Orinoco Gold on Fedora 5

Okay, here goes. I've been searching for the past week on how to get this setup and there are NO clear cut answers. There are so many distros, cores, chipset, etc, I can't seem to make sense of it. So if you have an Orinoco/Proxim (gold) wireless PCMCIA card I will REALLY appreciate if you could direct me to a place where I can see the necessary steps to complete the installation for Fedora 5.

I have been working with PC's for 15 years but am still very green to Linux. I have an MS in IT but working with Linux makes me feel like a total moron. What I need, if possible, are the necessary installs and configs (in order) to successfully get this card working. I have tried a mish-mosh of how-to's for various solutions, ie; compile the latest core (i think that's why I used devel?) retrieved and installed the latest updates with yum, attempted to get ndiswrapper working (no success), used modprobe - insmod - lsmod to try and insert the needed modules (whatever they were - orinoco, orinoco_cs, ndiswrapper, etc).

The reason I am so green to Linux, still, is because I work at something simple like trying to get a wireless card to be recognized and usable by the os for countless hours and still have no success. Then, I boot Windows and simply push the card in the slot. I love the idea of Linux - it's open source, ability to be hacked and completely customized, it's security and so forth, but I can never seem to make it work for me. This is my first post - maybe this forum will be my key to the Linux world.

First, which ORiNOCO Gold card are you using? Check the label.

The brand has gone through several acquisitions, resulting in three possible chipsets:

Card          Model  RF Band      Chipset   Linux Driver
Classic Gold  8410   802.11B      Hermes    orinoco_cs
World Gold    8420   802.11B      Hermes II none
Gold          8470   802.11B/G    Atheros   MadWiFi
Gold          8480   802.11A/B/G  Atheros   MadWiFi

If you have the dreaded 8420, toss it. I've never seen a credible report of one working with Linux. The 8410 should be nearly plug & play, using the orinoco_cs driver. The Atheros cards aren't so simple, but still work well.

Once we know what we're working with, we can help more.

Post the output of lsmod, just for grins. If the wireless card is a Cardbus design (gold, bumpy strip along the top edge of the connector end), lspci will tell you what's inside. If it's a PC Card (PCMCIA), cartctl ident will tell you its identity.

-cgi.ebay.com/Orinoco-Gold-PRO-WarDriving-Kit-7dBi-SALE_W0QQitemZ120042523213QQihZ002QQcategoryZ40992QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem-

That is a link to a picture that looks exactly like the card I have. The black antenna part that sticks out of the PCMCIA slot is black and says Lucent Technologies on it. The face of the card says wifi in the top left corner, it has a solid gold stripe along the bottom of the sticker that says 11 Mbit/s and the GOLD.

The numbers on the back say T/N: 10208872, S/N: 01UT05412600, Encryption 128RC4 and the near the bottom there are two boxes checked: one next to 5V (for five volt - and that's how Windows recognizes the card) and then another check in the box next to 16...16-bit perhaps?

As for entering commands at the terminal and reporting on the output; I can't do that. Once I plug the card in, it will freeze my laptop. If I plug the card in at boot, the computer freezes at the second line after "Press I for interactive setup" which is: starting udev. I can, however post lsmod, and I will do that first thing tomorrow morning when I boot my laptop to Linux.

Looks like the original, but I sure don't know why it is locking up on you.

I wonder if booting a live CD like Knoppix or Unbuntu Desktop would tell us anything?

I have never tried either of those, I am assuming the os runs directly from the cd/dvd drive? I will try that if you think it will help?

They are live CD distributions - they run entirely from the CD, bypassing whatever O/S is on the hard drive. It would be a troubleshooting step to see if everything with with a different environment, without the pain of ripping up yout Fedora installation.

Another thing to try is to boot FC5 without acpi to see if that helps stave off the lockup.

Ok, I downloaded and booted ubuntu from disk. It's a debian distro? Anyway, it boots fine without the card inserted. Once I push in the card and try to reboot the OS thinking maybe it will recognize it, then it freezes. I get the message, "soft lockup, cpu0." nothing short of the power button on the laptop will function at that point.

You said this is an original orinoco gold classic card?...and it typically works very well with linux? Then, might it be a damaged card? Maybe I should purchase a different card altogether. I really want to get this working with wireless connectivity so I can use it when I travel.

A bad card is certainly possible, but I'd suspect something else like ACPI/BIOS incompatibility.

What laptop are you using?

Have you tried to boot either FC or Ubuntu with a noacpi option?

There are plenty of Linux-compatible cards to choose from, especially if you will use wireless hotspots (802.11B and no WEP or WPA) should the ORiNOCO not work out. The LinuxQuestions HCL is a good place to start. Personally, I like the Prism2.5 designs with removeable antennae OEMed by Zycomax. Two cards with that design are ZyXEL ZyAir B-101 and SMC 2532B-W.

I have a high power smc card; it has the removable black antenna part to reveal two mmcx connectors for external antennas. The only problem with that is I can't find it anywhere! It will show up though, I just don't know when.

