[Ndiswrapper-general] TOPCOM wireless USB dongle with ndiswrapper

[Bart Vandewoestyne]

Hello list,

I'm trying to get a TOPCOM wireless USB dongle working with
ndiswrapper. The hardware is the following:

TOPCOM Wireless USB Stick 108 Mbps
MAC: 000FA3B21C66
S/N: 1125306040005199

The output of lsusb contains the following line:

Bus 001 Device 008: ID 14b2:3a93

For as far as I know, Windows drivers can be downloaded from

http://www.topcom.net/downloads/letter/W/104.html

After extracting the .inf, .sys and .bin files from the Windows drivers,
I can install the drivers in Linux using:

simba:/home/mc303/hardware/drivers/topcom/Wireless_Kit_108_MBPS_USB_Stick/ndiswrapper/nieuwste_versie# ndiswrapper -i TCAGU.inf
installing tcagu ...
forcing parameter MapRegisters from 256 to 64
forcing parameter MapRegisters from 256 to 64

Seems like this went ok, because i get:

simba:~# ndiswrapper -l
installed drivers:
tcagu driver installed, hardware (14B2:3A93) present

However... after loading the ndiswrapper module, I don't see a wlan0 device
appearing:

simba:~# depmod -a
simba:~# modprobe ndiswrapper
simba:~# lsmod | grep ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper 157652 0
usbcore 112644 5 ndiswrapper,usb_storage,usbhid,uhci_hcd

simba:~# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:06:5B:66:89:FB
inet addr:81.164.89.10 Bcast:255.255.255.255 Mask:255.255.252.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:576 Metric:1
RX packets:44 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:31 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:8353 (8.1 KiB) TX bytes:4711 (4.6 KiB)
Interrupt:177 Base address:0xcc00

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:66 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:66 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:5104 (4.9 KiB) TX bytes:5104 (4.9 KiB)

simba:~# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.


I'm using a Debian GNU/stable box with kernel version:

***@simba:~$ uname -a
Linux simba 2.6.18-6-686 #1 SMP Mon Oct 13 16:13:09 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

The version of ndiswrapper I'm using is:

simba:~# ndiswrapper -v
utils Error: no version specified!
driver version: 1.28
vermagic: 2.6.18-6-686 SMP mod_unload 686 REGPARM gcc-4.1


Could somebody tell me why i don't see a wlan0 device appearing and why
this isn't working? What else can I check or do to get this thing working?

Thanks,
Bart

[Pavel Roskin]

Post by Bart Vandewoestyne
simba:~# ndiswrapper -v
utils Error: no version specified!
driver version: 1.28

It's very, very old. Please use the latest version 1.53 or the version
from Subversion.

Post by Bart Vandewoestyne
Could somebody tell me why i don't see a wlan0 device appearing and why
this isn't working? What else can I check or do to get this thing working?

Please check /var/log/messages and kernel log as shown by the dmesg
command.