Why modeprobe ndiswrapper produced and error?

Question

Hello
These are the steps that I took to make OEL connect to the internet:
I downloaded ndiswrappers latest version.
I typed "su -c 'yum install kmod-ndiswrapper'"
the response was:
"setting up install process"
"setting up repositories"
however the error message was:
"cannot find a valid baseurl for repo: update"
Therefore I didn't use yum and proceeded as follows
1)created a directed named "ndiswrapper_drivers"
2)tar -zxvf ndiswrapper-1.47.tar.gz
3)make uninstall
4)make distclean
5)make
6)make install
NOTE: this gave two warnings:
a)'task_nice': (/ndiswrapper_drivers/ndiswrapper-1.47/ndiswrapper.ko) undefined!
b)this kernel seems to use 4k stack size option(CONFIG_4KSTACKS): many Windows dirver will not work with the option enabled . Disable CONFIG_4KSTACKS option recompile and install kernel
NOTE:Windows config file format changed since 1.5 you must reinstall windows driver if they wre installed before
7)ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf
(driver now installed)
8)ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.sys
(driver already installed)
9)ndiswrapper -l
(driver now present)
10)demod -a
11)modprobe ndiswrapper
FATAL: Error inserting ndiswrapper (/lib/modules/2.6.9-55.0.0.0.2ELsmp/misc/ndiswrapper.ko); unknown symbol in module or unknown parameter.
The error file ndiswrapper.0 file in step 11 seems to be the same error file in ndiswrapper.k0 file after step 6.
How do I correct this problem with ndiswrapper and how can I get "yum" to work?

Answer 1

The Linux kernel and all of its active device drivers are limited to a 4K stack space. The NDISwrapper may allow you to use some device drivers from Windows (tm) but these frequently assume that they may use much more stack space than is available under Linux. As a result, the system may crash or operate unpredictably.
There are valid performance and technical reasons for limiting the kernel to using only a 4K stack; this is why it is the delivered configuration. However, the choice of a 4K or 8K stack is a kernel compile-time option, so if you want to recompile your kernel and try that you can, although I personally do not recommend it.