[NTLUG:Discuss] Wireless on a Sony VAIO

[David Ross]

On Tuesday 27 December 2005 14:20, steve wrote:
> Gilbert Morrow wrote:
> > Do "lspci" and see what the chipset is for the wireless adapter ,
>
> I already mentioned that - it's an Intel/PRO Wireless 2200BG (lspci
> confirms that).
>
> > then go to
> > "ndiswrapper" website and see if it is listed there , chances are it is .
>
> Yeah - it is.
>
> > I have had great success with ndiswrapper in SuSe ,
> > 9.2,9.3,10.0GM.....etc. If all else fails got to Sony's website and see
> > if they list the driver for the wireless there.
>
> The SONY website is a mess.  They don't even recognise the model number
> of my son's laptop in any of their dropdown menues - so I had to lie
> about the model number even to send them an email!
>
> > If you browse the cd (Windows XP Home Service Pack 2) that came with your
> > laptop I think you will find drivers (Driver Directory or Folder) there
> > for all the components on your laptop .
>
> As with most modern Laptops - it doesn't come with any kind of CD at
> all.  If this is going to work, I'll have to find the driver on the
> WinXP partition.  Since I know nothing about Windows, I wouldn't
> know where to start looking, nor yet recognise the file if I found it.
>
> > Although the wireless adapter is built in it works the same way a PCMCIA
> > does.
> > You should see in "ifconfig" when you get it right "waln" ,  "iwconfig"
> > does not show my adapter .
>
> I don't see a 'wal0' or anything like that.
>
> > On 12/27/05, steve <sjbaker1 at airmail.net> wrote:
> >>Gilbert Morrow wrote:
> >>>Although SuSE installed the driver for the wireless you may need to
> >>
> >>still
> >>
> >>>run something like "ndiswrapper" to get it to work correctly . I have a
> >>>Compaq laptop that I use SuSE on and SuSE pickups the PCMCIA card when
> >>>inserted but will not use it until I run ndiswrapper . Ndiswrapper uses
> >>
> >>the
> >>
> >>>Windows .inf files from the hardware driver cd that came with your Sony.
> >>
> >>Surfing around, I find contradictory advice about ndiswrapper - some
> >>people reported success from enabling it - and others had to disable
> >>it to get things to work.
> >>
> >>However, either way, the Sony doesn't come with driver CD's.  The
> >>Wifi gizmo is a part of the laptop - not a separate PCMCIA card or
> >>anything.
> >>
> >>I still have WinXP on the machine on a separate partition though,
> >>I guess I could copy whatever is needed from there.  I know
> >>*zip* about Windows though - I wouldn't know where to start
> >>looking for a driver file.
> >>
> >>>On 12/26/05, steve <sjbaker1 at airmail.net> wrote:
> >>>>I'm trying to get wireless networking up and working on
> >>>>my son's new VAIO laptop.  Everything works using WinXP
> >>>>and my LinkSys Wireless-G router using DHCP - but I get
> >>>>"Network Unreachable" under Linux.
> >>>>
> >>>>Here is the setup:
> >>>>
> >>>>Sony VAIO PCG-782L - running SuSE 9.3.
> >>>>Wireless chip: Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG
> >>>>
> >>>>SuSE auto-detected the wireless chip, I configured
> >>>>all of the network stuff (I believe) correctly - but
> >>>>a 'ping' to any of my other computers just comes back
> >>>>with "Network Unreachable".
> >>>>
> >>>>I can see the driver is installed ('lsmod' shows that
> >>>>ipw2200 is installed and that 'firmware_class, ieee80211
> >>>>and ieee80211_crypt depend on it).
> >>>>
> >>>>When I open the device description in the SuSE
> >>>>Hardware Tool (aka suseplugger) it says;
> >>>>
> >>>>Status:
> >>>>Available    Yes
> >>>>Configured   No
> >>>>
> >>>>...as far as I can tell, I *have* configured it using
> >>>>YaST - but perhaps that's not what it's talking about.
> >>>>
> >>>>Help!

Hope this helps:
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/List#I
There's a link to the driver to set up in ndiswrapper
I'm using a Buffalo card in mine and ndiswrapper works
as smooth as can be expected.
You'll have to extract the .inf and .sys files from the exe, but 
from there you should be all set to load the driver with ndiswrapper.