Wireless Card config
 

Hi there,

I have an internal wireless card on an IBM Thinkpad Red Hat 8.0 refuses to detect. The card works on the Win XP partition, so I am pretty sure the issue should not be hardware related. I have tried entering the card's spec's into the network hardware settings section under Networks on RH 8.0 and tried to activate it but with no success.

Is there anyway I can get Linux to auto-detect the card, or give it specs for the card that it will make it recognize the card ?

Thanks.

providing the card information will help other to help you better.

oops
 

sorry
the card is a High Rate LAN MinPCI Combo Card manufactured by ActionTec
thanks

Is the card 802.11a or 802.11b?
According to this the only cards even matching Actiontec in a search are the Atheros AR5210 cards (Most 802.11a cards) If your card is 802.11a those drivers might work, since Actiontec is listed as one of the hardware manufacturers there.
If it isn't listed there I doubt your going to get your card to be able to work in Linux, as he lists all the wireless cards (to my knowledge) that are even remotely supported under Linux.

err
 

Thanks for the link, I appreciate the help..
I was wondering how I could find out whether this card is 802.11a or 802.11b ? Since the card is internal, I can't actually look at it and read off any specs... the details i have are from the device manager from my windows partition... so any ideas where i should look for details ?
Thanks

Mini-pci?

Post here the output of /sbin/lspci -v as regards to the card and I can figure out what chipset it uses and hence... what driver, if there is one. Offhand I've never heard of that one, but it sounds like fun.

Cheers,

Finegan

Hmm... if you could give us the model of your computer then we probably could look it up on IBM's website and see what card it ships with.
Also, are you running 8.0 or 8.1 beta? I had trouble getting a Linksys Wireless card working in 8.0 and it worked perfectly in all the 8.1 betas, you could always try that once we find the drivers for it.

output of /sbin/lspci -v
 

here's the output of /sbin/lspci -v at the terminal...
i edited parts of the output to reduce redundant data...

thnk u
---------------------------

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82845 845 (Brookdale) Chipset Host Bridge (rev 04)
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M]
Capabilities: <available only to root>

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82845 845 (Brookdale) Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 04) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, fast devsel, latency 96
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=64
I/O behind bridge: 00003000-00003fff
Memory behind bridge: d0100000-d01fffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: e8000000-efffffff

... USB stuff ...

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BAM/CAM PCI Bridge (rev 42) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=08, sec-latency=64
I/O behind bridge: 00004000-00008fff
Memory behind bridge: d0200000-dfffffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: f0000000-f80fffff

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801CAM ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0

00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801CAM IDE U100 (rev 02) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
Subsystem: IBM ThinkPad T23 (2647-4MG) or A30p (2653-64G)
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11
I/O ports at 01f0
I/O ports at 03f4
I/O ports at 0170
I/O ports at 0374
I/O ports at 1860 [size=16]
Memory at 10000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801CA/CAM SMBus (rev 02)
Subsystem: IBM ThinkPad T23 (2647-4MG) or A30p (2653-64G)
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 11
I/O ports at 1880 [size=32]

... Audio / Modem / VGA stuff ...

02:00.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev a8)
Subsystem: IBM: Unknown device 0185
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 11
Memory at d0202000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Bus: primary=02, secondary=03, subordinate=05, sec-latency=176
Memory window 0: f0000000-f03ff000 (prefetchable)
Memory window 1: d0400000-d07ff000
I/O window 0: 00004000-000040ff
I/O window 1: 00004400-000044ff
16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001

02:00.1 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev a8)
Subsystem: IBM: Unknown device 0185
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 11
Memory at d0203000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Bus: primary=02, secondary=06, subordinate=08, sec-latency=176
Memory window 0: f0400000-f07ff000 (prefetchable)
Memory window 1: d0800000-d0bff000
I/O window 0: 00004800-000048ff
I/O window 1: 00004c00-00004cff
16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001

... Firewire ...

02:02.0 Network controller: Harris Semiconductor Prism 2.5 Wavelan chipset (rev 01)
Subsystem: Action Tec Electronics Inc: Unknown device 0406
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
Memory at f8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: <available only to root>

02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82801CAM (ICH3) PRO/100 VE (LOM) Ethernet Controller (rev 42)
Subsystem: IBM ThinkPad A30p (2653-64G)
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 66, IRQ 11
Memory at d0200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
I/O ports at 8000 [size=64]
Capabilities: <available only to root>

model no
 

its an IBM Thinkpad A31p
I believe the wireless card is ActionTec ...

thnx

This is one of those mini-pci cards built onto the board cards isn't it? If its Harris semiconductor, its a prism2 card. You have 3 choices of module sets, all of them cover this kid. There are modules onboard for the card:

modprobe orinoco_pci

or maybe its:

modprobe orinoco_cs

I can't remember offhand if its the pci driver or the card services driver that handles mini-pci cards... they're goofy. Then check "dmesg" for a wireless device being registered, it should get eth1. Then:

ifconfig eth1 up
iwconfig eth1 essid whateverthenetworkiscalled
iwconfig eth1 enc 12321321321
dhcpcd eth1

Or, for redhat:

dhclient eth1

or for a static:

ifconfig up 192.168.1.23 up
route add default gw 192.168.1.1 up
echo "nameserver 12.12.12.12" > /etc/resolv.conf

The above should work for darn near anything (substituting for your IPs that is.)

Cheers,

Finegan

errr
 

Hi,
I tried the commands you mentioned.. but I have to admit - I have no clue what's wrong ...
dmesg does not show my wireless card at all .. eth0 is registered for my ethernet (wired) card.. and dhclient didn't do anything - it didnt recognize the command..

as far as i understand - this system is not recognizing the existence of an internal wireless card !

any suggestions?
thnx

After "modprobe orinoco_cs" or "modprobe orinoco_pci" there is no error message? Then the module should have registered... there's absolutely no device scan in "dmesg"?

Cheers,

Finegan

hey endian,
slackware fresh install installed and detected my card automatically, ibm tp 570 here...

still need help?
 

Just caught this thread, gotta love google. Still having trouble?

I am a total newb, but I had an easy time getting the card in my IBM T23 to work. I'm browsing around on somebody's network right now!!

I'm running Debian 3.0. I re-compiled 2.4.20 with support for Hermes, but that didn't work. With the help of this doc, I ended up using a prism2 module.

Check it out, and let me know if you still need help.http://www.math.uakron.edu/~chad/linux_t23.html

Stupid question, but is the wireless card turned on? I fought with my laptop to get it working also, and I am still running into problems, but it wasn't detected or anything if the card wasn't turned on (never thought about an internal device haveing a power switch.) On my laptop, it's a combination of the Fn key and the wireless button, I've heard that there are switches on the outside of some laptops. My problem now is I can't get the damn thing to turn on anymore after a hard poweroff.

Mike.