trying to install Netgear usb wireless adapter

**qkslvrwolf** · August 21st, 2011

I'm trying to install the netgear wna1000m on ubuntu10.04.

lsusb shows the netgear with the same output that the original poster got.

After running through the instructions for installing the kernel module, lsmod lists the rtlwifi modules.

However, when the netgear usb device is inserted, I get this back from dmesg:

Code:

[ 1513.316272] usb 2-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
[ 1513.452156] usb 2-5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 1513.542770] rtl8192cu: MAC address: c4:3d:c7:76:94:92
[ 1513.542782] rtl8192cu: Board Type 0
[ 1513.549483] rtl8192cu:rtl92cu_init_sw_vars():<0-0> Failed to request firmware!
[ 1513.549492] rtlwifi:rtl_usb_probe():<0-0> Can't init_sw_vars.

Also, you keep asking people to list /lib/firmware/rtlwifi, but that directory doesn't exist for me. So that's no doubt why it can't request the firmware. I just don't know how to fix it...

Thanks in advance!

**qkslvrwolf** · August 21st, 2011

Ok, so just in case anyone comes after me. I was never able to get this working with the open source drivers. However, I was able to get it working very well with Realtek's proprietary(?) drivers. (You still have to make/make install them, so they're give you code...maybe they're not proprietary? Whatever, their install script works really well.)

Anyone, I went to this link: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...oads=true#2772

Grabbed the 8192cu linux driver zip, unzipped it, and just ran

Code:

chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh

from the directory that was created when I unzipped it, and voila! I have a working usb wireless nic.

Ironic, too, considering I spent about 3 hours trying to get the compat stuff to work.

**braja74** · January 1st, 2012

Is this resolved? Because reading through the posts it didn't seem to be. I have the same issue with a Netgear WNA1000 mini usb adapter. I tried installing the Realtek driver as per the last post, but the same issue occured when the system suspends, and I have the same problem with distance (have to be within 10' of the router). Using a DDWRT router, but it works on my WIN7 laptop.
I've been using Linux for years and this is a major issue with every box I setup. The list of acceptable WLAN devices is always antiquated and I can't honestly encourage anyone to give Linux a go as long as this remains a consistent P.I.T.***.

**jelabarre** · January 4th, 2012

It certainly isn't resolved here. I've tried this at home *and* at work, with Ubuntu 11.10, Mint 12, Fedora 16, and Mint LMDE. Have tried it on a T23 as well as a Thinkpad A22p (the Mint12 only there). It *sees* the wireless networks, but can never establish a connection. The adapter works OK under Windows (tried a couple machines there, including the A22p above), so I know the hardware is good. Even thought it was a USB 1.1 issue, so I tried it with a PCMCIA USB2 card, no improvement.

Tried with the Linux driver download from Realtek, still no change. I had tried following the directions on this site at the beginning of the thread, but things didn't match. This *is* the device we're talking about (the USB vendor/product codes match), so probably something changed between 11.04 11.10. I have to go back and re-do the whole Ubuntu install to retest the whole process. Would be **MUCH** easier if AwfulDepot was still carrying those PCMCIA Atheros-based wireless cards (they worked perfectly). BestBuy has nearly *nothing* for PCMCIA cards now, certainly nothing in wireless networking cards.

**matbluvenger** · February 16th, 2012

Originally Posted by qkslvrwolf

Ok, so just in case anyone comes after me. I was never able to get this working with the open source drivers. However, I was able to get it working very well with Realtek's proprietary(?) drivers. (You still have to make/make install them, so they're give you code...maybe they're not proprietary? Whatever, their install script works really well.)

Anyone, I went to this link: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...oads=true#2772

Grabbed the 8192cu linux driver zip, unzipped it, and just ran

Code:

chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh

from the directory that was created when I unzipped it, and voila! I have a working usb wireless nic.

Ironic, too, considering I spent about 3 hours trying to get the compat stuff to work.

Holy crap this worked instantly for me! I, too, tried the compat and couldn't get it to work after a couple tries (and even a clean reinstall of 11.10.)

Thanks qkslvrwolf!

**matbluvenger** · February 16th, 2012

Sad news.... after doing the chmod fix it stayed quick for a while. But then overnight it seemed to mess up again. I didn't shut down, restart, or put it to sleep, but when I woke up this morning it was creaking along.

So then I tried the compat fix.... and my computer lost complete communication with the usb network adapter. So right now I'm in the middle of a clean re-install and it recognized the adapter again.

However, I'm expecting it to be slow again. So I have a couple questions:

1) chili: I noticed the advice you gave before was for 11.04... is there anything I should be doing differently for 11.10?

2) Will this fix work if I installed 11.04 instead?

3) Is there a PCI or USB wireless network adapter that anybody knows for sure is compatible right out of the box with either 11.04 or (preferably) 11.10?

Thanks!

**chili555** · February 16th, 2012

1) chili: I noticed the advice you gave before was for 11.04... is there anything I should be doing differently for 11.10?

Which post number? I suggested a lot of things in four pages!

rtl8192cu is installed by default in 11.10 if that helps.

**finastbeans** · March 11th, 2012

wanted to add some info to this thread...

Background: Trying to get wna1000m usb to run, ID 0846:9041 NetGear, Inc.

* I started with 10.04 (Lucid) and could not get compat wireless to install per description
* after hours of compiling - adjusting - compiling i updated ubuntu to 10.10 (Maverick), kernel version 2.6.35-32-generic (which killed my bootloader

...fixed that )
* started from scratch with the instructions listed above for compat, still no blue light after the modprobe
* saw the error message in /var/log/syslog
Mar 10 22:49:45 ubuntu kernel: [ 1270.920688] rtlwifi: Firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin not available
Mar 10 22:49:47 ubuntu hp[13962]: io/hpmud/pp.c 627: unable to read device-id ret=-1
Mar 10 22:49:48 ubuntu python: io/hpmud/pp.c 627: unable to read device-id ret=-1
* at this point verified that i had latest linux-firmware and linux-formware-nonfree --> they were already up to date
* physically removed usb wireless
* found the file on the big bad internet and installed it under /lib/firmware/rtlwifi with same permissions as the other files around it:
git.kernel.org - linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree - rtlwifi/
* pushed in usb wireless, and saw the blue glow for the first time, connected to my network and voila!, wireless.

...not sure of the stability of this solution, but I'm good for now.

Thanks Chili. and everyone else who posted here.
-Mike

**starypatyk** · March 24th, 2012

I can also confirm that it is possible to get the NetGear WNA1000M adapter (USB ID 0846:9041) running with the Realtek drivers in Ubuntu 10.04. However, for me it was not trivial, I had to go through the following procedure, to make it work.

I have downloaded drivers from the Realtek site: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...true#RTL8192CU
After unpacking I went to the drivers directory and unpacked yet another .tar.gz file there, that contains actual driver code.
In the newly created directory (rtl8188C_8192C_8192D_usb_linux_v3.3.2_3192.201201 03 in the current version) I had to find the os_dep/linux/usb_intf.c file and add the following line to the "8192CUS Dongle" group (around line 150):

Code:

    {USB_DEVICE(0x0846, 0x9041)},//NetGear WNA1000M

After that I have used the standard commands to build and install the driver:

Code:

make
sudo make install

This works OK now. The only disadvantage is that I have to repeat compilation and installation of the drivers whenever a new kernel version arrives, since I do not know how to configure DKMS to handle this automatically.

Thanks to others who posted here. I hope that this information may help someone being in a similar situation.

Cheers, Darek