Let's see, I've got an Averatec 3150 laptop with one PCMCIA slot. I've got Libranet 2.8.1 juiced up and running on it. I just recompiled the kernel so I could bump up to 2.4.22, and so could compile ACPI support into the kernel. While I was at it, I also compiled PCMCIA support into the kernel directly (not as a module).

The kernel seems to work fine, but I can't really get the PC card (an Orinoco silver 802.11b chipset) to DO anything. I have PCMCIA card services installed, but I don't have the modules package installed (as I have everything in the kernel, right?)
Cardctl tells me:

root@franklin:/home/storm# cardctl ident
Socket 0:
product info: "Agere Systems", "Wireless PC Card Model 0110", "", ""
manfid: 0x0156, 0x0003
function: 6 (network)

and dmesg tells me:

cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0800-0x08ff: excluding 0x800-0x87f
cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x400-0x40f 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.
root@franklin:/home/storm#

No drivers get loaded, and eth1 does not get created. I can load the orinoco_cs driver manually, but it still doesn't DO anything. Anyone have a bit of advice? I'm a bit out of my league on this, but I'm soooooo close to having this laptop 100% functioning under linux.

--Akshun J

Interesting developments. I recompiled just for sh*ts ang giggles. Then I compiled and installed the newest version of PCMCIA_CS (3.2.5). The one originally included with Libranet is 3.1.3. This gave cardctl a couple of extra features, but none apparently very helpful. Now I get this from dmesg:

cs: warning: no high memory space available!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!
cs: unable to map card memory!

This CAN'T be good. And cardctl tells me that no product info is available. So I uninstalled it, and reverted to the original version. Now I'm back to this at dmesg:

cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0800-0x08ff: excluding 0x800-0x87f
cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x400-0x40f 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.

and cardctl now identifies my card properly. I can't figure out how to track where the problem is occurring. Somehow the proper /etc/pcmcia script is not getting run. Drivers are not being loaded, and the whole things seems to be waiting for some additional input from me, although I'm not sure what to do next. Any takers??

I have no idea what that cs bug was, the second looks like a normal happy pcmcia yenta_socket load.

I don't think you have a real orinoco card. If you've got one of the newer ones, its a proxim Orinoco card and they've rebadged them, hence the cardctl ident line that if you check, I bet doesn't match anything in /etc/pcmcia/config

You might try hacking an entry into /etc/pcmcia/config by the manfid off of the card (keeps from having to try to get the syntax in the ident line perfect.), and see if that will get it to try and bind the orinoco_cs module properly. From what I remember on the orinoco_cs mailing list, these might not actually be true Orinoco Silvers... its a little weird.

Cheers,

Finegan

It IS a Proxim Orinoco silver. Thanks for the advice. This points me in the right direction. I'll do some more experimenting...

--Akshun J

To add a little more info, there seem to be three versions of this chipset: a true orinoco one, an orinoco with a new ident line that'll work just fine with the orinoco_cs driver, and a third, proxim chipset that seems to be similar to the orinoco... the third seems to have drivers available from the Proxim site, but I've never looked into them. The www.linux-wlan.net giant HCL will help you figure out what exact chipset you have.

Cheers,

Finegan

UPDATE: I tried the driver on Proxim's website. It created a driver called wavelan2_cs, which failed miserably. I noted that the driver was two years old. My theory is that Proxim has purchased a few different chipsets which it has sold under the name of Orinoco Silver. So, I took a tip from a related forum post and bounced over to http://agere.com/
They had a similar looking driver for download, with the key exception of having been updated two MONTHS ago! :-) I downloaded, compiled, and installed it. VOILA! Proxim's Orinoco Silver is all blinking lights and beeps! I hope this helps someone else out there...

I also have that card.
I am tyring to get it running and wanted to
ask you, after you installed the downloaded driver, when you rebooted, did you leave the card in the slot during the reboot?

Also, did eth1 get created?

Thanks!