pcmcia wifi card proxim 8421-WD (agere chip, orinoco) doesn't work on linux?

Hi

do you know how to run this wifi card on jornada 720 under linux?
which kernel module to use, which kernel?
where to get modules for it?

I tried modprobing all modules for wifi on jlime or familiar but wifi didn't worked maybe I'm doing something wrong

the LEDs on the cartd weren't flashing - maybe It's a pcmcia problem (driver) or the card isn't powered from batteries (as it asks on winCE)

on winCE works perfect with agere drivers

Hope somebody get this card working on normal linux or even on HPCs

If you have agere chips or orinoco cards please tell your experiences here or by PM or on my ICQ 202517002

regards

webblaster

Check to see if it is Linux compatible for starters; there are plenty of resources to do so.

that card works in windows with agere driver so it could work with agere module in linux - its wlags - I found it on familiar distro I modprobed it but no luck - card is not blinking and dmesg says only about modprobing driver

there are 2 moudles wlags49_h1 and wlags_49_h2 - do you know what are the differences between them?

Unfortunately, after lots of research, that particular model of wifi card needs the wlags module built specifically for whatever kernel you are using. If any distro updates kernels you'd have to rebuild that driver every single time. Using the prebuilt drivers in the familiar feed wont do any good either, as its built for a different 2.4 kernel than the one my opie and gpe images use. Also found out that driver is no longer supported by the 2.6 kernel and will not even build or work on 2.6. So jlime is also not going to work with it. Bummer. How is it that "one" card out of 100 supposedly orinoco based cards isn't supported? Anyway, looks like you're out of luck, unless you buy another wifi card.

The only thing i could suggest is try emailing the 2.4 jornada kernel maintainer and see if he could build that module into the next 2.4 release he uploads.

Cheers.

Edited by RTFM 2007-06-01 5:47 AM

erm, why does a wifi driver need to be built for the kernel specifically? how lame. (not criticizing, just a surprised post here)

It doesnt *have* to be built into the kernel, it can be built as a stand alone module also, but it has to be built kernel specific. It needs to be built kernel specific because not all kernels are built using the same version gcc, or use the same version of libc, etc etc. Think of it as trying to run a win95 application on win3.1, you cant, incompatable. Say you compiled your own kernel... to make it smaller and faster you wouldnt build any modules for hardware you dont have. You would just have it build the modules for your specific hardware. Most 'generic' kernels include every module, so no matter what the hardware 9 out of 10 times the driver is already built in. Unlike windows where you need to find the driver cd for this, and the driver cd for that.

Anyway, upon further looking, the 2.4.34 kernel thats in my opie and gpe images *does* already have this particular module built in..... wlags49_h1_cs and wlags49_h2_cs. If after modprobing each of these it doesnt work, then blame agere for releasing crummy linux drivers...heh

Cheers.

Edited by RTFM 2007-06-01 9:46 AM

i still think this is crazy unless you mean 1 version for kernel 2.4, and 1 version or 2.6. - that is fine.

on xp i dont need driver cd's

ok, let's not go offtopic, i'm sorry

thanks for answers

So do you think is there any chance to make this card work under linux?
I found this site - that guy made that exact card as I have to work under linux
http://questier.com/howto.html#Proxim

I tried to make it like him (compile it on jornada - i know that it wont be fast but what other can *try* to make it work)
but I'm getting troubble installing gcc on my system - installed gcc ipkg but system says gcc isnt there and I can't even find it in rootfs - also tried installing other libs and gcc stuff but no luck

a friend told me that If my card works under windows(which is true) than it might run under linux via ndiswrapper - do you think it will work?

you said sth about recompiling driver anytime when kernel updates and that modules in your distro aren't working correctly - do you think you can compile module && kernel which *might* work and send it to me and I'll try it? - coz linux newbie and have never done that adv things like recompiling drivers for other architectures on x86 etc...

I'll try to mail 2.4 kernel maintainer

hope this card will work for me in linux one day coz buying another wifi is quite expensive in my country

Well yes, it can be done, but I am still trying to get a generic 2.4 kernel compiled that actually works.

I'm going to try again and see what happens...

Have you made any progress with that coz I still cant use my orinoco card in linux so I have no chance to get on internet to get packages for configuring linux

Edited by webblaster 2007-08-02 6:24 PM

If you use jlime i have built those modules for kernel 2.6.19. I havent had anybody test them yet however. If you'd like to try you'll have to manually install the 2 ipk's. Maybe download them to your CF card from desktop or winCE. Then just run ' ipkg install /path/to/the/ipk'. They are located here, and will ONLY work with 2.6.19. http://devfiles.jlime.com/Packages/7xx/ipk/ .

For the record, you card is NOT orinoco. Yes it may be labeled (actually mislabeled) on the sticker as one, but it is in fact the 'one' card that is not orinoco compatable. It uses some proprietary agere chipset and driver, which is why it has issues under linux. Anyway, feel free to test the modules out. They may work, they may not, as the code agere released for it is 8 years old, and not well written.

Cheers.

hi I installed latest jlime with opie downloaded that 2 kernel modules tried to install both with ipkg but an error occoured

ipkg: fork failed
Segmentation fault

what's that fork failed?

so i uncompressed that .ipks and copied

wlags_h1.conf, wlags_h2.conf to \etc\pcmcia
and
wlags49_h1_cs.ko,wlags49_h2_cs.ko to \lib\modules\2.6.19-rc6\kernel\drivers\net\wireless

tried to insmod wlags49_h1_cs.ko module loaded without errors/warnings then i tried to insmod second module -also i don't know where are two modules for one card (wlags49_h2_cs.ko) but it says that module is already loaded but only h1 is loaded

lsmod says that wlags49_h1_cs is no used by anything

when reading dmesg:

wlags49_h1_cs v 7.18 for PCMCIA 03/31/2004 by agere
***modified for kernel 2.6 by Andrey Borzenkov
===modified for HermesII by Jan Pieter van Woerkom <agere@jp...
***Station mode (STA) support: YES
***Access Point Mode (AP) Support: Yes

so it looks like its 3 years old and modified by some guys one is from agere
what is hermesI hermes II? i have hermes module too but not used

anyway thanks for help

Yeah, im not sure why it has 2 modules. Maybe they released 2 cards that were slightly different. I dont think you need to load them both. Anyway, looks like the driver works somewhat from your dmesg output. Otherwise i'm clueless. Maybe check the .conf files... Dont know what else to tell ya.

Cheers

I think it might work with ndiswrapper uder linux because agere drivers under winCE works perfectly.
But I have never done that and also I dont have pcmcia card reader so I cant try it under desktop linux

Tried to download ndiswrapper ipk and install it but there were some errors
On ndiswrapper page they say that this card is supported
Can you please help me install ndiswrapper and then that winCE driver for my wifi?

can anybody help me installing ndiswrapper and windows wifi driver for it?

or if not can you please give me a complete list of cards which works in linux (best will be which works with kismet)