Intel PRO/2200 wireless [solved]

[kde-head]

Intel PRO/2200 BG wireless built into my new HP nx9030.

 

To cut a long story short , the IPW2200 drivers on 10.1 official dont work out of the box.

 

So, after following a lot of threads on this forum, i've gone down the ndiswrapper route - everything appears to work ok - iwconfig and ifup wlan0 work, and there's no error messages in dmesg - the drivers load ok.

 

HOWEVER - somebody mentioned to me on usenet that i need to place the ipw2200 firmware drivers in /lib/hotplug (from ipw2200.sourceforge.net) , which is what i did - there's around 4 .fw files and i just copied them in /lib/hotplug and rebooted.

 

however , /proc/net/ndiswrapper/wlan0/settings shows the the mac_address is set to

XX:XX:XX:XX , which doesnt appear to be right.

 

So to sum up

 

ndiswrapper - works

ifup wlan0 , iwconfig - works

dmesg - no errors

.fw firmware in /lib/hotplug

 

but the card is giving me a mac_address.

 

Anyone got any troubleshooting pointers on where to go from here?

 

[ and no, i dont want to install the ipw2200 drivers - the instructions mention compiling cryptographic stuff into the kernel and then rebuilding your kernel. that would be very much a last resort for me, as i'd need to recompile anytime i did a urpmi kernel upgrade]

Edited December 20, 2004 by kde-head

[Guest TUnit]

I also have a laptop that has the PRO 2200 BG wireless card. I downloaded the drivers for linux off of intel's support site. The only problem is, I am a COMPLETE noob to linux and have absolutly no idea how to load or build the driver. That may sound really retarded, I've looked around, tried to read instructions, but I'm completely lost. I was just wondering if anyone could walk me through it, I'm sure it's not THAT hard, I just don't know where to start! Thanks alot!

[iphitus]

kde-head: You dont need to recompile your kernel with the crypto stuff, the mandrake kernel already has it. ALl you need to do to use official is to download it, make it, install it.

 

TUnit: you might have a bit more luck with Mandrake 10.1

[kde-head]

kde-head: You dont need to recompile your kernel with the crypto stuff, the mandrake kernel already has it. ALl you need to do to use official is to download it, make it, install it.

 

TUnit: you might have a bit more luck with Mandrake 10.1

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Excellent! Thanks for pointing that out. I'll do the make-install stuff, as the ndiswrapper route is getting me nowhere.

[kde-head]

kde-head: You dont need to recompile your kernel with the crypto stuff, the mandrake kernel already has it. ALl you need to do to use official is to download it, make it, install it.

 

TUnit: you might have a bit more luck with Mandrake 10.1

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

when i did a "make" a get lots of compile errors refering to "ieee80211_crypt.c"

 

 

my mdk kernel is 2.6.8.1-12mdk (mandrake 10.1 official)

[iphitus]

paste the errors here please. ieee80211_crypt is a module included with ipw2200 so it's not a problem with your kernel, dont worry.

[kde-head]

paste the errors here please. ieee80211_crypt is a module included with ipw2200 so it's not a problem with your kernel, dont worry.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

i did a totally fresh re-install , as i had gone down the ndiswrapper route. rather than undo that, it was faster to just do a fresh install.

 

first thing to note is that the wireless card IS detected and is assigned to eth1 by mandrake.

 

ifup eth1 results in

 

"Error for wireless request 'Set Mode' (8B06':

SET failed on device eth1: Operation not supported.

SIOSCIFFLAGS: No such file or directory"

 

Note that this is a fresh install.

 

Next stage , i suppose, is to compile the newer ipw2200 drivers from that ipw2200 website?

[kde-head]

STOP PRESS: Serious bug in 10.1 with ipw2200 drivers. lots of folks reporting it on bugzilla

 

 

read this first before proceeding.

 

 

http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/show_bug.cgi?id=12142

 

 

After reading the above , here's what i'm doing right now - to recap, i've got a fresh 10.1 install on a HP NX9030 laptop with a built in Intel 2200 BG wireless card.

 

step 1. install the kernel source tree via urpmi

 

step 2. install buchan milne's ipw2200 rpm

http://plf.zarb.org/~bgmilne/dkms/ipw2200-...1mdk.noarch.rpm

 

step 3: change /etc/modules.conf to point to the correct ethX

 

 

Quote from above bugzilla thread:

"The buchan's package works for me on my nx5000 HP laptop

(ipw2200) - regular 10.1 Official.

The wifi button also works(even if there is not light on). But I had to change

/etc/modules.conf as ipw2200 was set to a wrong ethX.

So I only needed buchan's package, the kernel source (why not) and the 10.1

Official firmware."

 

I'll report back on whether this works.

 

UPDATE:

earlier bug thread, http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/show_bug.cgi?id=11279 : comment at end says "This #12142 bug's comments gave me a solution on my HP Laptop ipw2200 with 10.1 Official." - this refers to the first bug thread linked above.

Edited December 17, 2004 by kde-head

[kde-head]

darn - plf.zarg.org is down right now. anyone know of any mirrors where i can get buchan milnes ipw2200 rpms mentioned in the bugzilla link above?

 

UPDATE:Came across this excellent page on getting 10.1 to work on a Sony laptop. Ok, i've got a HP ,but there's a lot of useful info on here:

 

http://finalpoint.homeunix.net/mandrake_10..._vaio_a190.html

 

With regards to the 2200 wireless, the Sony also has this and here's what the author has to say about installing it:

 

 

"Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection

 

The current ipw2200 modules on mdk 10.1 and 10 do not work very well. Buchan Milne made this rpms available, so just add this feed and

urpmi.addmedia ipw http://plf.zarb.org/~bgmilne/dkms/ with hdlist.cz

 

For the drivers install

urpmi dkms

urpmi ipw2200-dkms

urpmi ipw2100-dkms

 

You also need the firmware

urpmi ipw2100-firmware-1.2-1mdk

urmpi ipw2200-firmware-2.0-1mdk

 

After this execute drakconnect to configure the wireless card, and everything should work fine. "

 

Unfortunately plf.zarg.org is down right now as i write this - anyone got mirrors for the buchan milne package?

Edited December 17, 2004 by kde-head

[Guest Gary Powers]

iphitus, i notice that your running a notebook with Centrino processor. I assume you have the builtin wireless technology as I do on my Toshiba. Are you able to connect to a wireless router and on to the internet for example? I'm having to luch at call configuring my machine.

 

Gary

[kde-head]

"Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection

 

The current ipw2200 modules on mdk 10.1 and 10 do not work very well. Buchan Milne made this rpms available, so just add this feed and

urpmi.addmedia ipw http://plf.zarb.org/~bgmilne/dkms/ with hdlist.cz

 

For the drivers install

urpmi dkms

urpmi ipw2200-dkms

urpmi ipw2100-dkms

 

You also need the firmware

urpmi ipw2100-firmware-1.2-1mdk

urmpi ipw2200-firmware-2.0-1mdk

 

After this execute drakconnect to configure the wireless card, and everything should work fine. "

 

 

plf.zarb.org has been down for several days now - i've located the firmware packages, but i cant find the Buchan Milne ipw2200-dkms packages - has ANYONE got them?

[kde-head]

SOLVED.

 

Here's how.

 

Your mileage may vary , but this is my situation

 

1. Fresh 10.1 Official install

 

Set /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 and ifcfg-eth1 ONBOOT=no

 

This will prevent eth0 and eth1 confusion if you have eth0 network card set to run off your work ethernet and eth1 to run off wireless at home.

 

 

note: su root when doing console level stuff.

 

2. Install kernel source via urpmi ( doing uname -r will tell you what mandrake kernel you are using.)

 

2. Download Buchan Milne ipw2200 dkms rpm

 

http://plf.zarb.org/~bgmilne/dkms/ipw2200-...1mdk.noarch.rpm

 

3. Download latest firmware from

http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/firmware.php

 

Select 0.17 current firmware - download the gzipped tar file

 

tar -xvzf firmware file.

 

5.copy firmware files ( they end in .fw) to /lib/hotplug/firmware (create firmware dir if it doesnt exist) and /etc/firmware (read somewhere that this can solve some problems)

 

6. now urpmi ipw2200-dkms-0.15-1mdk.noarch.rpm

 

Buchan Milnes ipw2200 package will install and do a bunch of perl stuff.

 

7. Go to Mandrake Control Center - Services - check that hotplug is set to start at boot - turn it on as well.

 

8 Reboot.

 

9. ifup eth1

 

10. Browse - you are now wireless.

 

NOTE: your own DHCP, static, gateway etc settings need to be set in ifcfg-eth1

If you dont want to use DHCP, /etc/resolv.conf is where you put your DNS server settings.

 

 

Here's my ifcfg-eth1 (home, wireless)

DEVICE=eth1

BOOTPROTO=static

IPADDR=192.168.1.46

NETMASK=255.255.255.0

NETWORK=192.168.1.0

BROADCAST=192.168.1.255

ONBOOT=no

HWADDR=00:0e:35:7a:16:19

METRIC=10

MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=no

WIRELESS_MODE=Managed

WIRELESS_ESSID=any

 

UPSHOT is this is all you need to get an Intel 2200 working:

 

1. buchan milne rpm 2. kernel source 3. firmware 4. hotplug enabled 5.dkms enabled.

 

(dkms and hotplug are enabled as default in fresh mandrake 10.1 install - just saying this in case you have switched them off)

[Darkelve]

Thanks a lot, kde-head! (for your explanation and taking the time to report back, I mean) ;)

[kde-head]

Thanks a lot, kde-head! (for your explanation and taking the time to report back, I mean) ;)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

darkelve raises an important point - if anyone has problems, report back to this thread.

[Darkelve]

Thanks a lot, kde-head! (for your explanation and taking the time to report back, I mean) ;)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

darkelve raises an important point - if anyone has problems, report back to this thread.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I mean I appreciate it that when you found the solution you took the time to post it (see my new stickie at the top of the forum). Edit: I mean Hardware Forum, I see it has been moved now? Or maybe I was just confused from teh start ... :blink:

 

Edit 2: seems I was confused, it was always in Laptops&Portable thingies...