Setting up Orinoco PCMCIA Card in Linux--NEED HELP

[Nighthawk69]

Hey all...

Well, I finally got the Orinoco PCMCIA to PCI adapter card in the mail and I am working on setting up the card to work in RedHat 7.3. I am to a point where the 802.11b PCMCIA card will come up with a green power light and I can ping anything in my local network, but nothing out to the net and I also cannot access any files or anything on my shares across the network with it.

I have followed the instructions on the orinocowireless.com website for their PCMCIA Linux drivers and they are installed properly. I _thought_ I configured them properly as per the instructions, but they are a bit confusing. What I ended up doing was, first, going into the /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts file and removing the values for INFO, ESSID, MODE and KEY, which is what the instructions said to do for a certain block of code in there.

Next, I went into my /etc/pcmcia/pcmcia.opts file and simply removed the comment # sign on the line for the the WaveLAN/IEEE driver in Access Point Mode, which reads:

module "wvlan_cs" opts "station_name=default"

Finally, I went into the network configuration wizard and setup eth1 to use the orinoco_cs driver and to activate that on boot.

Now, once again, when I boot, the card powers up but when Linux boots and tries to initialize eth1 it says that it can't be found and says it will be skipped (after it initialized my NIC). Then it beeps once a few seconds later, but the power LED is still solid.

Then, once I get into Linux, I cannot do ANYTHING except ping computers/router on my local network. Nothing else seems to work.

Sorry for the long post, but I'm hoping we can work this out as I know there are others doing what I am trying to do...

THANKS!

Regards,

 

[Nighthawk69]

BUMP!!

 

[manly]

Documentation is sparse, but these are (in my opinion) the official open-source Orinoco drivers for Linux. They're official because they work well, and are actually part of the standard kernel (beginning in 2.4.8 or so).

So (assuming the PCMCIA subsystem is started successfully), getting the Orinoco client card running is just a matter of editing the configuration file /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts

The above URL is useful if you want to download the latest orinoco_cs drivers, but like I said David Gibson doesn't seem to provide any documentation (others around the Web have written up some docs).

From your description, it appears Agere Orinoco documents use of their drivers, which requires some tweaking of a standard Red Hat system. But I'd try the orinoco_cs drivers first; if those don't work right out of the box, then you can continue tweaking around.

 

[Nighthawk69]

Thanks manly!

I have kernel 2.4.18, so wouldn't that mean I'm already using these drivers...?

Thanks!

 

[Nighthawk69]

OK, I tried those drivers. They made no difference from the package I was using, in-fact they caused more errors while they were in there with dependency problems. The readme also recommends that you use the pcmcia-cs package that I'm using with the Orinoco drivers over his unless there is a need for his newer ones.

So, I'm still stumped... I'm gonna need some help from someone who is running this setup right now I guess (ORiNOCO PCMCIA card with PCI-PCMCIA adapter in RedHat). Suggestions? :disgust:

 

[manly]

Yes, the standard kernel includes the open-source orinoco_cs driver, which is why I recommended trying that first.

Secondly, pcmcia-cs is the entrenched PCMCIA support subsystem. It has always been maintained separately from the kernel, but works well and is highly supported. What it does is load support for the PCMCIA controller; in your case (and mine), that's the PCI adapter card.

In Linux 2.4 PCMCIA support was freshly developed within the kernel; it is known as yenta socket. Either pcmcia-cs or the new built-in yenta socket subsystem is fine, but yenta is newer and less tested. If you use yenta, it doesn't hurt to have pcmcia-cs installed. I do not know how to choose the PCMCIA controller subsystem in Red Hat Linux (it's really simple in SuSE, as a lot of things are).

Finally, orinoco_cs or wvlan_cs is the driver (a kernel module) for the PCMCIA device itself. So look at getting things working as a two-step process. First the PCMCIA controller has to be brought up (this is more or less automatic, usually). Second, your Orinoco Gold client needs to be brought up; this step is the one that's trickier.

Which web documentation are you referring to to help you along?

Offhand, the two places you can check are the system log (/var/log/messages) for any errors, and also the command /sbin/lsmod shows which kernel modules are loaded. If *both* the PCMCIA subsystem and the device driver (i.e. orinoco_cs or wvlan_cs) are loaded, then all that is left is correctly filling in the configuration file /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts and it should work. Of course, there are instances where getting the modules loading is not so simple.

 

[Nighthawk69]

Thanks again for that great explanation!!

I fixed it though After working with someone on irc.openprojects.net #redhat, we figured out that it was as simple as turning off the NIC I have in this computer and the wireless came right up! I am still laughing... we just had to disable the NIC while I was using the wireless, then when I need the NIC, load it back up... takes 2 secs Crazy.....

So, the install process looks like simply install the latest drivers from orinoco/agere and follow their instructions to use them with the latest pcmcia-cs drivers, configure the files it says to work with, disable other NIC's in the computer, and bingo... simple as that!

/me continues laughing at himself

I guess that's how we learn...

Thanks again manly, I appreciate your time!!

Regards,

 

[manly]

Ahah, sounds like the Orinoco client was working the whole time. Most likely, your Ethernet NIC's eth0 device supplied the default route.

If eth0 is setup by DHCP, then that's the cause of your problem. In SuSE Linux, you can't prioritize network interfaces. Since eth0 comes up first, it always establishes the default route. /sbin/route to inspect your routing table.

My desktop PC networking sounds a lot like yours (an Ethernet NIC + Orinoco client). In my case, I've statically configured eth0. Orinoco's eth1 is setup by DHCP (from the AP+router) and establishes the necessary default route for my WAN connection. So in short you don't have to completely disable eth0 to use your WLAN client; you can statically configure eth0.

Under Windows, you can sorta prioritize network interfaces that are both configured by DHCP (by manually setting a routing metric). However, I found the actual implementation to be flaky (usually Orinoco established the default route, but sometimes it would change mid-stream). Since I actually hardly use the Ethernet interface, I disabled the NIC under WXP (although I could have just as easily statically configured it in the same manner as I have Linux).

Btw, why exactly did you decide to switch to a full-time Linux workstation?