## If you're reading through this to find help on connecting a Linksys WPC11 v2.5 wireless adapter with a Linksys Wireless-B Broadband Router using Suse 9+ (the Novell Linux Desktop distribution), I list my solution at the end of the thread (this is a post solution edit). I'll leave the whole thread in place in case you are finding some of the same issues. I'd also be interested in learning if there are other work-arounds for this problem, other than the solution that worked for me. -- Bill

I've read through a lot of the other threads on this type of problem, but I'm still unable to get DHCP (dhcpcd) working with my wireless card. Suse 9, Dell Inspiron 8100, all tested and working under XP. Not even trying to use WEP yet. I've also check the numbers of files in init.d, and pcmcia is lower than network, so that's not the problem either. Could it be some conflict between the dhcp which attempts to run for my 10/100 card (eth0), and the dhcp trying to run for wlan0?Thanks in advance for your help.

Here's the basic information:

linux:~ # iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"linksys" Nickname:"linksys"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.427GHz Access Point: 00:04:5A:ED:0F:A7
Bit Rate:2Mb/s Tx-Power:2346 dBm
Retry min limit:8 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Link Quality:54/92 Signal level:-68 dBm Noise level:-100 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

linux:~ # ifconfig wlan0
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:04:5A:C9:37:8A
inet6 addr: fe80::204:5aff:fec9:378a/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:23 errors:0 dropped:3 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:8288 (8.0 Kb)
Interrupt:3 Base address:0x100

linux:~ # ifup wlan0
wlan0 device: "The Linksys Group, Inc.", "Instant Wireless Network PC Card", "ISL37300P", "RevA"
wlan0 configuration: wlan-bus-pcmcia
wlan0 warning: using NO encryption
Starting DHCP Client Daemon on wlan0... . . . . . no IP address yet... backgrounding

linux:~ #

Contents of /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-wlan-bus-pcmcia:

STARTMODE='hotplug'
BOOTPROTO='dhcp'
DHCLIENT_SET_DEFAULT_ROUTE='yes'
DHCLIENT_MODIFY_RESOLV_CONF='yes'
MTU=''
WIRELESS_NICK=''
_nm_name='static-0'
WIRELESS_ESSID='linksys'
WIRELESS_NWID=''
WIRELESS_AP=''
WIRELESS_BITRATE='auto'
WIRELESS_CHANNEL=''
WIRELESS_MODE='Managed'
WIRELESS_FREQUENCY=''

have you tried just picking up an IP directly? "dhcpcd wlan0" or try usign pump, dhclient, dhcpxd instead.

acid_kewpie - Thanks, Yes, I've already tried both "dhcpcd wlan0" and dhclient. The former failed, the latter spent a good deal of time searching before also failing.

where is the dhcp server then? on the router? are theere any server side logs to cross reference?

Chris - It's my home network, so the DHCP server is my Linksys Wireless-B Broadband Router. Encryption is off, all else is standard setting (no firewall, etc.).

I seem to be having other issues, perhaps. For example, I don't seem to be able to use iwconfig actively (as opposed to just getting a description in return). See below:

linux:~ # cardctl ident
Socket 0:
no product info available
Socket 1:
product info: "The Linksys Group, Inc.", "Instant Wireless Network PC Card", "ISL37300P", "RevA"
manfid: 0x0274, 0x1612
function: 6 (network)
linux:~ # ifdown wlan0
wlan0 device: "The Linksys Group, Inc.", "Instant Wireless Network PC Card", "ISL37300P", "RevA"
wlan0 configuration: wlan-bus-pcmcia
linux:~ # iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.
linux:~ #

Is this an indication that something else is wrong? I've assumed that since iwconfig displayed an AP for my wireless router that it was communicating appropriately with the system. However, maybe not? I checked the config file under /etc/pcmcia and there isn't listing that is precisely the same as the one returned by "cardctl ident" as above. Do I need to add something manually?

Thanks. This is a huge timesink!

OK, I fixed my problem, and am now online via my Linksys WPC11 2.5 wireless card. I'm going to take some time to troubleshoot a couple of items before posting my solution in full, and I'll leave all the earlier posts on this thread (even though it is mostly me talking to myself, with the exception of Chris' help) in case someone else searches on similar features/problems and has gone down some of the same dead ends. I'm pretty sure I'm not done yet, though it is clearly working so I've made progress. In short, I changed a number of items in various config files, but the most important appear to be (a) adding my card and changing the module used for my particular wireless card from prism2_cs to orinoco_cs in /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng/conf, and (b)changing adding some lines to etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-wlan-bus-pcmcia, which I'll list when I return.

OK, so here's my solution:

1. The first problem was getting the system to interact properly with both the adapter and the dhcpcd daemon. For whatever reason, the prism2_cs module (which the system I have assigned to my wireless card) seems to be problematic. There are other posts on the web which make the suggestion that one use the orinoco module(s), since they were originally designed for the chip on this wireless adapter. So, I tried this, and it worked. There are two files related to this issue. The first is etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.conf, which had the following entry:

card "Bromax OEM 11Mbps 802.11b WLAN Card (Prism 2.5)"
manfid 0x0274, 0x1612
bind "prism2_cs"

If one executes a "# cardctl ident" for my Linksys Wireless adapter, one receives:
linux:~ # cardctl ident
Socket 0:
no product info available
Socket 1:
product info: "The Linksys Group, Inc.", "Instant Wireless Network PC Card", "ISL37300P", "RevA"
manfid: 0x0274, 0x1612
function: 6 (network)

...so, looking at the manfid id's, this is the one I need to change. I made the following entry/modification to etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.conf:

#card "Bromax OEM 11Mbps 802.11b WLAN Card (Prism 2.5)"
# manfid 0x0274, 0x1612
# bind "prism2_cs"

card "Bill Wireless Card (Prism 2.5)"
manfid 0x0274, 0x1612
bind "orinoco_cs"

In addition, I also made the following change (commented-out the text) to etc/pcmcia/config, since this appeared to be a potential conflict (though I'm less sure but better safe than sorry, I haven't taken the time to confirm whether this is important):

#card "Linksys WPC11 11Mbps 802.11b WLAN Card"
# manfid 0x0274, 0x1612
# bind "orinoco_cs"

2. The second issue was "fixing" the configuration file in /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcg-wlan-bus-pcmcia, which I had created using Yast2. The original file had a large number of items, many of which were useless or simply not recognized by my wireless card. I now use a much shorter file here, it is:

BOOTPROTO='dhcp'
STARTMODE='hotplug'
WIRELESS_ESSID='linksys'
WIRELESS_MODE='Managed'
_nm_name='static-0'

That's it. I haven't tried to remove that final line, but it might also be superfluous. I rebooted my machine, and it now interacts with my wireless broadband router/ap and I'm using it now. I read many suggestions about Suse requiring the lines:

DHCLIENT_MODIFY_RESOLV_CONF='yes'
DHCLIENT_SET_DEFAULT_ROUTE='yes'

...but clearly this wasn't necessary for my system and a look at the results of a tail -f /var/log/messages when I was using these in the /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-wlan-(etc) file implied that the two lines had little effect.

For the record, I'm not quite sure what the longer-term issues will be with using orinoco versus prism modules. I haven't yet tried to load up one of the wifi scanners/managers, but that's probably going to be the subject of another post. I should also note that I am surprised that the name of the network is not wlan0, but eth1. That's probably something related to orinoco module (when I was using prism2_cs, the device was referred to as wlan0, as expected, though it didn't interact well (obviously) with dhcpcd.)

Hope this helps someone in the future waste less time on this than I have.