Still a newbie. Still need help.

MarkR

Well, haven't gotten much past installing a pen drive. I wanted to go online via my wireless lan pcmcia card. It's an orinoco gold, and isn't auto detected by either RH9 or Fedora. I saw some drivers on the proxim site, but installing hardware in linux is a bit daunting, i have to create / edit drivers to suit my build? If anyone can point me in the right direction (even a handy idiot guide on the net) that'd be great.

Thanks,

Mark

joePC

I know some orinoco cards are not compatible with Linux but the orinoco gold is, its a nightmare to install for a newbie, try looking @ some linux forums etc....

You should get all the info u need.

Thanks joePC

MarkR

Think i better stick with a dual boot for a while. :-)

Thanks

ZENER

I just managed to get a realtek (Netgear) based WiFi card to work on RH9 which doesn't support it natively. It's not that difficult, I'm a noobie as well and I managed it!!

Find out what chip the card you have is based on and post it here then maybe we can help.

Meantime try here

The only thing about the realtek is that I have to start it manually with ./wlanup and stop it before shutting down to avoid kernel panicks but once it works it works flawlessly !

Tinky

fractal

OK..

Lets take RH9 (havent played with Fedora Core yet)...

I presume it has discovered you're pcmcia control chipset..

Do a "dmesg | grep PCMCIA"...
You should see some lines like this:

Linux PCMCIA Card Services 3.2.4
kernel build: 2.4.20 #1 Mon Jun 23 23:05:36 IST 2003
options: [pci] [cardbus] [apm]

Now do an lsmod and check see if any of these modules exist:
ds or i82365 i82092 tcic yenta_socket (there may be others)

If they do then the pcmcia control chipset has been picked up and is working (this is most likely the case)

If this is the case then:

do an
"insmod orinoco"
"insmod orinoco_cs" (these are driver for the orinoco silver but should work)

And then just use iwconfig to config the card..

This should work.. but if it doesnt PM me and I should be able to sort you out.. Next step is to config cardmgr to detect the insertion of said card and load the correct driver. But thats another days work.

MarkR

Thanks for the help folks, i'll definately giving it a go. Currently setting the dual boot up (fedora and xp pro. Seemingly fedora is RH10 ish, so hopefully all should apply...

niallb

The only difference between Orinoco gold and Orinoco silver
should be the firmware. They have different maximum WEP key lengths.

Are you succesfully using any other PCMCIA cards on your system?
Is it a laptop, or a desktop with a PCI adapter?
Are you sure PCMCIA services are running?

Orinoco cards work fine with linux and have done out of the box for some time.
Your problem is likely to be something simpler.

One problem with wifi cards is that companies keep
calling them by almost identical names.
All orinoco branded cards I've seen yet have worked.
Some claiming to be copies are and some aren't.
Avaya make good clones.

fractal's approach above is spot on,
it should work for you.
If it doesn't, post the name of your PCMCIA adapter,
lspci should give it.

NialB

MarkR

Thanks for all the replies folks.

Doing a dmesg | grep PCMCIA game me nothing. Could be bad.
Tried dmesg | grep PCI and got...

/start overload of info..

PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfd7ae, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
Disabling VIA memory write queue (PCI ID 0305, rev 80): [55] 3c & 1f -> 1c
PCI: Using IRQ router VIA [1106/0686] at 00:07.0
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
VP_IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:07.1
PCI: Assigned IRQ 9 for device 00:07.2
PCI: Assigned IRQ 11 for device 00:0b.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:0a.0
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:0b.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:0a.0
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:0a.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:0b.0
Yenta IRQ list 0408, PCI irq11
PCI: Enabling device 02:00.0 (0000 -> 0002)
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:07.5
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:0a.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:0b.0
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:07.5 to 64
/end overload info

Ploughing on, lsmod'ed and got..

PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfd7ae, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
Disabling VIA memory write queue (PCI ID 0305, rev 80): [55] 3c & 1f -> 1c
PCI: Using IRQ router VIA [1106/0686] at 00:07.0
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
VP_IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:07.1
PCI: Assigned IRQ 9 for device 00:07.2
PCI: Assigned IRQ 11 for device 00:0b.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:0a.0
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:0b.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:0a.0
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:0a.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:0b.0
Yenta IRQ list 0408, PCI irq11
PCI: Enabling device 02:00.0 (0000 -> 0002)
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:07.5
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:0a.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:0b.0
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:07.5 to 64
[mark@localhost mark]$
Broadcast message from root (Fri Jan 16 21:16:27 2004):

Battery Low Notification from APM BIOS (-1% unknown)
/sbin/ls mod
bash: /sbin/ls: No such file or directory
[mark@localhost mark]$ /sbin/lsmod
Module Size Used by Not tainted
wavelan_cs 25940 0 (unused)
nls_iso8859-1 3548 1 (autoclean)
nls_cp437 5180 1 (autoclean)
vfat 12812 1 (autoclean)
fat 38488 0 (autoclean) [vfat]
via82cxxx_audio 24056 1
ac97_codec 17064 0 [via82cxxx_audio]
uart401 8356 0 [via82cxxx_audio]
sound 73300 0 [via82cxxx_audio uart401]
soundcore 6500 4 [via82cxxx_audio sound]
parport_pc 18788 1 (autoclean)
lp 8868 0 (autoclean)
parport 36800 1 (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]
autofs 13236 0 (autoclean) (unused)
ds 8616 1 [wavelan_cs]
yenta_socket 13728 1
pcmcia_core 56288 0 [wavelan_cs ds yenta_socket]
8139too 16808 0
mii 3992 0 [8139too]
ipt_REJECT 4344 1 (autoclean)
ipt_state 1080 1 (autoclean)
ip_conntrack 28840 1 (autoclean) [ipt_state]
iptable_filter 2444 1 (autoclean)
ip_tables 15264 3 [ipt_REJECT ipt_state iptable_filter]
sr_mod 17752 0 (autoclean)
ide-scsi 11984 0
ide-cd 35488 0
cdrom 33216 0 [sr_mod ide-cd]
floppy 57020 0 (autoclean)
sg 35852 0 (autoclean)
sd_mod 13740 2 (autoclean)
usb-storage 75136 1
scsi_mod 107080 5 [sr_mod ide-scsi sg sd_mod usb-storage]
keybdev 2944 0 (unused)
hid 24356 0 (unused)
usb-uhci 25964 0 (unused)
usbcore 78368 1 [usb-storage hid usb-uhci]
mousedev 5428 1 (autoclean)
input 5824 0 (autoclean) [keybdev hid mousedev]
ext3 70532 2
jbd 51732 2 [ext3]

So ds is there. Hopefully good.

insmod orinoco
[mark@localhost mark]$ /sbin/insmod orinoco
Using /lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2115.nptl/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/orinoco.o
/lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2115.nptl/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/orinoco.o: unresolved symbol hermes_read_ltv_R56966035
/lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2115.nptl/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/orinoco.o: unresolved symbol hermes_bap_pread_R01028a7b
/lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2115.nptl/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/orinoco.o: unresolved symbol hermes_init_R08b840a2
/lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2115.nptl/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/orinoco.o: unresolved symbol hermes_bap_pwrite_Rd184b2eb
/lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2115.nptl/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/orinoco.o: unresolved symbol hermes_allocate_R485ca2bc
/lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2115.nptl/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/orinoco.o: unresolved symbol hermes_write_ltv_R01b35442
/lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2115.nptl/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/orinoco.o: unresolved symbol hermes_docmd_wait_Rcb548710
and insmod_cs seemed to do something anyway, so hopefully good!

Then back to iwconfig which brings back a slightly disheartening
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

So, am I on the right track, or am i screwed? On boot and shutdown I can see PCMCIA starting and stopping...

At least the dual boot is working out well.

Oh yes, i'm running fedora and xp pro on a compaq presario 701FR. The card is an orinoco gold (says proxim on the tab) . As for the name of the pcmcia adapter, it's reported as a Texas Instruments PCI-1410 Cardbus controller (in windows)

*phew*

Thanks for reading. :-)

Mark

niallb

Hi MarkR,
I think something like this happened me with a Toshiba laptop.

Before doing anything else, try and use a different driver to the yenta - it's not great.

In your /etc/sysconfig directory,
there should be a file called pcmcia

Open it, and edit the line starting with PCIC
It probably says:
PCIC=yenta or similar.
Try changing it to:
PCIC=i82365

It might do the trick,
I'd love to know!

Good luck,
NiallB

MarkR

I tried another wireless lan card which was immediately detected (hermes chipset i think), so i'm getting there. Just need to sort out my router now.

vibe666

probably not any use to you, but i use a dell truemobile 1150 wifi card (which is a re-badged orinoco silver afaik) and it worked fine out of the box on my dell latitude CPxJ with RH9.