loading rtl8187...
...
any idea why that one module would fail during the install. Basically i've already done what you said might work, updating the kernel and manually installing, I thought everything was going to work but that one module failed. any ideas on a fix for that? i've also tried a couple patch files each time same outcome.

[pytheas22]

It's strange that it's not building iwlagn or iwl4965 for you. Unless the compat-wireless people changed something in their source code since the last time I compiled it (about a month ago), I thought that these modules get built by default.

Did you compile using the instructions from post #30? Are you sure that you got the compat-wireless source from http://linuxwireless.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/ and not somewhere else?

Also, what is your ultimate goal here in wanting to get this working under Backtrack when you already have it on Ubuntu? If you're trying to do wireless sniffing/cracking stuff, it may be possible to do that on Ubuntu using the drivers that you already have. There may be an easier way for you to achieve your objective without having to deal with Backtrack...

[spwn3d]

Yes, it was kinda a test to see if I could update the kernel with any adverse reactions to the other tools as well. I like BT3, I could use ubuntu and just install each tool but at one point it seemed easier to get the wireless working. I did compile multiple times from post 30 as well as linuxwireless.org, and i am sure they are the correct ones. The files are all in there too, it seemed kinda baffling. I just ended up spending so much time on it and getting so close that i didn't want to give up. lol i dunnno