Setting up wireless networking in Linux [Edit: I am victorious!)

[Chaotic42]

So I'm trying to setup wireless networking in Linux, and I'm lost.

I think it should just work out of the box, but lspci says it's an unknown network adapter and dhcpcd says there's nothing there.

As I have no network access, it's hard to fix stuff. Any ideas?

Edit:

I won! Take that you stupid wlan card...

Now I need to make a guide to doing this. The guides I've seen suck.

 

[n0cmonkey]

What chipset?

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
What chipset?

Prism 2.5.

I'm on the case though. I need module_init_tools right now.

It's the Dlink DWL-G520.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
What chipset?

Prism 2.5.

I'm on the case though. I need module_init_tools right now.

It's the Dlink DWL-G520.

-{drag@spock}- 01:21:54
~ >: apt-cache search linux-wlan
hostap-source - Host AP driver for Intersil Prism2/2.5/3
linux-wlan-ng - utilities for wireless prism2 cards
linux-wlan-ng-doc - documentation for wlan-ng
linux-wlan-ng-modules-2.4.25-1-386 - drivers for wireless prism2 cards
linux-wlan-ng-modules-2.4.25-1-586tsc - drivers for wireless prism2 cards
linux-wlan-ng-modules-2.4.25-1-686 - drivers for wireless prism2 cards
linux-wlan-ng-modules-2.4.25-1-686-smp - drivers for wireless prism2 cards
linux-wlan-ng-modules-2.4.25-1-k6 - drivers for wireless prism2 cards
linux-wlan-ng-modules-2.4.25-1-k7 - drivers for wireless prism2 cards
linux-wlan-ng-modules-2.4.25-1-k7-smp - drivers for wireless prism2 cards

If you want to get it working using stock Debian kernels.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: drag
If you want to get it working using stock Debian kernels.

Thanks!

 

[Chaotic42]

Well, the problem is that there's no device. I compiled support in the kernel, and also made modules. No matter what happens, there's no wlan0 or eth0. None of the tools can find anything other than lo.

 

[drag]

When you modprobe the module into memory check out the output of the dmesg command.


I think for your card it's modprobe prism2_pci, right?

You may still need to have hotplug stuff installed so that it can load up the firmware.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: drag
When you modprobe the module into memory check out the output of the dmesg command.


I think for your card it's modprobe prism2_pci, right?

You may still need to have hotplug stuff installed so that it can load up the firmware.

Yeah. insmod has no prolems, and modprobe produces no output.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
What chipset?

Prism 2.5.

I'm on the case though. I need module_init_tools right now.

It's the Dlink DWL-G520.

You sure? There were like 5 versions of that card.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
You sure? There were like 5 versions of that card.

It had better damned well be.

That would suck big time if it's some "New and improved" chip.

Anyway, all of the modules seem to be set, but ifconfig is giving me no love.

 

[Chaotic42]

Hmmm

Now 'modprobe -r prism2_pci' segfaults with a bad EIP value and it complains about SMP.

Weird.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
You sure? There were like 5 versions of that card.

It had better damned well be.

That would suck big time if it's some "New and improved" chip.

Anyway, all of the modules seem to be set, but ifconfig is giving me no love.

I got bit on that a couple of times. MA311 seems to be safe at the moment.

Sorry I'm not real help

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
You sure? There were like 5 versions of that card.

It had better damned well be.

That would suck big time if it's some "New and improved" chip.

Anyway, all of the modules seem to be set, but ifconfig is giving me no love.

I got bit on that a couple of times. MA311 seems to be safe at the moment.

Sorry I'm not real help

I found out that I have the good Prism 2.5 version. Mmmm, sweet luck.

Unfortunately I still can't get it to do anything. I miss my NE2000 card.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
You sure? There were like 5 versions of that card.

It had better damned well be.

That would suck big time if it's some "New and improved" chip.

Anyway, all of the modules seem to be set, but ifconfig is giving me no love.

I got bit on that a couple of times. MA311 seems to be safe at the moment.

