NetGear WG311v2 Wireless LAN and Ubuntu Dapper
Here is how I got my NetGear wireless network adapter to work under Ubuntu Linux. I had this working before under Hoary using ndiswrapper but since upgrading to Dapper Drake, the ndiswrapper doesn’t seem to work any more.
I found that Dapper tries to load its own WLAN driver called acx. This does not work with this particular card using the default settings.
I suppose I should mention at this point that the WG311v2 is completely different from the earlier version of the same card. It even uses a different chipset! Anyway, back to the story…
I kept getting some error message in dmesg about the firmware not being the right version so after doing a little research, I discovered that there is an alternative firmware included in the Linux driver. To activate it, you need to add the following line to the file /etc/modprobe.d/options
options acx firmware_ver=1.2.0.30
Then restart the driver:
$ sudo rmmod acx $ sudo modprobe acx firmware_ver=1.2.0.30
Then it is just a simple matter of configuring the interface by adding these lines to /etc/network/interfaces (you will need to alter the IP numbers for your own network setup of course):
# Wireless networking
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.0.11
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.1
wireless-mode managed
# wireless-keymode open
# wireless-key
wireless-essid
dns-nameservers 192.168.0.1
(I’m not sure you really need the wireless-* lines, they were left over from my previous ndiswrapper setup)
Finally, start the interface:
$ sudo ifup wlan0
And that is it! It took me a while to figure out but the card works fine now.
Update
I have just replaced this card with a TP-Link one. It is sooo much faster and more reliable than the NetGear card. Read my article on setting up the TP-Link.
Thank you for this. I’ve been struggling for hours.
I second the comment by Fred!! This worked perfectly for me. Netgear wg311v2 card, with the acx chipset. VERY cool to have native Ubuntu support for this instead of messing with a wrapper such as ndiswrapper.
I added the line “options acx firmware_ver=1.2.0.30″ to the file /etc/modprobe.d/options. Then when trying to restart the driver it gave the following error ” Module acx does not exist in /proc/modules” . Please let me know how to proceed further.
Thanks
Vishu
Sounds like you don’t have the acx driver installed. Try updating your distro or if you have compiled your own kernel, make sure the driver is compiled as a module.
For Ubuntu or Debian, you can achieve this by typing the following commands:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo depmod -a
then reboot.
Hi,
I did all your steps including the if ACX driver not installed and I can’t get the thing to work( iget the same proc/modules message as Vishu).
My card shows in the device manager list (Ubuntu 6.10) but has no network interface. How do I solve this part of the problem (I assum it is a missing kernel module)
Thanks,
Mark.
Well, this procedure was for “Dapper Drake” which is Ubuntu 6.06. It may not neccessarily work with the newer version of Ubuntu. I have not tried this card under version 6.10 so the following comments are mainly guesswork.
If the device shows up in the device list then the kernel module is probably installed.
If it doesn’t have an interface, you could try manually assigning it one with the following command:
sudo ifconfig wlan0 192.168.0.99 netmask 255.255.255.0
You might want to use a different IP than the one I have given depending on your network circumstances.
Another potential problem I can think of is WEP security. Check the security settings on your wireless access point and see if the wireless card needs a password or any other kind of authentication before it will connect.
Finally, check dmesg for any errors which might give a clue. Typing the following might be helpful:
dmesg | grep acx
Good luck!
Thank you so much for your post!
Same setup.
Ubuntu 6.10
WG311 v2
Done the
-/etc/modprobe.d/options
And the rest
(added firmware_ver=1.2.0.30 in /etc/modules, was it bad?)
I get an error when trying
sudo ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.120 netmask 255.255.255.0
wlan0 does not exist.
Device manage shows the acx
Not the GUI Network interfaces though.
the dmesg | grep acx
gives
firmware image acx/1.2.0.30/tiacx111c16 was not provided
firmware image acx/1.2.0.30/tiacx111 was not provided
Check Your hotplug scripts
rest_dev FAILED
Any hints?
My post was specific to Ubuntu version 6.06. It might not work on version 6.10.
Having said that, it sounds like your driver is looking for the wrong file. Try it without the firmware_ver option.
If that doesn’t work, try upgrading to the latest kernel. According to the Ubuntu website, the latest kernel for Edgy is 2.6.17-11. Type the following commands to upgrade:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.17-11-generic
OK, for all you people who have later versions of Ubuntu, I’ve written an update to this post called
NetGear WG311v2 Wireless LAN and Ubuntu Feisty
Anyone know how to do this procedure In Obuntu 6.06 with a Netgear WG511v2 wireless card? I have been working on this thing for days, trying various things, googling endlessly and nothing seems to work. The card lights up and shows as being connected, but it is only so through a loopback from the Ethernet cable. Any help would be greatly appreciated. You can write me directly sp_wells AT yahoo DOT com. Thanks so much.
Hi,
Thanx for the information. I have Ubuntu-8 and a WG311 Netgear.
Can I try to do what you explain?
Sorry, I´m a new-ubuntu-user…
This is quite an old article now. I don’t think it will be relevant to Ubuntu 8.