can't detect PCMCIA card?

[cymru]

Hi, ive just installed mandrake 10.1 on my laptop. everything appears to work fine except it hasn't picked up the PCMCIA wireless card, its a 3COM 3CRPAG175 and works perfect under windoze.

 

Bear in mind ive only used linux about twice and haven't got a clue about anything with it really, so if you have an answer please put it simply.

 

thanks for any help offered!

 

Matt

 

One day ill understand mandrake...

[Steve Scrimpshire]

Have you checked out this thread and the links in it?

http://mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=5494

 

If so, what specific problems are you having or clarification do you need?

[cymru]

Have you checked out this thread and the links in it?

http://mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=5494

 

If so, what specific problems are you having or clarification do you need?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

basically how to get linux to detect the card and how to install it!

[LukeK]

cymru, I think the link Ohms posted will help greatly. It gives very detailed instructions on how to get linux to detect and use your card properly. Take a look through that thread and see if that helps.

[cymru]

cymru, I think the link Ohms posted will help greatly. It gives very detailed instructions on how to get linux to detect and use your card properly. Take a look through that thread and see if that helps.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

whats a console though? sorry if sounds stupid but im totally new to Linux at the moment.

[Steve Scrimpshire]

See, now that's the kind of clarification question I was wanting. Alot of us here will tend not to get too basic, because alot of times the questioner thinks that we think they are dumb. But, there are tons of people that do need for us to get real basic. We just wait for them to ask. :D (I once needed people to get this basic for me, so don't feel offended.)

 

Ok, here we go

 

 

LT-01: PCMCIA wireless access for your Laptop

 

Having Wireless access for your laptop is really easy to set up.  Here's what you'll need:

• Wireless PCMCIA adapter (You have that)
   
   
  
• Wireless access point or Router (I'm assuming you have this)
  

 

<<snip>>

 

• The ESSID (This is the "name" of your access point)
   
   
  
• The Key password and type (only if you want to encrypt your access point so you're not sharing it with your neighbors)
  

Then we can set up the PCMCIA card.  Open up a console and as root type

/sbin/cardctl ident

This will produce results like this:

[ liquidzoo ]# /sbin/cardctl ident

Socket 0:

 no product info available

Socket 1:

 product info: "Siemens", "SpeedStream Wireless PCMCIA", "", ""

 manfid: 0x02ac, 0x3021

 function: 6 (network)

[ liquidzoo ]#

 

A console...a terminal emulator. In KDE and Gnome, it's the little TV-looking thing in your starter bar. To 'su' to root, you do this (anything you see inside <<>>, you don't actually type, it's just actions or comments):

su <<hit enter>>
<<type your root password here. You won't see anything being typed>><<hit enter>>

 

Now do the command above:

/sbin/cardctl ident

 

What we're looking for is the product info and the manfid.  Write them down, or leave the console window open so you have them.  Next, we need to edit some config files, you can use whatever editor you want.  Since I'm already in X when I'm doing this, I use kwrite.  As root, in your console type (You've already got a console open and you've already su'ed to root in it, so just type this there)

# kwrite /etc/pcmcia/config

Somewhere in this file, near the end where cards are defined, you will want to put in the following info:

• card (This is just so you know what card it is for)
   
   
  
• manfid (this is what came from the output of /sbin/cardctl ident)
   
   
  
• bind "orinoco_cs" (This tells the kernel which module and driver to use)(The driver you'll need may be different, depending on what you found out from the link)
  

Use the existing entries in this file as a guide for formatting.

 

Save and exit that file. 

 

Next, you have to reboot (I know, but it has to be done).  Once you have rebooted, it should recognize your card, but it might give you an error because it is not configured yet.  Once you have brought up X, go into the MCC (Mandrake Control Center: you can just type 'mcc' without the quotes in that console you have open).  Go into the Hardware section and choose HardDrake.  After it detects your hardware, you should see an entry under Ethernetcard for eth1.  Select that and click on run config tool.  This will bring up drakconnect.  Set this up just as you would normally set up your network, choosing autodetect and expert mode.  You will get to the eth1 config tool, where you can set the mode of the wireless card.  I choose Auto for WIRELESS_MODE and Any for WIRELESS_ESSID.  This will let you connect to any available wireless network.  If you encrypted your Wireless Access Point, you will need to enter the Key in WIRELESS_ENC_KEY.  Once you have that set up, you are all set.  Say yes when it asks to restart the network.  Once that is done, check your internet connection by firing up your favorite browser and heading to this board!

 

 

Additional Information

 

http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=9865

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Thanks to a link from Steve Scrimpshire, there is a page to find out which driver your wireless card uses.  That page is here:  http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourri...ss.drivers.html

 

You can use this to find out exactly what driver to put in the bind statement in your /etc/pcmcia/config file so that your card will work correctly for you.

