ndiswrapper 1.2
Since I get a lot of traffic regarding my success using the D-Link DWL-G122 Wireless USB Adapter, I thought I would give an update on use with ndiswrapper 1.2. Executive summary: the D-Link DWL-G122 Wireless USB Adapter (that I have) still works using Linux Kernel 2.6.12 and ndiswrapper 1.2. Past entries on the ndiswrapper were made on 29-Mar-05, 07-Mar-05 and 04-Mar-05.
It had been so long since I last used the device, that I’d forgotten how to use ndiswrapper. I guess I have been making room in my memory for all the IFR reading I’ve been doing. In order to get the ball rolling, you need to modprobe ndiswrapper, but since I have a new kernel since my last post, I first needed to rebuild ndiswrapper. The rebuild was easy (thanks entirely to Gentoo) and once done, the module loaded fine. The message in the dmesg is:
ndiswrapper version 1.2 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)
usbcore: registered new driver ndiswrapper
Then I ran the command line ndiswrapper program to ensure that the driver was still located properly on my system, as such:
~ # ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
prisma02 driver present
Okay, driver is still there. I cannot stress enough how important it is to make sure you get the right driver for your DWL-G122 when doing your initial install. Do NOT get the driver from anywhere other than the D-Link site for your country (or for the country from where you got the device). Following other people’s links or using other files from other sources is simply asking for trouble and frustration. As I said in the past, I stuggled for several hours because I had the wrong driver entirely.
Now, you can connect your D-Link DWL-G122 to a USB port on your machine. I have tried connecting the device both directly to my machine and via the supplied D-Link dongle, which I believe is simply a USB extension cord, per se. In any case, once connected I get the following entries in dmesg:
usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
ndiswrapper: driver prisma02 (D-Link,07/07/2004, 3.00.21.0) loaded
Which is almost immediately followed by this in the dmesg:
wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:11:95:8b:9d:c1 using driver prisma02, configuration file 2001:3704.0.conf
wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP, WPA with TKIP, WPA with AES/CCMP
At that point, the D-Link DWL-G122 is ready to be used, provided there is an access point (AP) to connect to. I still haven’t tested anything other than an unsecured AP and a WEP encryption AP as I do not have a router capable of WPA. Once I get that I will report back. Or if anyone else has been successful with WPA, let me know and I’ll update this entry. If you have more questions, like before, Feel free to email me. You do that by taking my two initials (look in the URL of this blog) and add @zymeta.com.
WARNING: If using ndiswrapper 1.2, do NOT remove the device without first removing the kernel module as it will freeze your machine. If you need to be able to plug and play the device without mucking with the kernel module, then use ndiswrapper 1.1.
UPDATE: ndiswrapper 1.6 seems to function much better with the DWL-G122 (as per this blog entry).
Tue, 16 Aug 2005 19:00 Posted in Linux
