Hello to all,
I have a prism2 card on redhat8 and the driver is working OK, in fact I managed to see the wireless network if I use an AP at work.
At home I use as link a WUSB11 on another computer, to link the 2 different LAN (wireless and the link to the net).
It works ok if I use Windows, but if I try to use linux then it wont find the network.
I am changing everything in the .opt file but this doesn't seems to take effect on the card.
I can ping the card its self but I can't reach the gateway.
I have selected the ESSID the channel etc. but no luck.

If I do a iwconfig eth0then the ESSID is wrong,
If I then try to force it sometimes gets accepted but not always.
Still the sound of the pcmcia is positive and the card is getting recognized by the system but i don't know if there is any other settings that I need to change or if it is that the card can't talk to the WUSB11 as link.
The same config file (wlan-ng.opt) that I change at work from Ad-hock to infrastructure works fine but at home it doesn't seems to get the link.

My question:
Do I have to get an AP to solve this issue or I can still try to find a solution to this...I have spent frustrating weeks trying but nothing seems to work.

Please any suggestion welcome.

If you know that the card is incompatible with the linksys then I may think to change it for an AP (even if they are more expensive) but I don't know why will work in windows and not on linux.

BiLo

You might want to switch drivers. The linux-wlan drivers that RH shipped with and loads by default do a great job with prism2 based cards, but have been flaky in ad-hoc mode. You way want to switch to the orinoco modules that are already onboard and properly respond to iwconfig, which is something that is just now getting back-hacked into the prism2_cs modules and doesn't really work.

Loading orinoco should just be a matter of (hoping RedHat has pcmcia-cs current, please let them not screw this up):

mv /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.conf /root
/etc/inet.d/pcmcia restart

cross your fingers for the two fun beeps and then use iwconfig and ifconfig to get the card to talk to the USB adapter.

The downshot is that the orinoco drivers are known to be very flaky with certain prism2 cards (in the form of really slow connection speeds). I have an older WPC11 v.2 and have never gotten this problem.

Lastly there is the host_ap driver package, the 3rd option, that I use to put my prism2 card+ plx adapter into AP mode.

If you need links to any of these, they're under my profile under bookmarks.

Luck,

Finegan

First let me thank you for the prompt help provided.
I am impressed.

I will try the orinoco modules.
RedHat8 seeme to point to wvlan_cs as wireless drivers, which are used by the system as the prism2 cards.
I don't have the file "wvlan-ng.conf" in the /etc/pcmcia directory.
I have "wireless, wireless.opts, wlan-ng.opts.rpmsave" that I think are relevant files.

There is always a message in the background as well that say:
"wvlan_cs:Unrecognised card, card return vendor = 0x0003, please report...
wvlan_cs: this firmware doesn't support "port_type=3", please use iwconfig.
wvlan_cs: Initialization failed!
wvlan_cs: eth0 Tx timed out! resetting card".

And it goes over and over.

I am new to this and I don't understand why the same card should have no problem with AP and generate so many with another type of link

Thank you again. I will let you know if it works.

BiLo

Okay, even worse than I thought, RedHat is still a few too many versions of pcmcia-cs behind AND they didn't ship with the linux-wlan modules.

Trying the orinoco modules is just a matter of downloading a patch from:

http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_...o.html#patches

here, called hermes.conf and copy it into /etc/pcmcia/

reload pcmcia with:

/etc/inet.d/pcmcia restart

and it should load the right modules. There you go.

Cheers,

Finegan