Just switched from Suse 8.2 to Slackware 9.1 on my laptop and have everything working but my wireless card. I have the 4.25.30 firmware listed by Cisco for the card, so I know that is not the problem. Right now after I insert the card I get activity on it for about a minute then it goes dead. iwconfig has it listed on eth0 so I know that it sees it and my pcmcia services are running. I am running wep encryption and also need to know what file to edit to put my ssid in and my encryption key. If anyone can help me I would be greatful on where to start from here. I do have the drivers compilied in the kernel already so thats not it either.

- OutlawPSD

Would this do better in the networking section?

Nobody can help? I am in need of help bad here.

Ok well I wsa finally able to get my aironet 350 pcmcia card to work in Slackware 9.1. It was not easy. It did involve a reinstall of the OS to get it working correctly. I had to install it without the PCMCIA package that comes with it by default and then I made sure and disabled the service that is provided in the install. After that I had to recompile the Kernel and remove pcmcia support and only enabled the wireless networking. I did not select any devices under this and had wireless support compiled into the kernel. After the kernel was compiled I had to download the aironet 350 and pcmcia cs 3.2.5 drivers. I untared the pcmcia driver to the /usr/src/linux directory and then untared the aironet drivers. I ran the ./cwinstall for the aironet drivers and followed the steps and pointed it to the untarred pcmcia in /usr/src/linux/pcmcia-cs-3.2.5. After it finishes you will have to goto the /usr/src/linux/pcmcia-cs-3.2.5 directory and follow the steps given to you at the end of the aironet install. Something like make config and make all. Can not remember exactly but it will tell you what to do. Reboot without the card inserted. That is the key. After it boots up you will need to edit the network.opt file in /etc/pcmcia and specify a static IP address. (Still can not get it to go with dhcp) After that insert the card and run ./acu on the /opt/cisco/bin folder. Enter you SSID and WEP key. There is a setting in there for home network but would not work with that option checked. I had to run the enterprise network. Only bad thing is you must run ./acu each time you want to run the card and insert the card after bootup. Well thats what it takes. If someone knows of an easier way let me know.

In the readme.txt in the ACU .tar, there is the mention of a 'bcard' utility. Have you tried this?

The purpose of this utility, "...is to read the radio configuration(s) from the /etc/ethX.cfg file(s) and configure the radio(s)." It continues to state that this would be most useful in a startup script. It also gives sample code.

RT

Okay, I took a run at getting my Aironet 350 pcmcia card to work with Slack 9.1. Everything went according to instructions. Just for grins, I followed the instructions and left the card in during reboot. The card worked, but when the airo_cs.o module loaded, I got a 'tainted' warning. Did you get the same thing with your install?

RT

I get the same message when I leave the card in and boot. I just leave the card out until I get into KDE then I insert it. After that I run the ./acu (I dont have to config it each time - just run it and shut it down) and I am up and running. The acu util with say something to the extent of 'Card Associated at IP: 000.000.000.000' at the bottom. Not sure why it does that, may be a bug in the software but it works.

- Outlawpsd

Just so you know....

I had to 'downgrade' the firmware of my Cisco Aironet card to get it to work without flaws. With the new firmware my card would shut off everytime it loaded the airo_cs module. Nice job Cisco.....

Actually.....Cisco has been pretty good with making their stuff work with Linux. I must give them a THUMBS UP .