pcmcia wireless .. help?

reaz82 · Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2003 4:43 pm Post subject: pcmcia wireless .. help?

Hi

I have gentoo running on my laptop. I would like to know what are the necessary steps to get my pcmcia wireless card detected and running by the kernel.

i have a O2Micro OZ6912 card bus controller and a Belkin wireless network card.

an outline of the steps will be enough.. however if someone has the exact same configuration i would like to know specific details.

i would like to know what packages to merge in order to monitor this connection as well..

thank you in advance

snkmoorthy · Guru Joined: 19 Nov 2002 Posts: 376

first of all you need to know what chipset your wireless card uses.
orinoco,Raython...

you will need wireless-tools package

GNOME2 has a WiFi applet

reaz82 · Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2003 8:36 pm Post subject:

is there any sure fire way of knowing which chipset
other than opening up the pcmcia card ? :wink:

it's a belkin 11mbps wireless network adapter.
it does not say which chipset however i think it might
be an orinoco.. i read on a howto site that orinoco
drivers are compatible with belkin wireless adapters..

unless there is a way i can check i would stick to orinoco..

i merged wireless tools into gentoo...

what do i do next ?

how do i invoke the WiFi applet?

thank you

reaz82 · Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2003 9:39 pm Post subject:

this site says that the orinoco_cs drivers should be able to enable my pcmcia network card..
http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/SUPPORTED.CARDS
what should i do next?

my card is a belkin F5D6020

thanx

snkmoorthy · Guru Joined: 19 Nov 2002 Posts: 376

alright, once you have loaded orinoco_cs and hermes then do a 'iwconfig' it would tell you which ethX has been set up as wireless(eth0,eth1..).

ifconfig on the other hand will tell you the status.

you can use iwconfig to set essid,WEP key...on command line.

once you have figured out the command, then you should add pcmcia to rc-update, edit /etc/conf.d/net and put in ifface for whatever your device is(eth0,eth1..).

I myself use a Linksys Instant wireless card(orinoco_cs and hermes)...I do have WEP enabled so I set it up by writing a script, nothing much just a iwconfig command with all the parameters and rc-updated it run on boot.

there is however config files you can use to do the same, I think /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts for example can be used to put the essid and keys...

the Gnome2 WiFi applet is good only after you have setup the wireless card yourself, it just tells you what the signal strength is and nothing more.

add it using-right click on panel->add applet->utility->Wifi...

reaz82 · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2003 12:12 am Post subject:

instead of loading them as modules i compiled them into the kernel..
i am having lots of trouble tryin to get modules compiled for the kernel..

however when i run iwconfig i get 3 interfaces
lo
eth0
tunl0

however it says no wireless extensions for each one of them..
so i feel that the interface isnt detected..
however when i do cardctl or cardmgr they detect the card..

another problem i have when i load pcmcia into the default run level is that it always says that it cant modprobe ds.. what options should i select in the kernel.. i am sorry for asking soo many questions.. i am new to this.. and i really need help..

thanx

p.s. orinoco_cs and hermes are loaded into the kernel at boot time.. as they are compiled into kernel they arent available as modules..

BradN · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2003 1:10 am Post subject:

Here is what I would do:

Build a kernel with PCMCIA disabled, but the wireless section for networking enabled (don't enable drivers in the wireless section though - these will be provided by pcmcia-cs).

set pcmcia in your use flags, just in case it might be used by something. additionally, set wavelan if you wish to compile those drivers instead of the orinoco drivers. I recommend the orinoco drivers first though.

Emerge pcmcia-cs
Emerge wireless-tools
set up /etc/conf.d/pcmcia (mainly the PCIC= option)

See how it works then... I may have forgotten something.

reaz82 · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2003 2:38 am Post subject:

sounds crazy enough to try..

i'll let u know how it goes.. thanx for the tips

reaz82 · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2003 6:00 am Post subject:

i followed BradN's advice..
everything installed painlessly..

however when i start to load the modules one by one..
the system fails miserably while trying to load orinoco_cs module..

the actual module which fails is the ds.o module..
this module has been failing quite often.. since the orinoco_cs
module depends on this module.. that fails as well..

the error that shows up is as follows :

/lib/modules/2.4.20-gentoo-r2/pcmcia/ds.o: init_module: Operation not permitted
Hint: insmod erros can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.

