ipw2100 - Unable to get wireless connection to work

Has anyone been able to get online in Mandriva 2006 on a Dell Inspiron 600m notebook with Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 3A mini pci adapter (pci id 8086:1043)?

Strangely the ipw2100 card is recognized as ipw 2100 3B mini in Mandriva 2006. The driver was properly installed with ndiswrapper and everything but the wlan0 cannot be brought up no matter what I did. I tried using the Linux native driver with firmware but also failed. I tried asking for help in mandrivausers.org and some people did offer some suggestions and I tried everything they said but I am slowly giving up now.

Does anyone here know what I should do? Thank you very much.

I'm using an Inspiron 6000 with IPW2200, setup is really pretty easy . . .

Strangely the ipw2100 card is recognized as ipw 2100 3B mini in Mandriva 2006. The driver was properly installed with ndiswrapper

First of all, I'm not using ndiswrapper

and everything but the wlan0 cannot be brought up no matter what I did. I tried using the Linux native driver with firmware but also failed.

It's absolutely critical that you get the right firmware for your driver . . .
Did you create a directory in "/etc" called "firmware"?? You should have it (/etc/firmware).
You then have to create a soft link to "/lib/hotplug/firmware" (which is where your firmware should be);
As Root, issue this command in the terminal
ln -s /lib/hotplug/firmware /etc/firmware

Next, open "Configure Your Computer", go to "Set up a new network interface" and you should see a list with "eth2: Intel Corp.|Intel(R) Pro Wireless . . ."
Select this item from the list and click next, you should be able to accept default values.
Next, go to "Reconfigure a network interface", you should see a page called "Manage connections" with a dropdown box at the top. For each item in the dropdown box (including the wireless), go to the "Options" tab and make sure that the "start at boot" option is unchecked. When you get to the wireless item in the dropdown box, do the same and also go to the "Wireless" tab and make sure the field "ESSID" is blank. When you are finished with all the items in the dropdown box click "Ok".
Next go to the "Security" section and "Set up a personal firewall . . .", make sure none of the boxes on the first screen are checked and follow through to the third screen where there is a dropdown box at the bottom of the screen. In this dropdown box, select the wireless interface (possibly, "eth2") and follow through with the rest of the options.
You should be able to reboot and select a network from the net applet in the system tray, you'll have to type in you're Root password to connect.
For an explanation of why it shouldn't be automatic read the latest entry in my blog. Best of luck to you and enjoy!

Thank you for your reply. I wish I had seen it earlier. I have already installed Ubuntu Dapper Drake and indeed ipw2100 was detected and configured automatically. But I have another laptop running Mandriva 2006 and the Broadcom BCM4310 UART (rev 01). I couldn't use ndiswrapper with its original Windows driver or other Windows drivers listed on ndiswrapper.sf.net. Can I do something similar to it like what you described for ipw2100 card? Thank you very much for your helpful suggestion.

> Thank you for your reply. I wish I had seen it earlier. I have already
> installed Ubuntu Dapper Drake and indeed ipw2100 was detected and configured
> automatically. But I have another laptop running Mandriva 2006 and the
> Broadcom BCM4310 UART (rev 01). I couldn't use ndiswrapper with its original
> Windows driver or other Windows drivers listed on ndiswrapper.sf.net.

I'm guessing that the Broadcom isn't wireless, on my system the Broadcom chipset is recognized automatically. I haven't had to do anything other than set the firewall to watch that interface. This is important, the default policy is to 'deny all' so first thing you should do is check to see if the firewall is watching that interface. If it isn't then nothing will get through.

BTW, my nic is a Broadcom BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX