how do I setup Prism II wireless NIC in RH 8 ?
 

I don't know the least bit about setting up wireless cards, or ethernet cards for that matter, in Linux. A while back I bought a Siemens SpeedStream card that used the TI chipset, only to find out it wasn't Linux compatible (although I hear now that a driver is in development). So now I am considering purchasing a US Robotics USR2410 from a friend of mine who doesn't need it anymore. I used iwconfig and cardctl ident to get some info. I found out it is a Prism II card, so it should be supported.

Here's what I got:

(whenever I insert the card in console mode this pops up, sometimes twice.)
wvlan_cs: This is a PrismII card, not a Wavelan IEEE card :-(
You may want report firmare revision (0x7) and what the card support.
I will try to make it work, but you should look for a better driver.

(executing cardctl ident when the wireless card is in the slot my ethernet NIC is normally in:)
Socket 0:
product info: "U.S. Robotics", "IEEE 802.11b PC-CARD", "Version 01.02", ""
manfid: 0x0156, 0x0002
function: 6 (network)

(iwconfig output, if wireless is in the other socket:)

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"KD5RSA" Nickname:"Prism I"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437GHz Access Point: 00:06:25:76:B1:4F
Bit Rate:2Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:27/92 Signal level:-75 dBm Noise level:-102 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:23 Missed beacon:0

the ESSID was apparently set by my friend.
(I don't know what lo is, eth0 is my regular ethernet card)



Please give me the basic info I need to set up this card. I tried to use RedHat NIC configuration app, but it gave an error msg. I'd like to know how to set it up with text commands.

Thanks

Try iwconfig. Type man iwconfig for the man page. It is used for setting the ESSID, among a host of other things.

lo is the loopback device. It is used when to network to yourself...i.e. connect to a web server on your own computers, when pinging localhost or 127.0.0.1, and so on. You will always find this if you have a kernel with networking support.

Håkan

If you have a card which is recognised this will help :-

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l...-wireless.html

if the above doesnt help much the below is a good source of info on drivers etc...

http://www.linux-wlan.org/


If you are still struggling after looking at those, let me know and i'll send you copies of the relevant config files from my RH8.0 wireless system :D

Dont forget get the card working first without encryption, (keep it simple at first), after you get it working, then implement 128bit WEP encryption. be secure .

btw i used a Netgear MA311 card, was easy to set up. I did have to install the drivers from the linux-wlan site, but, i used the .rpm versions so easy to install.

Let me know how you get on, if you need more help let me know :)

inode
:jawa: