Recompiled kernels and dead network connections.
 

Good day. I recompiled my kernel this afternoon so I could have the ability to mount a Novell server. This killed my previously working wireless network connection. I'm using a Cisco Airo 350 card on a laptop running Mandrake 8.1, kernel 2.4.8-26mdksecure. Here is what I see when I run the following commands.

# iwconfig eth0
Warning: Device eth0 has been compiled with version 248 of Wireless Extension, while we are using version 11. Some things may be broken...

# ifconfig
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
Yada-yada-yada
No info re: eth0

# ifup eth0
Determining IP information for eth0... failed.

I will appreciate any help I can get. Thanks.

You probably compiled the kernel without support for the Cisco card. Between pcmcia and wireless, the parts you have to check are in three places in the kernel config. You must have hit one of them to get new wireless extensions (which shouldn't be a big deal, my version of wireless tools is almost always out of sync with my version of wireless extensions. Cisco, btw, awesome card.)

On card insertion, check dmesg to see if the card registered with the kernel. Also, hopefully pcmcia registered right as well. I know that mandy made the switch to in-kernel pcmcia with 8.2, but I don't know about 8.1.

As far as the kernel, are you recycling 2.4.8 source from Mandy, or did you download a newer one from kernel.org?

This is using menuconfig:

General Setup->PCMCIA/Cardbus Support-> You might want to enable at least 82365 ontop of cardbus.

Network Device Support->Wireless LAN (non-ham)-> Check Cisco twice (if its in there twice, I'm looking at 2.4.16 as a prompt.)

Network Device Support->PCMCIA Network Device Support->Check around there too.

Luck,

Finegan

finegan is probably right about that
also go to web and check this site
http://www.goonda.org/wireless/
it has very useful information, I read that and got it up working with no problems (pcmcia + pci wirless cards)

Thank you both for your help. For the time being, I've back revved to my original kernel in which it was working. I need to be spending my time doing my *real* job. How sad that I work in a Novell/MS environment.

proove your boss that linux is better, faster, more stable, cheaper than Novell/MS :)