I have an SMC2835W pcmcia card that I want to use on a laptop running Mandrake 9.1. The driver, as far as I can tell, does not yet exist. I wrote to SMC and they sent me beta drivers for the SMC2635W for Redhat 7.3 and 8.0. I cannot run the auto install that came with the drivers because I am not running Redhat. The files they sent include the drivers, source code, etc. Unfortunately, I am new at Linux, and I don't know how to install them myself. Does anybody know what I should be looking for and where to put them? I know that other drivers for orinoco cards etc. are usually only 1-3 files, perhaps it's something easy?

Or ... the install file is written in Perl, of which I know a little (very little). I can see the statement that is checking for Redhat and telling me that I can't run the install without it. This may be stupid, but could I just take those lines out and run the install?

That is actually not a bad idea, unfortunately if you get by the install, your system will cough and spit errors at you when the attempt to load it occurs, at the very least you'll most likely get the "compiled for a different kernel" error.

When you say "The files they sent include the drivers...", does that mean you have an already-compiled module? If so it may be possible to modify it to match the mandrake 9.1 kernel using the same objcopy trick employed by the acx100 binary drivers.

If anybody else is having similar issues, I found drivers for the SMC 2835W here: http://ruslug.rutgers.edu/~mcgrof/802.11g/ . I'm still working out the kinks (mostly having to do with the fact that I'm a Linux newb and I had to rebuild my kernel), but the card seems to be working (the link light turns on now).

If you have the 2635 card, which seems also to have driver issues, SMC is now issuing beta drivers for Linux (as mentioned in previous post). Request them at their tech support site.

Thanks for the info. I picked up one of the 2635 cards because it was $20 after rebates. I figured even if I couldn't get it to work in RedHat 9.0 on my laptop I could probably still sell it for $30 easy.

In my search to get things going I this page here which seems to have some good information on it and a good selection of links.

I have just got the smc2635w card to work under Mandrake 9.1 and I am not using the driver from smc. I got the driver from
www.admtek.com. The file is called ADM8211_src_105.tar.gz
DO NOT get the other ADM8211_Linux_Driver_103.tar.gz even it sounds similar... I wasted the whole weekend wondering why it doesn't work... simply because I got the wrong file =(

After install

1. Make sure you installed the Kernel source
2. unzip it ... of course...
3. Open Makefile search for the prase /usr/linux2.xx (or something like that) and remove the 2.xx so it says /usr/linux
if you don't you'll get a compile error. There should only be one replacement in the whole Makefile. Just in case, do a compile without change and you'll see the error line to pin point where in the Makefile the change is needed.
4. Make it and it should be creating a file called 8211.o and it is the file you'll need to insmod later on.

5. Finally create the script as follows (I got this from some other post. I have to thank the guy who did it. I didn't create this so
I don't have any credit at all...)


#these first three lines get the green light on
modprobe pcmcia_core
modprobe yenta_socket
modprobe ds

#this line gets the green light blinking
#you have to successfully compile the driver from www.admtek.com
#for this to be successful

insmod /usr/local/bin/ADM8211/8211.o

#need a brief pause before trying to configure the card
sleep 3

#these are universal card settings by default
iwconfig eth1 channel 6 rate 11M

#thest are my personal settings for a DSL connection, but yours
#should be similar. I use a static IP. Never could get DHCP #working

iwconfig eth1 essid [insert your essid]
iwconfig eth1 key [insert your key]
sleep 1


6. If you're running fixed IP add
ifconfig eth1 [insert your IP]
route add default gw [insert your default gw
to the end of the script

7. If you're running dhcp like me don't do step 6 and just
run the script and afterward, run dhclient instead.


I got the card working after step7 and I was able to ping yahoo,
ssh to a client's machine... but for some reason Netscape won't run. However, I can confirm that the connection is working fine.


You should notice the green light blinking. If not you know it might not be working.

Since Mandrake is basically RedHat.. this should work...

I happen to own 2 of these ADMtek cards, one CardBus (D-Link DWL-650v2), one PCI (TrendWare TEW 223PI). They are both working with Mandrake/RedHat/Slackware and both work with either the 1.0.3 or 1.0.5 source code from ADMtek's site, not sure what happened to you w/v103. I'll agree with the need for some sleep statements in the scripts, the cards are slow to accept iwconfig commands.

Hello I'am facing some problems with my module ( 8211.o) i have a 2.4.21 kernel from mandrake 9.1 distrib,

>>depmod -ae tells me that there is lots of unresolved symbols in my module... do you have the same issu... ???
is it normal ???
Thanks for any help

I had to disable my on-board ethernet card to get web browsing working, have no clue why. Just click on Mandrake Control Center on the "Quick Launch" bar, click Network & Internet, DrakConnect, and configure the non-wireless not to start on boot, then restart comp. Good luck!

I've been having a nightmare trying to get an SMC 2635 working with Fedora for the past 4 days...

Tonight was my biggest 'success' - I actually had a fully functioning wireless connection for 20 minutes - now it's back to how it was before: The second you try to send or receive a packet, it loses link until you pull out the card and put it back in.

any updates on installing the smc 2635 w/ the redhat linux drivers?