it also advised me to check the output from dmesg..
the error dmesg provided was when loading ds
"ds: no socket drivers loaded!"
if i cat /proc/pci i notice that the kernel does detect my pcmcia port..
Bus 0, device 3, function 0:
CardBus Bridge: 02 Micro, Inc. OZ6912 Cardbus Controller (rev 0).
IRQ 5
Master Capable. No Bursts. Min Gnt=192.Max Lat=3.
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0x10000000 [0x10000fff]

so what do i do now?? previously when i compiled all these drivers directly
against the kernel they used to load up.. infact cardctl would also detect my card.. it is just that i couldnt go ahead and assign an ethx interface to my card.. so i really need some help now.. anyone got any ideas?

thanx

BradN · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2003 8:11 pm Post subject:

have you tried just doing "/etc/init.d/pcmcia start"? Oh, also... if you haven't rebooted after the new modules were built, do a "depmod -a" command.

reaz82 · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2003 10:26 am Post subject:

the system hangs up when i try that..
and if i add the script in to etc it hangs up during booting..

thanx

BradN · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2003 8:47 pm Post subject:

have you tried the other driver for the PCIC= option?

reaz82 · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2003 10:38 pm Post subject:

there are 2 options..
both manage to hang up my computer..
i'll try once more and let you know..

i finally found out that i use the prism chipset..
i dont know if that helps..

thanx

i just gave it a shot right now..
if i enable the tcic driver there is an error saying "no such device"
and if i try the i82365 driver.. it hangs up bad.. i have to go for a cold reboot..

BradN · Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2003 11:38 pm Post subject:

I found this in a different post:

reaz82 · Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2003 11:22 pm Post subject:

it's just bad luck..
i get gentoo to detect the card.. however
there are no ports such as ethx..

i used iwconfig.. but that doesnt show any ethX port..
not sure what goes wrong..

thanx anyway.. i'll stick to wired..

reaz82 · Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2003 6:31 am Post subject:

hi all..

i had given up.. about a month back.. i got back on it again cause wires are just a pain to carry in a school bag.. soo i found out that my card was a belkin f5d6020 ver2 which uses the atmel drivers..

they can be found at http://atmelwlandriver.sourceforge.net or something of the sort.. look it up.. you will surely find it using google.. i cant be bothered..

anyway there are a few forum posts out there which helped me to an extent.. the rest i had to figure out..

thanx

btw if you have an atmel based wireless card then the normal way of installing pcmcia will not work.. it has to be compiled into the kernel..
just as i did.. you might need the yenta_socket module and that is why you need to compile pcmcia support into the kernel..

that's all
thanx

longint · Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2003 1:04 am Post subject:

I've also problems getting my Intel PRO/Wireless 2001B Card running. This is what is get:

Linux PCMCIA Card Services 3.2.4
kernel build: 2.4.20-gentoo-r5 #6 Sun Jun 8 02:12:13 CEST 2003
options: [pci] [cardbus] [apm] [pnp]
PnP: PNP BIOS installation structure at 0xc00fe2d0
PnP: PNP BIOS version 1.0, entry at f0000:e2f4, dseg at 40
Databook TCIC-2 PCMCIA probe: not found.
ds: no socket drivers loaded!
Intel ISA/PCI/CardBus PCIC probe:
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 02:01.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 02:01.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 02:01.2
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 02:01.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 02:01.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 02:01.2
TI 4451 rev 00 PCI-to-CardBus at slot 02:01, mem 0x20001000
host opts [0]: [ring] [pci + serial irq] [pci irq 11] [lat 32/32] [bus 3/6]
host opts [1]: [ring] [pci + serial irq] [pci irq 11] [lat 32/32] [bus 7/10]
ISA irqs (scanned) = 3,7,9,10,15 PCI status changes
cs: memory probe 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff: clean.
hermes.c: 4 Dec 2002 David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au>
orinoco.c 0.13b (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au> and others)
orinoco_cs.c 0.13b (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au> and others)
cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0800-0x08ff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.
eth1: failed to initialize firmware (err = -16)
orinoco_cs: register_netdev() failed
orinoco_lock() called with hw_unavailable (dev=ce057000)

Any help?
TiA,
Jan

tdb · Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2003 3:50 pm Post subject:

I just wrote up some more Atmel stuff here:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=65737