Using Wireless USB Adapter Under Linux
In an attempt at a slightly less lame post this week, I’ll recount how I got a wireless USB adapter to work under Ubuntu. You might find yourself in situation in which a wireless USB adapter makes more sense that installing a normal wireless card, in which case, these instructions might be useful.
Although I did this specifically for the D-Link DWL-G120 (802.11g, 54Mbps) under Ubuntu, the general approach will probably work for other D-Link models and should be general enough to work under any Linux distribution. I used the native Windows drivers with ndiswrapper, but if you’re squeamish about ndiswrapper, don’t worry, its easier than it looks.
If you haven’t done so already, install Wine:
apt-get install wineNext, insert the driver CD that came with the adapter, and as root, run its setup.exe under wine:
sudo su
cd /media/cdrom/Drivers
wine setup.exeThis installs the driver under your emulated Windows file hierarchy, which, since you ran this as root, will be under the root home in a directory called .wine . Now you just have to let ndiswrapper know about it. For my driver, I ran this:
ndiswrapper -i /root/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Drivers/Dr71WU.infYou can confirm that ndiswrapper successfully installed the native Windows driver by running this next:
ndiswrapper -lWhich should output: “driver present, hardware present”. Next run this command:
iwconfig wlan0Which again, can be confirmed by running this and seeing if wlan0 appears:
ifconfigNow all you have to do is configure your networking as you normally would under the Gnome menu option: System -> Administration -> Networking.
I quit. I’ve tried 4 Linux systems ending up with Ubuntu, which I like, but cannot get to go wireless.
Everytime I decide to try a Linyx system, I get more and more frustrated, it is not easy to work with or intall things. Everytrhing is a big deal, type this in, do this, type that, now tyope this, hell I should have gone to a MAC at least it would have given Window some real competition. What did it this time to me, all I want to do is use my USM wireless adapter to get online, phooey, everything I’ve tried sucks.
Bye Linux, hello Mac.
Thanks for the steps outlined. I was able to get my card working. I followed:
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/linux-networking/68864-howto-install-d-link-dwl-g120-ubuntu-linux-6-06-lts-guide.html
Plus your steps and it worked!
Thanks!
That’s great, I’m glad this helped.
Hi, gotta agree with Sal.I;ve tried to use Linux on a laptop. Nothing installed only ubuntu. I’ve tried to install 3 different wireless USB adapters, using any number of forums/instructions etc. Nothing works. I know it’s me, but I just want simple. Type this command, followed by another and another.So it goes on. Sorry but I tried Linux a few years ago, that was bad, I thought things had improved…. maybe…. but not in terms of connectivity and simplicty. Who needs a comnmand line! Bill all is forgiven, Xp is going back onto the laptop and I can browse with any USB device I want… happy days!
I like linux in a lot of ways, and in some ways its the best there is.
But without various modern capabilities it will be useless for all but the tech geeks.
Yet it has 100% capability if developement was there.
My assumption there is a linux based wireless option for linux.
But whether its one variant or another is going to be interesting.
Shame.