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Forums › Linux › Guidance needed to install GPL wireless drivers
zANavAShi

119 posts

Master Geek


#115694 3-Apr-2013 19:57
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I have a Netgear WNA 3100v1 USB modem which is a perfect match for my Netgear N600 router.

I do NOT want to use the ndiswrapper method to install Windows wireless drivers and instead wish to use the GPL carl9170 drivers here:

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/carl9170

I am going around in an ever-maddening google loop trying to find out how to install the *.fw file from this website and since there is no documentation to be found I am wondering if is a method so darned simple and well-known that it is assumed every nix geek would already know that...

Can anybody shed some light please?

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cychronz
66 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

  #793136 4-Apr-2013 12:59
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Hi,

"usually" it is simple,  just copy the file to /lib/firmware, but here is a more detailed page on the topic:
http://wiki.debian.org/Firmware


Hope you get it going.

Cheers



zANavAShi

119 posts

Master Geek


  #797017 10-Apr-2013 10:54
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Sorry for being so rude and not acknowledging your reply sooner. That is a very useful link indeed - added to my bookmarks!

So now that I have educated myself on the what and where of it... it turns out I already do have that firmware in my firmware directory - both the older and newer versions. And the history of this adapter is that I bought it off trademe 2yrs ago when I upgraded my DSL router to an N600 and have never been able to get the sodding thing running OK on any of my boxes, even with the ndis wrapper method (which says the drivers are correctly installed but would never show up in my wifi connection manager)

The device is correctly identified using the "lsusb" command, so I know the system sees it. I have tried all methods and tweaks offered on numerous linux help sites where it seems to be a rather past popular topic hehehe. So this is starting to beg the question that the device itself may have arrived to me faulty in the first place but I have no way to verify that as far as I know.

For now, I have tossed it into the too hard basket and taken up another avenue which is to purchase a Centrino mini-PCIe laptop device which is also dualband and has added bonus of bluetooth (which I was having dongle dramas with anyway) and a mini-PCIe to PCIe desktop motherboard adaptor.

I'll post my progress with that in the bluetooth topic I opened, but in the meantime I will still take note of any other advise that is specific to my WNA3100 in this topic. I am curious to know if there is any method I could use to test it, bearing in mind that I have no Windows boxes.

Thanks a bunch for your help :o)

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