I am trying to install Redhat 9 but I havent been able to find drivers for my wireless nic. I have read various post about the DWL-120 but I havent found anything about the 120+, I was wondering if those drivers will work with the 120+?

Thanks for the help.

First, D-link has ATROCIOUS naming practices, so anything with a + (or even different revisions sometimes!) have different chipsets and so different drivers. I believe that the DWL-120 uses the prism2 chipset - which is available in the kernel. HOWEVER, The DWL-120+ uses the infamous Texas Instruments ACX100 chipset. (I don't think there are any revisions in which they changed the chipset. If it's maximum speed is 22 Mbps or more recently, 44 Mbps, then it's ACX100). There is a driver that has been successfully reverse-engineered, though - and it works very well. I have to use it for my DWL-520+, which is the PCI version. It can be downloaded at http://acx100.sourceforge.net .

EDIT: Oooh, just realized this - the DWL-120+ is the USB verision. It's still the ACX100 chipset, but it's not fully supported yet. They say in the readme that they've gotten associating and receiving data to work on the USB things, but not sending data - which you kinda need for normal use. They also say that that's one of their top priorities, though. Summary: no driver fully available yet, but keep tuned to http://acx100.sf.net for updates, as that should be working soon. Also, I can tell you this is the only driver for USB ACX100, so sorry but you're kinda out of luck at least temporarily. :-( Sorry for the bad news. This is why TI is in my list of bad companies in my signature. They refuse to release the specs for their chipset, which would make it A LOT easier developers to write drivers.

Not using the DWL-120+ but as the previous post said, I've had a heck of a time getting the cards with a + to work, this includes the PCI version 650+ I think it was. I'm currently using DWL-120 with Debian and it works pretty good, the Internet will stay on for hours without a hiccup. the 120 uses the Prism II chipset, but with Debian I load the Atmel drivers,
namely: at76c503-i3861 with kernel 2.4.22-xfs Hope ya get the 120+ to work, I was always interested to know if it did, case i ever got one.

Incidently, did you try Fedora? I got the Dwl-120 on Fedora and it loaded with no extra work, ya may look into that. Fedora also did a better job than any of the other Distro's in getting my other USB Nics to work, where in Debian I ran into some problems, namely the Compex WLU11A, but Fedora it worked great.

Except that the DWL-120+ uses a completely different chipset than the regular DWL-120. It's a different driver, and not included in the kernel or any distro. A different distro might come with better tools for detecting USB things (like Hotplug, usbmgr, whatever), but it still needs a working driver that it can load - which the ACX100 driver is the only one - and IT doesn't fully support USB yet.

yeah there arent any drivers for this adapter yet but apparently people are working on it.

I really hate Dlinks naming system ... you would think they might have a bit more imagination, it makes finding anything so complicated.

thank for your help guys ill just wait till someone puts out the driver

ramos67, I just installed fedora core 1 recently with a DWL-120 in usb; is it the prism2 driver that works for it? Thanks.

Greetings,

I'm posting this using my dwl-120+ and the latest version of the acx100 driver (0.2.0pre8_plus_fixes_6), kernel 2.6.3 on slackware 9.1 and with 128bit wep. I tell you this only because it proves that indeed it *can* be done, so take heart :-).

How? Understand first and foremost that even the most current acx_usb module is not yet ready for "Managed" mode, meaning: don't attempt to use it for connecting to your normal wireless access point or router!, lockups absolutely will occur.

Instead, I've set another linux machine up as what I like to call an "ad-hoc wireless router". Basically, this is a very old notebook (compaq 400cx) running Slackware 9.0, using *both* an atmel-based wireless 16bit pcmcia card and a linksys 16bit (pcm100) wired ethernet pcmcia card in it's slots. Using the ip forwarding howto from the tldp.org site I set up the forwarding using the example file in that howto.

My experiences with this device and the 0.2.0pre8_plus_fixes_6 version of the acx100 open source driver (connected to the machine listed above) is that with wep (64 or 128) it can be rather unreliable and needs to be "re-upped" at times. Yet, without wep enabled, I've used the device for hours on end for email and internet.

if you have the spare additional hardware lying around to set up an "ad-hoc wireless router" of your own for use with your dwl-120+ device, email me: linux-help@houseofcraig.net, and I'll help you get things set up.

As for the plain dwl-120, which I also own, the chipset inside depends upon the hardware revision (as listed on the back of the device): H/W:D1 == prism2, H/W:E1 == atmel. (atmelwlandriver.sf.net)

craig

Is the atmel version built into any distro's kernel? Cause I'm pretty sure I have the prism2 drivers built into my kernel, but I believe that I have the E1 (I'm not sure, it says V.E1 after a long alphanumeric code under a UPC on the bottom of my device) so, according to you, I'd need the atmel. Any help? Or do I need to visit the site listed at the end of your last message? Thanks in advance.

I would think perhaps Mandrake 10 would have it (as a loadable module) if anyone does. I recently downloaded and compiled v3.3.5.5 of the atmelwlandriver with kernel 2.6.3, but have not tested yet because according to the readme, I would have to apply a patch and recompile my kernel in order to use my atmel usb device with kernel 2.6.x, which I'm not up for at the moment.

my dwl-120 has this on the back:

FCC ID MXF-U900921
H/W1 F/W:1.3.5

which makes it a prism device.

Thanks, the readme on the atmel site helped a lot as well as just tinkering around with it to find stuff out.