 

I would like to thank Steve for posting that link for all of us.  I put it here so that it would be an easy reference for anyone looking to add wireless to their laptop.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Any more clarifications, just ask :D

[Steve Scrimpshire]

Ok, now that I've pasted al that, let's forget about that for a minute. You picked a doozie of a card for being a newbie. That card has an Atheros chipset, which we have to deal with way differently than 'supported' cards. We're gonna try ndiswrapper first, since it is easier.

Download this:

http://umn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/...pper-1.0.tar.gz

 

Save it to /home/cymru

(assuming cymru is your regular user)

Then open a console, su to root as you learned above and type (you can copy and paste these commands into your console, by left-click-drag across, then left click in the console, to make the console window active and then middle-click in the console window)

 

urpmi kernel-source-2.6

<<after that's done, hit Ctrl-D to go back to regular user>>

tar -zxvf ndiswrapper-1.0.tar.gz

cd ndiswrapper-1.0

make

<<su to root again>>

make install

 

Put your Windows driver CD in the drive and mount it with this command

mount /dev/hdc

 

Look for where the *.inf file is for the driver...you'll need the path...you can

cd /mnt/cdrom

ls <<to see what directories there are>>

cd Drivers <<assuming that;'s a potential location>>

ls

cd <<blahblah>>

ls

 

now type

ndiswrapper -i <<name of inf file>>

ndiswrapper -l <<to make sure it is now seen>>

ndiswrapper -m

modprobe ndiswrapper

drakconnect

<<choose wireless>>

<<fill in the info>>

 

Should work. Hope I was thorough enough.

Edited February 15, 2005 by Steve Scrimpshire

[cymru]

wow! thanks for teh very thorough advice, ill give it a try and post my findings!

 

thanks again Steve. :)

[cymru]

first problem... after doing, /sbin/cardctl ident

 

i get:

 

Socket 0:

 

no product info available

 

Socket 1:

 

no product info available

 

 

Any ideas?!?!

 

Thanks :)

Edited February 15, 2005 by cymru

[cymru]

please, anyone?!

[Steve Scrimpshire]

Forget about my first post and see how far you get with:

Ok, now that I've pasted al that, let's forget about that for a minute. You picked a doozie of a card for being a newbie. That card has an Atheros chipset, which we have to deal with way differently than 'supported' cards. We're gonna try ndiswrapper first, since it is easier.

Download this:

http://umn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/...pper-1.0.tar.gz

 

Save it to /home/cymru

(assuming cymru is your regular user)

Then open a console, su to root as you learned above and type (you can copy and paste these commands into your console, by left-click-drag across, then left click in the console, to make the console window active and then middle-click in the console window)

 

urpmi kernel-source-2.6

<<after that's done, hit Ctrl-D to go back to regular user>>

tar -zxvf ndiswrapper-1.0.tar.gz

cd ndiswrapper-1.0

make

<<su to root again>>

make install

 

Put your Windows driver CD in the drive and mount it with this command

mount /dev/hdc

 

Look for where the *.inf file is for the driver...you'll need the path...you can

cd /mnt/cdrom

ls <<to see what directories there are>>

cd Drivers <<assuming that;'s a potential location>>

ls

cd <<blahblah>>

ls

 

now type

ndiswrapper -i <<name of inf file>>

ndiswrapper -l <<to make sure it is now seen>>

ndiswrapper -m

modprobe ndiswrapper

drakconnect

<<choose wireless>>

<<fill in the info>>

 

Should work. Hope I was thorough enough.

[cymru]

the only driver i can find is a ".exe" file, not ".inf"

 

and then:

 

[root@localhost ndiswrapper-1.0]# make install

make -C driver install

make[1]: Entering directory `/home/matt/ndiswrapper-1.0/driver'

Can't find kernel sources in /lib/modules/2.6.8.1-12mdk/build;

give the path to kernel sources with KSRC=<path> argument to make

make[1]: *** [prereq_check] Error 1

make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/matt/ndiswrapper-1.0/driver'

make: *** [install] Error 2

 

i get the above after the make install command!

 

thanks

Edited February 16, 2005 by cymru

[Darkelve]

Superfluous posts from and in response to Adlai deleted.

Adlai kindly agreed with my request to start a new thread of himself.

 

Darkelve

HW Forum Admin

[cymru]

Superfluous posts from and in response to Adlai deleted.

Adlai kindly agreed with my request to start a new thread of himself.

 

Darkelve

HW Forum Admin

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

thanks mods, but still need help off you guys please!

[Darkelve]

thanks mods, but still need help off you guys please!

Just be patient... someone will get to your question. Not all are online at the same time, and not all have the time or the knowledge to reply to you. And a substantial amount of my time goes into checking the HW forum topics regularly and moderating the HW and Workbench forums. E.g. me I don't have the knowledge to help you with this problem. Another person might know but not have time to help you today... and maybe he'll help you tomorrow or the day after when s/he has time... Just a few examples.

 

Usually you get a reply here the same day, if not it's in 2 or 3 days. But we can't make any promises about this, this is a free board after all.

 

If you want more direct contact, you can also try our IRC channel (see link in the top right corner of the boards menu - 'Chat')