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

[Christoph T. <ct...@fl...>]

Hi Stephan,

I've had the same troubles with 2.4.23-pre4 and ifconfig hanging on my 
Sony Vaio. Revert to 2.4.22, if possible!

lspci clearly states that you have a Cisco card, so you should try the 
appropriate kernel driver. Is the card recognized by Cisco's acu 
utility? If you don't have it, download the Linux version from their 
website and try it out.

My PCMCIA aironet card would only work after downgrading the firmware. 
Cisco's acu should tell you what firmware version you have.

Hope this helps,

Christoph


Stephan Henningsen wrote:

>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.
>  
>