Redhat 7.3 and wireless problems

[sybaseian]

I’m running 2.4.18-3 on a laptop (laptop installation) and have problems with my wireless card not being recognised by the OS. This is a standard kernel as per default installation. I’ve tried installing the following drivers for the card:-



pcmcia-cs-3.2.4

AIROLINUXv15000

Linux-ACU-Driver-v2.0

Firmware = V5.20.17



All the installations seem to work correctly but when I re-boot with the card in, it won’t pick the card up and give the following messages:-



aironet4500_cs not present



airo: MAC could not be enabled



airo: Max tries exceeded



Anyone got any ideas?



Thanks,



Ian

[fatsteve]

Bit of tumbleweed there Ian.

You're a brave man trying, I chickened out and bought a ethernet to wifi bridge since various instructions were "simply re-compile the Kernal with X setting.. blah, blah" -

Hope you get it sorted. Alternatively, try and get hold of the intersil drivers (were free but now you have to pay for them) if your card uses the prism chip.

Steve

[tuffer]

I had similiar issues and found this site to be of help:
www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/

I have all the drivers installed etc but have yet to find the time to get the card working (too busy arsing around on this site!!!).

[sybaseian]

tuffer said:

I had similiar issues and found this site to be of help: www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/ I have all the drivers installed etc but have yet to find the time to get the card working (too busy arsing around on this site!!!).

I've been in the same position - no time until now. I've downloaded airo-linux from sourceforge.net and reading through the installation instruction it states the following:-


So now you untarred everything. What next? That depends on whether you are
using PCMCIA provided by the 2.4 Kernel or David Hinds PCMCIA services.

More details can be found at http://airo-linux.sourceforge.net, but
basically:

If you are using PCMCIA in the 2.4 Kernel
1) apply the patch under the patch directory.
2) copy airo.c to drivers/net and airo_cs.c to drivers/net/pcmcia
3) Select the Cisco drivers from menuconfig
4) Make sure the following lines are in /etc/pcmcia/config:
device "airo_cs"
class "network" module "airo", "airo_cs"

card "Aironet PC4500"
manfid 0x015f, 0x0005
bind "airo_cs"

card "Aironet PC4800"
manfid 0x015f, 0x0007
bind "airo_cs"

If you are using David Hinds PCMCIA services:
1) copy airo.c and airo_cs.c into the wireless subdirectory of the
PCMCIA distribution.
2) recompile everything.


Question is - how do I apply the patch and to where?

[tuffer]

Patch!!!!! I am installing a new Kernel!!

When I tried to install the pcmcia-cs package it required the source tree......error no sources found. So re-installing kernel and will save the source tree somewere (no idea where as I have not done this bit B4). Should then be able to move onto the next stage. I am using Suse 8.2 and I am sure it should not be this hard, the gui has all the options for wireless support under the network config tab but it just will not fire up. I am going to give this Kernel mallarky a bash and if that fails I will re-install redhat and try that.

[sybaseian]

tuffer said:

Patch!!!!! I am installing a new Kernel!! When I tried to install the pcmcia-cs package it required the source tree......error no sources found. So re-installing kernel and will save the source tree somewere (no idea where as I have not done this bit B4). Should then be able to move onto the next stage. I am using Suse 8.2 and I am sure it should not be this hard, the gui has all the options for wireless support under the network config tab but it just will not fire up. I am going to give this Kernel mallarky a bash and if that fails I will re-install redhat and try that.

I've re-installed Redhat 7.3 loads of times trying to get this to bloody work. How does the latest version of Redhat compare with pcmcia wifi card support.

I'm really not looking forward to upgrading as I'm running Sybase ASE on this laptop and it's not supported on anything over version 8. It's part of a Replicated Database system, but I want to be able to get rid of my cat5 cables as this is the only part of my system that's not wireless.

[Bodo]

sybaseian said:

I'm really not looking forward to upgrading as I'm running Sybase ASE on this laptop and it's not supported on anything over version 8. It's part of a Replicated Database system, but I want to be able to get rid of my cat5 cables as this is the only part of my system that's not wireless.

Looks like RH8 supports Aironet cards:
www.redhat.com/archives/redhat-install-list/2002-October/msg00614.html

[sybaseian]

Bodo said:

sybaseian said: I'm really not looking forward to upgrading as I'm running Sybase ASE on this laptop and it's not supported on anything over version 8. It's part of a Replicated Database system, but I want to be able to get rid of my cat5 cables as this is the only part of my system that's not wireless. Looks like RH8 supports Aironet cards: www.redhat.com/archives/redhat-install-list/2002-October/msg00614.html

Redhat 7.3 is supposed to as well.........

[tuffer]

Reformatting and trying SuSE 8.0 and I'm going to follow the guide to the letter, if doesn't work this time then I'm going to switch to OpenBSD it couldn't be any harder!!!

[sybaseian]

tuffer said:

Reformatting and trying SuSE 8.0 and I'm going to follow the guide to the letter, if doesn't work this time then I'm going to switch to OpenBSD it couldn't be any harder!!!

I've had enough - I'm raising a case with cisco after re-installing 7.3 again and following the installation instructions for the card to the letter with no further success..........


Hopefully I should have an answer within a couple of hours - if I get it working I'll post the results. If not, I might have to go bad to MS!!!!!

[sybaseian]

Just spoke to Cisco Tech Support - they think that the problem is due to the Firmware for the card being incompatible with Redhat 7.3 and have suggested that I downgrade the firmware from the latest version.

I'm currently running Firmware = V5.20.17 and have to downgrade to Firmware = V4.25.30

Should be alright with all the other software.

[tuffer]

I am now mid Redhat 9 ftp install, will see how that goes. It should have all the latest PCMCIA and wifi drivers.

[sybaseian]

tuffer said:

I am now mid Redhat 9 ftp install, will see how that goes. It should have all the latest PCMCIA and wifi drivers.

I've now got the card working - it was a firmware problem. Now I need to get the card to communicate with my DHCP server to pick up an IP address