[TriLUG] wireless configuration problem

[Glenn Hennessee]

Thanks. I tried the modules thing without any luck. The orinoco modules 
load but nothing shows up on ifconfig. I don't have any other pcmcia 
cards to test with. One thing that is odd, neither of the lights on the 
card are lit up. lsmod shows that pcmcia_core is loaded so I assume that 
means it is loading the pcmcia module and cardctl does show the presence 
of the card. I bought the computer used and the card came with it. Are 
you referring to a  TL-WN510G or the TL-WN551G?  or does it matter which 
one? They're both $24.99.

Thanks for the help.
glenn

Joseph Mack NA3T wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Jul 2007, Glenn Hennessee wrote:
> 
>> I ditched windows on my dell inspiron 8100 laptop and installed ubuntu
>> desktop 7.04. I have a Proxim Orinoco silver 802.11b model 8421-WD
>> pcmcia card.
> 
> I have the 8420-WD which is the gold. It's sitting in a 
> windows laptop which is only used close to a WAP. I don't 
> know if it (yours or mine) works in Linux. I haven't tried 
> it as it's the worst piece of wifi hardware I have.
> 
> The much revered card from the early days is the regular 
> Orinico gold/silver which is a different animal.
> 
> The proxim card has crappy hardware, with a crappy windows 
> driver and didn't follow the wifi protocols real well. It 
> was designed for executives knowing they couldn't tell if 
> their card was crap. It was designed to grab market share 
> back in the early days when there was no competition.
> 
> After accumulating quite a few nice b cards from the early 
> days at about $70 a piece, I was surprised to find that you 
> can get a nice TP Link g card from Intrex for only $30 which 
> uses the madwifi drivers, which I'm happy with. (The price 
> of early adoption.)
> 
>> cardctl ident gives
>>
>> "Agere Systems", "Wireless PC Card Model 0110", "", ""
>> manfid: 0x0156, 0x0003
>> function: 6 (network)
>>
>> ifconfig -a only shows the lo0 and eth0 (the built-in ethernet) interfaces.
> 
> I assume you have other pcmcia cards being detected and 
> loading drivers?
> 
>> I am totally clueless how to proceed from here on making the card work
>> with linux.
> 
> (if you have the pcmcia modules loaded) load every driver 
> and see what happens
> 
> # cd /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless
> # for file in *;do insmod $file;done
> # cd -
> 
> (ignore complaints from drivers which can't find their 
> hardware) now see if iwconfig or ifconfig finds anything new
> 
> do you know to connect to a wap if you have a working wifi 
> card? - you'll need a script which feeds iwconfig the SSID, 
> encryptions strings etc, then you'll need to bring up the 
> wifi NIC, then you'll have to dhcpcd.
> 
> Joe
> 
>> I have spent several hours with google and turned nothing
>> that made any sense to me. Does anyone have any suggestions? I wouldn't
>> be averse to buying a new card if necessary.
> 
> 
>> Thanks.
>> glenn
>>
>>
> 


-- 
Glenn Hennessee
Department of Chemistry
NC State University
Raleigh, NC 27606
Voice: (919) 515-2947 FAX: (919) 515-8909
Email: Glenn_Hennessee at ncsu.edu