Can someone please bring me some sanity...
I have pcmcia wifi card with a prism 3 chipset - Allied Telesyn AT-WCL452 (Intersil firmware apparently).
Running fc2 kernel 2.6.6-1.435.2.3
I installed this and confidently re-booted following advice that the prism chipsets were well supported.
Nothing.
I went through the set-up process in system-config-network but the card wasn't there:(
I googled and found that the driver de jour for prism was the hostap, not the orinoco that comes installed.
I installed the 0.1.3 rpm (0.2.4 now stable, but no rpms yet). And, followed some configuration info I'd found in various places on the net: inserted lines -
"alias wlan0 hostap_cs" in /etc/modules.conf
"alias wlan0 hostap_cs" in /etc/modprobe.conf
"card "AT-WCL452"
version "Allied Telesyn", "AT-WCL452 Wireless PCMCIA Radio", "Ver. 1.00"
manfid 0xc00f, 0x0000
bind "hostap_cs""
in /etc/pcmcia/hostap_cs.conf
There seemed to be some success (once I'd worked out I needed to reference hostap_cs rather hostap_pci); iwconfig gave sensible responses, as did ifconfig. However, system-config-network seemed to be playing up and freezing the whole system if I tried to change the mode form "master" to "managed", and just touching the "Wireless Settings" tab froze the window.
Then card stopped working altogether. So, I discovered a bug and fixed it by placing the start script for pcmcia before the network startup.
The card worked again. But, it kept wanting to be Master and not Managed (don't we all).
About then I discovered that Allied Telesyn provide the wlan-ng driver on their web site, not rpm. And, it didn't compile:( I've successfully compiled a soft-modem driver. Also, Open1x Xsupplicant from cvs. But, this didn't sing. Any ideas? Something to do with matched sources?
After a bit more googleing I discovered that the orinoco driver provided some support for prism. So, why not put what I've learnt into putting the systems driver to work: inserted lines -
"alias wlan0 orinoco_cs" in /etc/modules.conf
"alias wlan0 orinoco_cs" in /etc/modprobe.conf
"card "AT-WCL452"
version "Allied Telesyn", "AT-WCL452 Wireless PCMCIA Radio", "Ver. 1.00"
manfid 0xc00f, 0x0000
bind "hostap_cs""
in /etc/pcmcia/config
Success, well some... Seems to give me partially sensible things with iwconfig and ifconfig, but keeps returning eth1 instead of wlan0? Then things started getting very strange - loading orinoco_cs for the ethernet driver instead of the sis900?? Worked out that if I booted with out the card in and then inserted it, I got the right driver on the ethernet? But, at some point I have AT-WCL452 under the ethernet and orinoco_cs under wireless!!! OK, so it wants eth1 not wlan0? It can have it! I changed "alias wlan0 orinoco_cs" (no "" of course) to "alias eth1 orinoco_cs". Rebootted, but still the wireless entry in system-config-network shows wlan0 (where does it get this from!). And, the mode option has gone back to Master! (Of course, it still freezes up if I use that Wireless Settings tab.) So, I deleted the wireless entry in order to set up a new entry. And what to I get when I go through the add new device dialogue... No wireless entry (where once the driver or card name showed up thought the wireless dialogue) And! If I go through the new ethernet dialogue I have the offerings of: "SiS 900/7016 PCI Fast Ethernet (eth0)" as expected AND "orinoco_cs (eth1)" AND!!! "AT-WCL452 (eth0)!
How grey do I have to get?
Can someone help, please?
Thanks all for listening. Regards, Morgan.
-- Morgan Read <mailto:mstuffATplDOTnet>
