"Please run 'make modules_prepare'" issue when installing NDISWrapper

Question

My router went down, so I have a temporary one installed right now that has no Wifi. I decided to pick up a USB Wifi dongle, and I want to use my Ubuntu server as the bridge. I have the driver installed, and was following the guide for setting up NDISWrapper on the Ubuntu Community manual. When I run ndiswrapper -l:

rt2870 : driver installed
    device (0846:9012) present

... So I assume that it is installed. I then run depmod -a and get no output (assuming it works correctly), and then modprobe ndiswrapper... But that returns FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found.

This error seems weird to me, but I'll bite. I google the issue further, and find some people telling me to install 1.58 from the NDISWrapper website on Sourceforge. I try to run make in the extracted folder, but get this error:

Makefile:41: *** Please run 'make modules_prepare' in /usr/src/linux-headers-3.5.0-17.  Stop.

Still not working! But why did the previous ndiswrapper commands work? The output of ndiswrapper -v shows that it's (mostly) installed:

ERROR: Module ndiswrapper not found.
module version is too old!
utils version: '1.9', utils version needed by module: '0'
module details:
ERROR: Module ndiswrapper not found.

You may need to upgrade driver and/or utils to latest versions available at
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net

This is getting very irritating, but I don't know where to go from here. When I run uname -r, I get 3.5.0-23-generic, if that helps any (a lot of scripts are asking for it)

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 13 '13 at 05:21

1

Seems like ndiswrapper needs some preparation on the kernel headers to be able to use them. Execute the following in a terminal:

cd /usr/src/linux-headers-3.5.0-17

sudo make modules_prepare

After this, compile the ndiswrapper 1.58 module.

answered May 13 '13 at 05:21

grimpitch

809

make: *** No rule to make target 'modules_prepare'. Stop. – Canadian Luke May 13 '13 at 05:40
Running make on ndiswrapper now gives the same error message? – grimpitch May 13 '13 at 05:48
Makefile:41: *** Please run 'make modules_prepare' in /usr/src/linux-headers-3.5.0-17. Stop. – Canadian Luke May 13 '13 at 05:49
The strange thing is, that it's asking for the 3.5.0.17 headers, however you are running 3.5.0.23. Check where /lib/modules/3.5.0.23-generic/build points to. – grimpitch May 13 '13 at 06:04
What command do I run to find that out? – Canadian Luke May 13 '13 at 18:52
Run ls -l /lib/modules/3.5.0-23-generic, you will see where build points to, if it exists at all (it's a symlink). – grimpitch May 13 '13 at 23:26
$ ls -l 4520 xrwx 1 root root 32 May 12 18:31 build -> /usr/src/linux-headers-3.5.0-17/ – Canadian Luke May 14 '13 at 07:30
It's pointing to an older version of headers, run sudo apt-get install --reinstall linux-headers-3.5.0-23-generic to fix it for the current kernel. – grimpitch May 15 '13 at 03:57
$ sudo apt-get install --reinstall linux-headers-3.5.0-23-gener[sudo] password for luke: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package linux-headers-3.5.0-23-generic E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'linux-headers-3.5.0-23-generic' – Canadian Luke May 15 '13 at 04:11
Can you run sudo apt-get update and try the previous command again? – grimpitch May 15 '13 at 04:16
Same message, no change – Canadian Luke May 15 '13 at 04:27
Do you have internet access? The apt-get update seemed OK? How did you install the actual kernel? – grimpitch May 15 '13 at 04:31
let us continue this discussion in chat – grimpitch May 15 '13 at 04:33

"Please run 'make modules_prepare'" issue when installing NDISWrapper

1 Answers1