Sorry I'm not real help

I found out that I have the good Prism 2.5 version. Mmmm, sweet luck.

Unfortunately I still can't get it to do anything. I miss my NE2000 card.

*shudder*

Although I did have an ne2k pcmcia card that worked splendidly. But then again, so do my prism cards under OpenBSD. Right out of the box even.

Does lspci still show up funky? Is this a "known good" card (ugh, I had a card go bad yesterday :|)?

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
*shudder*

Although I did have an ne2k pcmcia card that worked splendidly. But then again, so do my prism cards under OpenBSD. Right out of the box even.

Does lspci still show up funky? Is this a "known good" card (ugh, I had a card go bad yesterday :|)?

It shows up as an unknow D-Link Ethernet adapter.

The card does work, I'm using it now. I rebooted to Windows.

 

[drag]

What is the actual error code it produces?

It doesn't mention anything about anything in the dmesg command when moprobing the prism2_pci?


If you type iwconfig (and the module has successfully loaded) do you get anything?


check out the readme, too if you already haven't.

 

[n0cmonkey]

ftp://ftp.linux-wlan.org/pub/linux-wlan-ng/README

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: drag
What is the actual error code it produces?

It doesn't mention anything about anything in the dmesg command when moprobing the prism2_pci?


If you type iwconfig (and the module has successfully loaded) do you get anything?


check out the readme, too if you already haven't.

I'll post it tomorrow. The lappy's battery just died, and I just realized it's freaking 4am.

It's kind of funny that I'm having so many problems installing this. By fall I'll be in my own apartment and I can toss my old, reliable 3c905b NIC back in.

:sigh:

 

[Chaotic42]

Ugh

I'm using madwifi, and when I insert the PCI card drivers, I get a HAL Error 13

 

[Chaotic42]

Bump?

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42
Ugh

I'm using madwifi, and when I insert the PCI card drivers, I get a HAL Error 13

Don't know much about madwifi at all, but I found this forum there.

It says that hal error 13 means that that chipset is unsupported. (well at least it acknowledged it's existance)

Ummm...

Maybe try a series 2.6.x kernel now. Latest is 2.6.6

Unfortunenatly my only worthless experiment was with a 2 prism54-based cards, one PCI and one PCMCIA. Got it working great, but that lasted about 2 weeks until I sat on my pcmcia, and that was the end of that.


Is your card one of these?


Also the Madwifi web page that it would probably be a better idea to use the CVS source version rather then try to use the drivers, since the sourceforge drivers are incredably out of date.

 

[Chaotic42]

This one

I'm running 2.6.6. I have every wireless card built-in to the kernel. Would this cause a conflict? I did it back before I had read much about the subject.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42
This one

I'm running 2.6.6. I have every wireless card built-in to the kernel. Would this cause a conflict? I did it back before I had read much about the subject.

It can, but it shouldn't. The only problems I've had with having to many features is that it would fail to compile.

Usually if I don't know what to use I compile bunches of them as modules. That way if I end trying out some modules built out of source downloaded from a website somewere I can just overwrite the old module instead of having to go and recompile the entire kernel.

But I don't know... It sucks when stuff like this doesn't work correctly. :frown:


Is that Hal error happen with this kernel, then? If not check your kernel logs /var/log/messages and see if it mentians the card anywere...

Is that madwifi suppose to work with your card or something? If it does try to get the version from CVS...

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: drag
Is that madwifi suppose to work with your card or something? If it does try to get the version from CVS...

It's supposed to work. It's time for bed, but I'll try again tomorrow. Once I get it fixed, I'm writing a freaking guide.

 

[Chaotic42]

Ooooooooook.

Here's the error I get when trying to install the driver module:

-
ath%d: unable to attach hardware; HAL status 13
-

This is what lspci says:

-
02:04.0 Ethernet controller: Unknown device 168c:0013 (rev 01)
ubsystem: D-Link System Inc: Unknown device 3a13
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 16
Memory at fb100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
-

Now I can still return this card if I need to, but I don't like to give up either.