FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found, configuration already contains alias directive 12.04

[walterav]

The program ndisgtk with its related packages install without a problem/error. But as soon as loading a windows *.inf driver file in the ndisgtk program it show the following popup message:

Module could not be loaded. Error was:
FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found.
Is the ndiswrapper module installed?

When trying to modprobe the ndiswrapper module from the terminal it says:

FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: ndiswrapper-common 1.57-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-23.36-generic-pae 3.2.14
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-23-generic-pae i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu5
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Apr 20 10:36:13 2012
Dependencies:

InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Beta i386 (20120419)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ndiswrapper
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[soneedu (soneedu)]

12.04 32bit version, meet same issue too

[soneedu (soneedu)]

i have fixed it. follow me:

First:
download ndiswrapper-source,
and /usr/src/modules/ndiswrapper
#make
#make install
then can
#modprobe ndiswrapper

Second:
modify /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper.conf
you can comments all content or delete it
then
#ndiswrapper -m
will write ndiswrapper configuration again , (first time you will got "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper", may be later will infor that "module configuration already contains alias directive" again ,just ignore it, )

# lspci
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88w8335 [Libertas] 802.11b/g Wireless (rev 03)

Third:
wget ftp://downloads.netgear.com/files/wg311v3_1_0.zip (this is very important, this is correct driver for NetGear WG511v2 PCMI wireless card)

install the WG311v3.INF

then Card will work.

[Domingos86 (domingos86)]

Sorry for my ignorance, but will it work for other cards as well? Mine is rtl8185. I can only make it to work under the previous linux kernel installed (ending in 0-17 I guess, instead of 0-24, which is the latest I have) and only with win98 driver (other drivers will give me the same error as with the latest kernel - lshw lists the device as unassigned). Moreover, every time I try to install a new driver using ndisgtk under the latest version of the kernel, it gives me the error message reported on this page (while under previous versions of the kernel it doesn't happen).

[nefyt (nefyt)]

I'm affected by this bug too. This is a serious regression since this didn't happen in previous versions of Ubuntu. I have been using ndiswrapper on several machines without problems, until Ubuntu 12.04 which has this problem. I cannot imagine how many people with old machines that were using ndiswrapper for their wireless card support are now "offline".

@soneedu: thanks for sharing a workaround, but I don't understand any of this part:

"download ndiswrapper-source,
and /usr/src/modules/ndiswrapper
#make
#make install
then can
#modprobe ndiswrapper"

where to download that.. "file"? is "make" a command? what is the argument? or do you just write make and that's it? would you mind to elaborate a little more? thank you.

[nefyt (nefyt)]

This bug is now mentioned here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/Ndiswrapper

"For advanced users: There is a known bug in these Debian packages, detailed in this thread ( http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=100586&sid=f09bad1b17b5f4c62f1c4e68d044b8bf ). If you are having issues after installing from these packages, the kernel module may not have installed, so you may get the error FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found when you run modprobe ndiswrapper in the terminal. To avoid this problem, it's best to compile from the source available at http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/. This is fairly simple but requires the build-essential package to be installed. You can install this offline using apt-cdrom from the command line or the synaptic package manager with the ubuntu install CD."

I consider myself an advanced user, but not a linux developer and I don't have a clue how to workaround this bug following those "official" instructions.

I want to mention again that this bug may be a regression occurred in Ubuntu 12.04. Expecting users to workaround a bug by compiling source by themselves is a serious issue to me.

[gianpic (gianpic)]

I suggest a fix for this problem. This solution works with my Ubuntu 12.04 32 bit with an Atheros wireless pci card.
You should install a new package, called "ndiswrapper-dkms". This package includes the ndiswrapper module in the new kernel 3.2.
I realize that this new kernel hasn't the ndiswrapper module, but this package installs it into.
I hope you solve the bug.

[Domingos86 (domingos86)]

Apparently my wifi started working in the new kernel after installing ndiswrapper-dkms, which solves my problem. I actually haven't tried to install/uninstall drivers, so can't say whether this reported bug persists or not. Thanks

[brad1138 (brad1138)]

Confirmed, installing ndiswrapper-dkms got rid of the error for me as well.

[David Marzal (marzal)]

ndiswrapper-dkms fix my problem too on Lubuntu 12.04

[Frank Steffens (steffensfrank)]

This bug does occur in Netrunner OS x86_64 (derived from Kubuntu) as well. Installing ndiswrapper-dkms does not solve the problem. Allthough I solved the problem by compiling ndiswrapper from source in kernel 3.2.0-29 after updating to 3.2.0-30 loading the module ends up with the above mentioned failure notice again.

[Thomas Kluyver (takluyver)]

The wiki page about NdisWrapper now links to this bug report as well (see comment 6).

[peter mutch (peter2mutch)]

I was affected by this bug. I did not meet with success using the recommended methods, and so decided to attempt to remove ndiswrapper entirely. I followed the steps recommended here http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/ndiswrapper/index.php?title=Uninstall_HowTo and successfully used sudo rm -r to remove all files involving ndiswrapper, found by searching the file system. Afterwards, using locate and find to search for any other ndiswrapper files did not print anything, so I assumed that I was fine. However, attempting to reinstall any version of ndiswrapper says that it is already installed....did I miss a file? Is there a location where ndiswrapper creates files that locate and find would not reveal?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Rabbie (rob-young)]

I had the same problems with ndiswrapper. I used Synaptic Package Manager to remove Ndisrapper-1.57 completely. Then I install version 1.58 from a .tar file. Then after

make uninstall
sudo make
sudo make install
sudo ndiswrappper -i <driver.sys>
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

The wireless link then started working

[aeromojito (aeromojito)]

I used the packages in the repos.

ndisgtk (0.8.5-1)
ndiswrapper-common (1.57-1ubuntu1)
ndiswrapper-dkms (1.57-1ubuntu1)
ndiswrapper-utils-1.9 (1.57-1ubuntu1)

The problem seems to be that ndiswrapper-dkms does not install as a dependency. After installing ndiswrapper-dkms, I was able to use the rt2500.inf driver from WindowsXP. As a note, I was not able to use the rt2500pci kernel driver after installing and uninstalling ndiswrapper, even after un-blacklisting it. The wireless adapter would connect for about 2 minutes and then lose the ability to connect to any networks.