My laptop is an HP compaq presario model 2140us. it has an amd chipset with 512 ram and a 2200+ xp installed. As for the bios/acpi incompatibility, I wouldn't have the slightest idea where to start. Also, I wouldn't know how to boot with the noacpi option. I guess I could look in the BIOS for a related setting, but if I remember right, there are VERY few configuration options in this bios.

even though this link talks about slackware, would it be relevant to our discussion? http://abaababa.ouvaton.org/presario/

here is what my lsmod output reads:

Module Size Used by
autofs4 21573 1
hidp 16193 2
rfcomm 37849 0
l2cap 23873 10 hidp,rfcomm
bluetooth 50085 5 hidp,rfcomm,l2cap
sunrpc 153725 1
orinoco_pci 8013 0
orinoco 40405 1 orinoco_pci
hermes 7745 2 orinoco_pci,orinoco
ip_conntrack_netbios_ns 3393 0
ipt_REJECT 5697 1
xt_state 2625 2
ip_conntrack 52085 2 ip_conntrack_netbios_ns,xt_state
nfnetlink 7513 1 ip_conntrack
xt_tcpudp 3521 4
iptable_filter 3392 1
ip_tables 12937 1 iptable_filter
x_tables 14405 4 ipt_REJECT,xt_state,xt_tcpudp,ip_tables
video 17221 0
sbs 16257 0
ibm_acpi 27969 0
i2c_ec 5569 1 sbs
container 4801 0
button 7249 0
battery 10565 0
asus_acpi 16857 0
ac 5701 0
radeon 105569 1
drm 68437 2 radeon
ipv6 246113 12
lp 13065 0
parport_pc 27493 1
parport 37001 2 lp,parport_pc
floppy 57317 0
ohci_hcd 21341 0
joydev 9857 0
snd_ali5451 23501 1
snd_ac97_codec 91360 1 snd_ali5451
snd_ac97_bus 2753 1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_seq_dummy 4293 0
snd_seq_oss 32705 0
snd_seq_midi_event 8001 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 51633 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 8781 3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 42849 0
snd_mixer_oss 16833 1 snd_pcm_oss
i2c_ali1535 7237 0
i2c_ali15x3 8005 0
snd_pcm 76485 3 snd_ali5451,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
ide_cd 38625 2
i2c_core 21697 3 i2c_ec,i2c_ali1535,i2c_ali15x3
snd_timer 23237 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
serio_raw 7493 0
natsemi 28193 0
snd 52933 11 snd_ali5451,snd_ac97_codec,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_ timer
cdrom 34913 1 ide_cd
soundcore 10145 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 10569 1 snd_pcm
pcspkr 3521 0
dm_snapshot 17389 0
dm_zero 2369 0
dm_mirror 28817 0
dm_mod 56921 12 dm_snapshot,dm_zero,dm_mirror
ext3 129737 2
jbd 58473 1 ext3

Here is my /etc/modprobe.conf file:

alias wlan0 orinoco_pci
alias eth0 natsemi
alias snd-card-0 snd-ali5451
options snd-card-0 index=0
options snd-ali5451 index=0
remove snd-ali5451 { /usr/sbin/alsactl store 0 >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/mmodprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-ali5451

Here is the output for iwconfig

[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

Output of lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc AGP Bridge [IGP 320M] (rev 13)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc PCI Bridge [IGP 320M] (rev 01)
00:02.0 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)
00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: ALi Corporation M5451 PCI AC-Link Controller Audio Device (rev 02)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: ALi Corporation M1533/M1535 PCI to ISA Bridge [Aladdin IV/V/V+]
00:08.0 Modem: ALi Corporation M5457 AC'97 Modem Controller
00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ601/6912/711E0 CardBus/SmartCardBus Controller
00:10.0 IDE interface: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE (rev c4)
00:11.0 Bridge: ALi Corporation M7101 Power Management Controller [PMU]
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility U1

If I launch net configurator - neat, listed are eth0, and wlan0. eth0 is active, of course, and wlan0 is not. If I try to activate wlan0 I get: orinoco_pci device wlan0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization.

[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

[root@localhost ~]# ndiswrapper -l
installed drivers:
ntpr11ag invalid driver!

[root@localhost ~]# cartctl ident
bash: cartctl: command not found

ifconfig only lists stats for eth0 and loopback

[root@localhost ~]# ifconfig wlan0 up wlan0: unknown interface: No such device

Sorry about the Duplicate post, I was trying to put all information in the above post and then couldn't figure out how to remove this one.

here is what my lsmod output reads:

