D-Link has refused to release drivers and Texas Instruments (the makers of the ACX100 chipset it uses) has refused to release specifications for developers, despite continual pleas. There were, originally, some binary drivers that were leaked out - if you happen to have those distributions, other reviews have said that they're fine. However, the better solution is the open-source, reverse-engineered driver at http://acx100.sourceforge.net/. This driver is quite reliable at this point (I'm using version 0.2.0pre5), even though it is technically still an alpha release.

UPDATE (9/Feb/2004): I'm now using kernel 2.6.0. Trying to follow the readme to install in 2.6 can be a pain. But a simpler solution is that there are frequently-updated 2.6 kernel patches available here: http://luca.pca.it/projects/acx100/. Anyway, driver works perfectly - I have no problems at all with it. I've upgraded my compatibility rating from an 8 to a 9 now (not 10 because the driver's still not included as part of the kernel.org kernel).

The OSS drivers (acx100.sf.net) compiled and worked perfectly on 2.4.x kernels, but I've not managed to get them to work with 2.6.0

I give it a 7. The acx100-pre2 drivers worked well for me in 2.4.22 kernel but no higher level driver worked reliably.

I couldn't get it working in 2.6.0.

Sometimes the driver would flake out and the card would lose its connection to the AP, and I have to start over by re-insmod'ing the module.

If you want wireless linux save yourself a headache and get an orinoco based card. Skip D-link wireless products (both the 520+ and the 650+ PCMCIA wireless).

Well I got it working with 2.4.22 which comes with Slack 9.1, but when I compiled it into the kernel of 2.6.3 and reboot, it tells me to specify the firmware_dir and that it can't load it because it doens't know where the firmware is. In the /etc/modules.conf file I have it in there from the 2.4.22 kernel and it still won't find it. So I'm not sure if it needs to be somewhere else or what.

mindfrost82,

Try just using the start_net script from the acx100.sf.net set of stuff. I don't know how you did what you did in your modules.conf, but the script is probably the easier route. It works for me (I just put the script in /etc/init.d) on kernel 2.6.0. The firmare_dir=whatever argument is needed in the insmod command for the acx100 module. Anyway, just try the script instead of modules.conf

It works flawlessly with any of the 2.4 kernels but i havent gotten it to work with the 2.6 kernel yet even with the patches.

I'm attually installing a new version of Slackware, clean install, I'm upgrading my Redhat as I don't really like it. But anyway, I was wondering if anyone could give me a link for the 520+ drivers for Linux, I'm not quite sure the default Kernal I believe it's 2.4. If anyone could help me, I would very much apreachate it. I am currently on windows as the only way I can connect to the internet is through wireless.

Save me from the horror that is windows.

Thanks

I have the same problem. Does the 'pre8' version of the driver work for 2.6.0?

Personally I would have used an Orinoco card, but the guy selling them only had one left. My sister took that one because her PC had been playing up and we decided to use the card that had the least visible problems with her PC. The only thing is, she doesn't use Linux at all.

I used link-wlan for a driver and when installed the d-link never was recognized and after reinstalling fedora the driver will not install and although I have no idea why I don't know why D-Link doesn't just release a binary to make our lives easier.

I copied the firmware files to a directory on my path (/usr/lib/dwl_firmware), add the line "options" to /etc/modprobe.conf, compiled the driver, and installed the module. Then, i'm restarted my network and worked fine.

But when I reboot my machine, the system can't load the module, and can't start the network.

Do you have some idea about this problem?

I'm using the acx100 driver found at SF.net

Works perfectly whit http://acx100.sourceforge.net/ 's drivers.

With the acx100.sourceforge.net (acx100-0.2.0pre8_plus_fixes_39) drivers, works fairly well on my 2.6.9 kernel.

The only Issue that i have seen is receiving an occasional deauthen packet after a few minutes of inactivity and having the connection "freeze" for 5 or so seconds while it re-authenicates....
It doesn't drop the connection, and it's only a slight annoyance when ssh'd into the system.

If you try to use the acx100 drivers i had alot of problems, with it detecting the card, but not detecting the wlan0. After investigating i decided to use the ndiswrapper, on the first try i got it. Just download the source .deb from their site using apt-get, then cd to /usr/src, extract it all, go in to drivers and do a ./configre, make, make install, then do the same in utils. Extract the 3 files in windows xp drivers from the cd (.bin, .inf and .sys) and do ndiswrapper -i GPLUS.inf. Afterwards do ndiswrapper -m and modprobe ndiswrapper, it should work. Get the wireless-tools package from the same site and do iwconfig, if it detects your card you're all set. Took me a while though to figure this out.

Works fine. Just install the kernel-source rpm for ur running kernel and follow this HOWTO:

http://www.houseofcraig.net/acx100_howto.php


Sheer happiness!
And I didn't have to use ndiswrapper or anything. The native driver works fine!