WG511T card & wireless networking under 2.6.6 troubles

blboun · n00b Joined: 11 Apr 2004 Posts: 10

hi,

i've read the forum on the subject of wireless networking, so i built 2.6.6 kernel with wireless lan enabled, etc, as described. emerged wireless-tools, madwifi-driver and wireless-configuration contributed ebuild. all went reasonably well, (as far as i can tell). primarily thanks to the great insights shared on this forum, yet i'm not able to get it to work.

finallyi i traced it all the way to the fact that the card is not recognized. here is the output of cardctl info:

PRODID_1=""
PRODID_2=""
PRODID_3=""
PRODID_4=""
MANFID=0000,0000
FUNCID=255

however, the green led on the card is blinking, when it is plugged into the laptop. also, just for giggles, i inserted a different pcmcia wireless card, and it got recognized/identified ok.

i'm sure i'm doing something stupid:) anybody has a suggestion how to proceed/debug or i'm stuck for good? it is a brand new card ...

also, anybody got the ifplugd working to control plug/unplug of the wired network on the laptop without the need to run the network startup script manually every time the cable is plugged/unplugged? would you be so kind and share a detailed outline how to get it to work? any pointers for a beginner?

thanks,

jan

golloza · Guru Joined: 14 Mar 2004 Posts: 427

Can you give the output of lspci (to make sure that it is a card using atheros chipset)?

blboun · n00b Joined: 11 Apr 2004 Posts: 10

for lspci 'no command found'. the kernel has PCI (direct) enabled.
thanks,
jan

bennettp · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 4:39 pm Post subject:

$ emerge pciutils

will get you the lspci command

blboun · n00b Joined: 11 Apr 2004 Posts: 10

thanks. here it is:

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133] (rev 80)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133 AGP]
0000:00:07.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South] (rev 42)
0000:00:07.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
0000:00:07.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 1a)
0000:00:07.4 Bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] (rev 40)
0000:00:07.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)
0000:00:09.0 Communication controller: Conexant HSF 56k HSFi Modem (rev 01)
0000:00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
0000:00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. VT8636A [ProSavage KN133] AGP4X VGA Controller (TwisterK) (rev 01)
0000:02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)

bennettp · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 4:52 pm Post subject:

Umm this might sound like a dumb question, but forgive me for asking...

Have you loaded the modules for madwifi?

Try:
$ modprobe ath_hal

or if you're using a pci card:
$ modprobe ath_pci

Sorry, I hope that didn't insult too much

ps. I'm afraid i don't know much about linux on notebooks, my computer is a desktop. My wireless card is an old MA301 (pci, not pcmcia).

blboun · n00b Joined: 11 Apr 2004 Posts: 10

thanks. no i don't think i loaded the module, at least i did not do it explicitely. how do i do it? btw, here is the modprobe run.

bash-2.05b# modprobe ath_hal
bash-2.05b#

bennettp · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 5:10 pm Post subject:

now take a look at the last few lines of dmesg

it should say something like "initialising ath driver" or something

ps. when modprobe displays no results, that means it was successful. The module may or may not have already been loaded.

btw have you set up the /etc/conf.d/net file? the wireless should be eth1 (assuming you've only got 1 rtl8139).

If you have set it up, just go "/etc/init.d/net.eth1 start" to bring it up
If you haven't, set it up, then run the command above.

bennettp · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 5:23 pm Post subject:

The system *should* be loading the modules automatically, it would be strange if it wasn't; make sure you have hotplug installed and running.

Otherwise, you might need to add a "hotplug rule" (if thats what its called). I tried to do this once for my creative nomad jukebox, but gave up quick. Take a look at /etc/hotplug/usb.distmap -- you'll see what i mean!

blboun · n00b Joined: 11 Apr 2004 Posts: 10

thanks. here is the dmesg:
ath_hal: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.
ath_hal: 0.9.8.6

yes, i tried to set the configurations per the posting. the madwifi sets up ath0 interface, when i execute net.ath0 i get the following:

* Running preup function
* ath0 does not exist
* preup ath0 failed

ifconfig, iwconfig list only eth0 and lo interfaces. the eth0 is the wired lan connection.

and cardctl displays no card info, that's why i thought that the ath0 is not known.

thanks again,

jan

bennettp · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 5:37 pm Post subject:

hmm well sorry but i have no idea, I've never heard of ath0...

Although i think i did see a module called "wlan" in madwifi, which i'm assuming is a dependency for ath_hal. Try modprobing it, and see if it helps.

Sorry i couldn't be any more help...

good luck!
Bennett