Ndiswrapper sees r818x as loaded (while it's not)

[m_bridge]

uname :
Linux blue 2.6.20-15-generic #2 SMP Sun Apr 15 07:36:31 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

Hello, i'm using a Zyxel v-302 v3 wireless card and i'm haing some strange behaviour from ndiswrapper

The card was working fine in edgy, i followed the standard procedure for ndiswrapper 1.8 (from synaptic) and everything went fine
however with feisty (and ndiswrapper-utils-1.9) it does not work anymore.
heres the problem

<pre>bridge@blue:~$ ndiswrapper -l
net8185 : driver installed
        device (10EC:8185) present (alternate driver: r818x)
</pre>
seems that i need to unload r818x before, however such module is not loaded
it does not show up in lsmod and moreover it is blacklisted by default,
here's the default content of /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

<pre># buggy driver causes kernel BUG on load (Ubuntu: #78255, #88430)
blacklist r818x
blacklist r8187
</pre>

when installing the driver i see nothing new in dmesg

[Andreas Gnau (rondom)]

Make sure that both r818x, r8187 and ndiswrapper are unloaded and load ndiswrapper using sudo modprobe ndiswrapper.
Upload the output of dmesg after doing that.

[m_bridge (marco-bridge)]

i's strange, I'm experiencing the same behaviour also on another machine with a D-Link wireless card (rt61 module)
maybe there is just something wrong with my procedure to install ndiswrapper, i'm following the instructions for edgy
here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/Ndiswrapper

bridge@stregatto:~$ uname -a
Linux stregatto 2.6.20-15-generic #2 SMP Sun Apr 15 07:36:31 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

on this machine rt61 is blacklisted
/etc/modprobe.d/aliases contains the line "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper"
/etc/network/interfaces contains wlan0 (default configuration: auto wlan0, interface wlan0 inet dhcp,)

i tried to remove and insert ndiswrapper as you suggested

bridge@stregatto:~$ lsmod|grep rt
gameport 16520 1 snd_via82xx
snd_mpu401_uart 9472 1 snd_via82xx
snd_rawmidi 25472 2 snd_mpu401_uart,snd_seq_midi
snd 54020 13 snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
agpgart 35400 2 drm,via_agp
parport_pc 36388 1
parport 36936 3 ppdev,lp,parport_pc
(JUST TO SHOW RT61 IS NOW LOADED)

bridge@stregatto:~$ ndiswrapper -l
rt61 : driver installed
        device (1814:0301) present (alternate driver: rt61)

bridge@stregatto:~$ sudo modprobe -r ndiswrapper
Password:

bridge@stregatto:~$ sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

bridge@stregatto:~$ dmesg > Desktop/dmesg.log
bridge@stregatto:~$ ndiswrapper -l
rt61 : driver installed
        device (1814:0301) present (alternate driver: rt61)

[m_bridge (marco-bridge)]

I'm back on the machine for which i originally wrote the bug
here's the dmesg log after reinserting the ndiswrapper module
the message is always the same:

bridge@blue:~$ ndiswrapper -l
net8185 : driver installed
        device (10EC:8185) present (alternate driver: r818x)

[m_bridge (marco-bridge)]

really strange. i got my card working now, what i've done is
remove and reinsert the module (to post the previous message)

$ sudo depmod -a

> reboot
>installed ndisgtk
>downloaded drivers from zyxel website (i was using drivers on cd)
$ndiswrapper -e net8185
$ndiswrapper -i zyxeldrivers/WINXP/net8185.inf

and now it works like a charm!

i attached dmesg, since i get the strange output as before
$ ndiswrapper -l
net8185 : driver installed
        device (10EC:8185) present (alternate driver: r818x)

[nickq (nickq)]

I believe I found a work-around.
I had the same problem with a different device by Gigabyte (GN-WBKG).

I think this problem is about "blacklisting"...
Putting the line:

> blacklist 'module_name'

in '/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist' prevent the module from being loaded but let it still interfere with ndiswrapper:

> device (XXXX:YYYY) present (alternate driver: 'alt_module_name')

"alternate driver" means that the device XXXX:YYYY is not controlled by ndiswrapper yet.

All you have to do is to rename the module that interferes with ndiswrapper in order to make it unusable by the system. Here are all the steps:

(0) remove the ndiswrapper configuration (also remove any entry of ndiswrapper in '/etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper' and in '/etc/modules'):
# sudo ndiswrapper -r 'driver_name'
(1) blacklist and unload the module
(2) rename the module (or move/delete it):
# sudo mv /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/ubuntu/wireless/rt2x00-legacy/rt2570/'alt_module_name'.ko /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/ubuntu/wireless/rt2x00-legacy/rt2570/'alt_module_name'.ko_original
(3) reboot the system
(4) reconfigure ndiswrapper
(5) load ndiswrapper module

It should just work (it does for me).
If it's all right, here is the output that you should get:

# ndiswrapper -l
'driver_name' : driver installed
        device (XXXX:YYYY) present

Good luck!

[m_bridge (marco-bridge)]

Thanks nickq, that worked.
I removed the rt61.ko module and reinstalled the driver with ndisgtk, now it works well
i should have tried that by myself!

i guess it's just that ndiswrapper is not able to identify conflicting modules

[Andreas Gnau (rondom)]

Marking this as invalid as this is the expected behaviour. In short: Ndiswrapper only checks for alternate drivers (that's what the message says). This doesn't mean that the said drivers are loaded.