Installing the U.S. Robotics MAXg 5411 Wireless Card

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facade47

Installing the U.S. Robotics MAXg 5411 Wireless Card

Post by facade47 »

NOTE: The restricted driver manager in Gutsy/Daryna makes this method obsolete. With Linux Mint 4.0, just get the internet working via ethernet and use the manager to get the necessary firmware. The method I provide below has only been tested on Cassandra/Celena
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I had a heck of a time trying to install this on my Dad's computer. Information was scattered all over the internet, but I was finally able to get it to work. Unfortunately you cannot try this on a livecd, as a restart is required. This is a main reason it took me so long. In this tutorial, I assume you've never used the terminal, and that you have the CD U.S. Robotics provided. Here's what worked for me:

1) Get the Drivers
Put in the CD and the file browser should pop up with its contents. Go into the Software and then Drivers folder. Copy Data.exe onto the Desktop. You no longer need the CD. Right-Click on the Desktop and click Open Terminal. Type in cd Desktop and cabextract Data.exe
This will extract the contents of that file into a folder it created called Disk1. You can go into it to see its files, but we haven't found found the drivers yet. In the terminal, type in cd Disk1 and then to extract the drivers, type in unshield x data2.cab
You'll see (perhaps after refreshing the file browser) that we've extracted a whole lot of folders. We want the folder Installer_Files_Win2kXp. So in the terminal, cd Installer_Files_Win2kXp

2) Install the Drivers
To install the drivers, type in: sudo ndiswrapper -i USRMAX.inf
Provide your password (it will not display anything when you type it.. type it anyway and press enter) and the type in sudo ndiswrapper -i USRMAXa.inf
To double check they installed correctly, type in ndiswrapper -l and it should say
usrmaxg: driver installed
usrmaxga: driver installed

Now we have to blacklist another driver that gets in our way.. in the terminal, type sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
After providing your password, a text editor should pop up. Go to the bottom of the file, hit enter twice and type blacklist bcm43xx
Save the file, and exit all applications. Restart the computer.
When it turns back on, we have to turn your drivers on. Right click the desktop -> Open Terminal and type in sudo modprobe ndiswrapper and then sudo ndiswrapper -m The power light should flicker on the card after typing in one of those commands (I can't remember which).

3) ????

4) Profit!!
You are done! Selecting the network manager icon should display any networks available whose SSID names aren't hidden.
Unfortunately, this card doesn't like WPA or WPA2 security.. It was fickle on my machine, so I had to downgrade the security to WEP. Make sure when you type in the password, HEX or ASCII is selected. That was one of my troubles, WEP 128-bit Passphrase was selected, and it was supposed to be on WEP 64/128-bit ASCII.


I had to do this (more importantly, waste my time trying to find out how to do this) after Windows failed to recognize the card one day. (Admittedly, that may have been because my dad randomly deleted things off his computer he thought he didn't need :P) Since nothing important was on the computer, my dad (hesitantly) allowed me to install Linux Mint and try to get it working again (all he wanted was his internet back :P)And because of it, Linux Mint has one more convert :D
Last edited by facade47 on Mon Nov 05, 2007 4:21 am, edited 3 times in total.
facade47

Post by facade47 »

speaker219 wrote:You forgot Step 2.5: ????
Haha!! Oh yeah!

Edited :lol:
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