Hi,

I am a complete Newbie to Linux. My Windows hard disk crashed the other day and I thought "why not give Linux a try?" Since, I must have spent 8hrs trying to hook up my WLAN - no joy.

My platform:
Vintage IBM ThinkPad X20
Debian 2.6.18 (plus KDE GUI)
3com PCMCIA WIFI card 3CRWE154G72

According to www.prism54.org, my WLAN card should be supported on this platform by a module called "prism54". When I plug the card into the PCMCIA slot, prism54 kicks into action and complains about missing firmware "isl3890".

Here I hit problem #1. Nowhere on the prism web site does it mention to rename any f/w package to isl3890; isl3886 seems to be the preferred name. And, while we are at it, problem #2: various drivers are on offer that seem to fork, critically, around kernel version 2.6.28. I have only just downloaded the latest stable version of Debian dubbed 2.6.18 -- am I already out of date?

Never mind, I downloaded all three version of the f/w and placed one after the other into /lib/firmware/isl3890. Each time when I plug in the card, I get prism54 initially feeling happy that it found a f/w file, but that would be followed by a heap of messages "timeout waiting for mgmt response ###, triggering device" and culminating in "eth1: interface reset failure, prism54: Your card/socket may be faulty, or IRQ line too busy ".

Now, reading on the web - not least on this forum - it would seem that folks in the past succeeded in running this card with a f/w file from www.prism54.org called 1.0.4.3.arm; only trouble is that they have moved on to 2.13... now and I cannot get this old f/w any longer. And the new one does not seem to work (for me).

So I give up on prism54 and move on to ndiswrapper instead. Alas, no joy either. When I run "ndiswrapper -i Driver/3c154g72.inf" all seems well - I do not get any error messages. However, when I run "ndiswrapper -l", I get "Driver invalid!". I read on the web that people have managed to get this to work but I am actually somewhat perplexed as to how: the structure of the 3com Driver directory is weird in so much as there is a file dependency called CCU3C154.exe (and matching .dll) which I had thought would only run on Windows. I also do not understand how ndiswrapper decides whether to configure for 2K, ME or 98.

Could someone please advise. I am getting very close to the point where I will get the old XP disk out again...

Thanks.

After days of rummaging around (and trying dozens of dead-ends), I finally found 1.0.4.3 at http://lekernel.net/prism54/fullmac.html. When I installed this file as /usr/lib/firmware/isl3890, my 3com card finally saw my WLAN. Still, it would not apply for an IP address. I could nudge it manually via dhclient into obtaining one, and that would finally give me access to the internet, but what's the point? DHCP leases expire and need to be maintained automatically. Yet I am unable to get my Debian system to do just that.

Time to take stock. After 5 days solid of dicking around with different Linux distributions, I have a laptop that won't automatically get an IP, does not stand-by when the lid shuts and does not make a sound. And if I lost my hard drive again, I would have no idea what packages I had to download to get back to this sorry state.

I am impressed with the effort that the Linux community has made in bringing so much together. But, frankly, an operating system is but a means to an end - not, as Linux would seem, an end in itself. I shall cut my losses now and once again install Windows XP, knowing that within 1hr this laptop will be up'n'running.

To all of you who persevere with the Linux project, I wish you good luck.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. It sounds to me like you'll probably be happier going back to Windows.

Loading multiple distributions looking for a quick fix is generally not going to be as effective as trying to actually fix the problem. And downloading tarballs from various websites, going behind the back of your package manager is not a good idea for new users either.

Wireless is still the wasteland of Linux compatibility because the hardware vendors have proprietary drivers designed to work on Windows. And laptops have more hardware compatibility issues than desktop boxes. It's getting better, but initial configuration and setup can still cause a lot of heartburn.