Module Size Used by
autofs4 21573 1
hidp 16193 2
rfcomm 37849 0
l2cap 23873 10 hidp,rfcomm
bluetooth 50085 5 hidp,rfcomm,l2cap
sunrpc 153725 1
orinoco_pci 8013 0
orinoco 40405 1 orinoco_pci
hermes 7745 2 orinoco_pci,orinoco
ip_conntrack_netbios_ns 3393 0
ipt_REJECT 5697 1
xt_state 2625 2
ip_conntrack 52085 2 ip_conntrack_netbios_ns,xt_state
nfnetlink 7513 1 ip_conntrack
xt_tcpudp 3521 4
iptable_filter 3392 1
ip_tables 12937 1 iptable_filter
x_tables 14405 4 ipt_REJECT,xt_state,xt_tcpudp,ip_tables
video 17221 0
sbs 16257 0
ibm_acpi 27969 0
i2c_ec 5569 1 sbs
container 4801 0
button 7249 0
battery 10565 0
asus_acpi 16857 0
ac 5701 0
radeon 105569 1
drm 68437 2 radeon
ipv6 246113 12
lp 13065 0
parport_pc 27493 1
parport 37001 2 lp,parport_pc
floppy 57317 0
ohci_hcd 21341 0
joydev 9857 0
snd_ali5451 23501 1
snd_ac97_codec 91360 1 snd_ali5451
snd_ac97_bus 2753 1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_seq_dummy 4293 0
snd_seq_oss 32705 0
snd_seq_midi_event 8001 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 51633 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 8781 3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 42849 0
snd_mixer_oss 16833 1 snd_pcm_oss
i2c_ali1535 7237 0
i2c_ali15x3 8005 0
snd_pcm 76485 3 snd_ali5451,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
ide_cd 38625 2
i2c_core 21697 3 i2c_ec,i2c_ali1535,i2c_ali15x3
snd_timer 23237 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
serio_raw 7493 0
natsemi 28193 0
snd 52933 11 snd_ali5451,snd_ac97_codec,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_ timer
cdrom 34913 1 ide_cd
soundcore 10145 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 10569 1 snd_pcm
pcspkr 3521 0
dm_snapshot 17389 0
dm_zero 2369 0
dm_mirror 28817 0
dm_mod 56921 12 dm_snapshot,dm_zero,dm_mirror
ext3 129737 2
jbd 58473 1 ext3

Here is my /etc/modprobe.conf file:

alias wlan0 orinoco_pci
alias eth0 natsemi
alias snd-card-0 snd-ali5451
options snd-card-0 index=0
options snd-ali5451 index=0
remove snd-ali5451 { /usr/sbin/alsactl store 0 >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/mmodprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-ali5451

Here is the output for iwconfig

[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

Output of lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc AGP Bridge [IGP 320M] (rev 13)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc PCI Bridge [IGP 320M] (rev 01)
00:02.0 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)
00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: ALi Corporation M5451 PCI AC-Link Controller Audio Device (rev 02)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: ALi Corporation M1533/M1535 PCI to ISA Bridge [Aladdin IV/V/V+]
00:08.0 Modem: ALi Corporation M5457 AC'97 Modem Controller
00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ601/6912/711E0 CardBus/SmartCardBus Controller
00:10.0 IDE interface: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE (rev c4)
00:11.0 Bridge: ALi Corporation M7101 Power Management Controller [PMU]
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility U1

If I launch net configurator - neat, listed are eth0, and wlan0. eth0 is active, of course, and wlan0 is not. If I try to activate wlan0 I get: orinoco_pci device wlan0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization.

[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

[root@localhost ~]# ndiswrapper -l
installed drivers:
ntpr11ag invalid driver!

[root@localhost ~]# cartctl ident
bash: cartctl: command not found

ifconfig only lists stats for eth0 and loopback

[root@localhost ~]# ifconfig wlan0 up wlan0: unknown interface: No such device

1. First off, I'm sorry about a typo - it's cardctl not cartctl.
cardctl ident will tell you what the machine sees in that slot.
There are other commands available under cardctl. Use man cardctl to see all of them.

2. Edit /etc/modules.conf to change the line alias wlan0 orinoco_pci to alias wlan0 orinoco_cs. You're not using a PCI device.

3. Add the noacpi option to your GRUB menu.lst file like in this example:

kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10-5-386 root=/dev/hda6 ro pci=noacpi

\
(Your kernel version and device location will probably be different.)

if I change etc/modules.conf to read orinoco.cs instead of .pci, would the orinoco.cs module to be loaded and running when I lsmod? I don't see it in there, I only see .pci and something about hermes.

Yes, it should.

modprobe -r orinoco_pci
modprobe orinoco_cs
lsmod

ok, phew. Here's where i'm at. I tried cardctl and I dont have that command. I don't know, but I think the counterpart is pccardctl? I tried that one and did like you said. Here's what happened:

[root@localhost pcmciautils-014]# pccardctl ident
Socket 0:
no product info available

also, I pushed in the wireless card (and it didn't freeze right away) and then I issued pccardctl insert: then I got the familiar freeze.

I don't think I changed the boot file properly; I wasn't sure exactly where to insert the pc=noacpi option. My line looks different then the one you showed in your example.

# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,1)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora Core (2.6.18-1.2200.fc5)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2200.fc5 ro pci=noacpi root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.18-1.2200.fc5.img
title Fedora Core (2.6.15-1.2054_FC5)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb
quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.15-1.2054_FC5.img
title Windows XP Pro
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
(END)

This whole thing is a real pain in the a55 but I REALLY appriciate your help. I've learned quite a bit just by poking around the filesystem...so even if I don't resolve the problem right away, at least I'm getting to know Linux a little better. Thanks again.