I have a linksys WUSB11 v2.8 wireless adapter. My distribution has the proper driver for it, but for some reason it doesn't load correctly.

The funny thing (ha ha) is that I can get the driver to load *properly* if I first boot up into windows, activate the adapter, and then reboot into Linux.

Below is the pertinant dmesg output after booting directly into Linux...

usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using address 4
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503-fw_skel.c: using compiled-in firmware
usb 1-1: reset full speed USB device using address 4
usb 1-1: device firmware changed
usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 4
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503.c: unable to get descriptor
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503.c: unexpected opmode 237
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503-fw_skel.c: wlan%d disconnecting
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503-fw_skel.c: at76c505-rfmd2958 disconnected
usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using address 5
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503-fw_skel.c: using compiled-in firmware
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503.c: getting firmware failed with -32, or version is 0
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503.c: this probably means that the ext. fw was not loaded correctly

And here is the pertinent dmesg output after a reboot from windows...

usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using address 2
3rdparty/at76c503a/usbdfu.c: USB Device Firmware Upgrade (DFU) handler v0.12beta14-cvs20072004 loading
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503.c: Generic Atmel at76c503/at76c505 routines v0.12beta14-cvs20072004
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503-fw_skel.c: Atmel at76c505 (RFMD 2958) Wireless LAN Driver v0.12beta14-cvs20072004 loading
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503-fw_skel.c: using compiled-in firmware
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503.c: $Id: at76c503.c,v 1.61 2004/06/29 21:26:24 jal2 Exp $ compiled Oct 1 2004 12:46:46
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503.c: firmware version 1.101.0 #95 (fcs_len 4)
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503.c: device's MAC 00:0c:41:5c:46:32, regulatory domain FCC (U.S) (id 16)
3rdparty/at76c503a/at76c503.c: registered wlan0
usbcore: registered new driver at76c505-rfmd2958


I am stumped. Any ideas??

Thanks in advance.

Okay, here is the latest...

The Linksys WUSB11 v2.8 is supposed to work right out of the box with Mandrake10.1; however, in my case the driver is not initialized properly.

The WUSB11's all (I believe all) require firmware to be loaded into their flash memory before they will work properly.

When my driver loads, according to dmesg output, it tries to load its "compiled-in firmware" to the device, which evidently doesn't work (unless of course the firmware has already been flashed to the adapter when booting windows). :-(

Now, I was under the impression that hotplug was supposed to load the firmware by way of the firmware.agent script; however, after turning on hotplug debugging it appears that the firmware.agent script is never called. Might this be the problem? Should that script be called in this instance?

If anybody knows, please post.