[TriLUG] Wireless drivers - FC6 ipw3945

[Matt Pusateri]

Roy Vestal wrote:
> Ok, so I've got a T60 and i've followed the install instructions for FC6 
> (FC7 doesn't work right for some reason and I don't have time to 
> troubleshoot it now).  I used the install guide from 
> http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installing_Fedora_Core_6_on_a_ThinkPad_T60.
>
> Part of the how-to says to install the ipw3945 drivers from atrpms...it 
> worked sorta.
>
> What I have to do is rmmod iwlwifi, rmmod ipw3945, then modprobe 
> ipw3945, and restart wpa_supplicant. Once that's done, wireless is happy.
>
> My question: How do I keep iwl3945 from starting at boot up? It's not 
> listed in /etc/modprobe.conf?
>
> /etc/modprobe.conf:
>
>     alias eth0 e1000
>     alias scsi_hostadapter ahci
>     alias scsi_hostadapter1 usb-storage
>     alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
>     options snd-card-0 index=0 
>     options snd-hda-intel index=0 
>     remove snd-hda-intel { /usr/sbin/alsactl store 0 >/dev/null 2>&1 ||
>     : ; }; /sbin /modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-hda-intel
>     install ipw3945 { ( /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install ipw3945;
>     /sbin/ipw3945d ) >/ dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }
>     remove ipw3945 { /sbin/ipw3945d --kill >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; };
>     /sbin/modprobe --ignore-remove -r ipw3945
>     alias eth1 ipw3945
>
>
>
>   

It sounds like you have both IPW3945 drivers and iwlwifi drivers 
installed and they're competing for the device. iwlwifi is winning first 
which is why when you rmmod it and ipw3945 and then re-modprobe for 
ipw3945 it all works.  ipw3945 and iwlwifi are separate implementations 
of the IPW3945 driver chipset.  iwlwifi does not need the binary 
ipw3945d daemon to run, or at least that's what I remember.

Also why do you say IPW3945 is not in modprobe.conf, it looks like it's 
listed above?  You should be able to keep the interface down by looking 
at /etc/sysonfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 as your aliasing ipw3945 to 
eth1 in your modprobe above.

Matt P.