[Airo-linux-general] Aironet WLAN NIC on IBM ThinkPad X30

[Stephan H. <st...@as...>]

Hi everyone.

Seem like this mailing list is my last chance to get my wireless network card
working.

This is my configuration so far:
IBM ThinkPad X30 (2672-4XG)
Debian 3.0r1 testing
Linux 2.4.23-pre4 i686

I've read and followed almost every HOWTO I can get my hands on, either
though the various, well-known linux laptop homepages, and by searching
google the hard way.  All these pages say that their X30 has an Intersil
Prism2 card an that the prism2_pci driver works for them.  Unfortunately
this doesn't seem the case for me as prism2_pci driver doesn't insert
here.

This is what lspci -v gives me about the embedded wireless network card:

01:02.0 Network controller: AIRONET Wireless Communications Cisco Aironet Wireless 802.11b
        Subsystem: AIRONET Wireless Communications: Unknown device 5000
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
        I/O ports at 7000 [size=256]
        Memory at d0200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Memory at d0400000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
        Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=2M]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [48] Vital Product Data

As you see, this doesn't say much about what exact chipset is used.
However, I've tried loading almost every wireless driver that comes with
the kernel, and these load without complaining:

	Using /lib/modules/2.4.23-pre4/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/airo.o
	Using /lib/modules/2.4.23-pre4/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/airo_cs.o

	Using /lib/modules/2.4.23-pre4/kernel/drivers/net/aironet4500_core.o
	Using /lib/modules/2.4.23-pre4/kernel/drivers/net/aironet4500_proc.o

	Using /lib/modules/2.4.23-pre4/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/hermes.o
	Using /lib/modules/2.4.23-pre4/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/orinoco.o
	Using /lib/modules/2.4.23-pre4/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/orinoco_cs.o

I've also downloaded some drivers from Cisco (Linux-ACU-Driver-v2.0.tar.gz),
compiled and installed the drivers and utilities.  The drivers insert
fine (tainting the kernel):

	tetris:/tmp/cisco/drivers/driver# insmod ./airo.o
	Warning: loading ./airo.o will taint the kernel: no license
	  See http://www.tux.org/lkml/#export-tainted for information about
	  tainted modules
	  Module airo loaded, with warnings
	tetris:/home/stephan/tmp/cisco/drivers/driver# insmod ./mpi350.o 

Both these insert fine, but when removing mpi350 again, the entire system
hangs.  Also, the Cisco utilities don't work:

	tetris:/opt/cisco/bin# ls
	acu  bcard  leaplogin  leapscript  leapset
	tetris:/opt/cisco/bin# ./acu 
	No radio found 

However, after loading the drivers, I am able to see a new network
interface using ifconfig -a (note: eth0 is my normal NIC):

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:02:8A:31:DB:16  
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:11 Base address:0x7000

It appears to be at the same address as reported by lspci.  However,
ifconfig hangs (not the machine, but the ifconfig application just
hangs and ctrl-c won't make it die nor will ).  The same happed if I run
iwconfig.

This is my contents of /etc/network/interfaces related to this:

iface eth1 inet static
        address 10.0.0.13
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 10.0.0.0
        broadcat 10.0.0.255
        gateway 10.0.0.1

iface wlan0 inet dhcp
        wireless_mode managed
        wireless_nick tetris

I don't know which one to use, really.  Some mention eth1, others wlan0.

Also, is it still necessary to patch the kernel with airo-linux 0.1?  It
seem like a pretty old package, that might very well be adopted by the
kernel a long time ago..

Could this all be firmware related?  How do I update the firmware under
Linux?  The X30 doesn't have a floppy nor cdrom-drive to boot from.
Would dosemu work for flashing the wlan NIC from perhaps?


Any help is appreciated.  I am completly new to wlan.


-- 
Stephan Henningsen