Hi all,

II recently posted this message in the Software section, but without success, since it concernes le ipw2100 module, I'm trying a repost here. I'm running Mandrake 10.1 on a Dell Latitude D600, and I'm trying to get the ipw2100 module loaded on boot. I suspect this is rather a problem related to the boot process and module loading rather than the module itself.

*YES* I do have the firmware installed in /lib/hotplug/firmware/. As a matter of fact, the ipw2100 module works like a charm. *BUT* it only works when I manually 'modprobe' it. During the boot process (and only then) I'm getting this


ipw2100: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Driver, 0.54
ipw2100: Copyright(c) 2003-2004 Intel Corporation
ipw2100: 0000:02:03.0: Detected at mem: 0xFAFEF000-0xFAFEFFFF -> e0d37000, irq: 7
wlan0: Using hotplug firmware load.
wlan0: Firmware 'ipw2100-1.2.fw' not available or load failed.
wlan0: ipw2100_get_firmware failed: -2
wlan0: Failed to power on the adapter.
wlan0: Failed to start the firmware.

Can anyone give me a hint on why the firmware seems to be absent during the boot process, while the module+firmware correctly load once the bootprocess completed ? I really don't appreciate to manually modprobe the module at every first WiFi connection and I'd really like to have the module loaded on boot *or* find another means to load it dynamically (binding it to the RF switch button ??? But how ?)


Thanks in advance for any help,

Bart

Modules.conf is not executed until after bootup, so no wireless access for you until after the system is completely brought up.

There are 2 ways to fix this, both tell linux to load the modules at boot time.

The surefire way is rebuild your kernel to include the module for ipw2100.

There is a file in /etc that controls which modules are loaded at boot time. Unfortunately, the two I use, SuSE and Slackware not only put these files in different places, but are named differently as well.
However, it is noted as such, and they were in /etc/rc.d or /etc/network. I found mine by going into the directories and reading the commented files as to what they do.

Thanks for the reply, but I don't think this will help me out too much.

Let me reformulate my problem :

ipw2100 gets loaded on boot. *BUT* while loading the module doesn't seem to find the firmware. When the system is fully up and running I have the module loaded into the kernel, but without the firmware (i.e. it's fairly useless). The only way I found around is by doing an rmmod, folowed by a modprobe. I don't want to mess around with the root account each time I want to go wireless, so I'd like to have a clean way of getting the firmware to load on boot.

Does that make sense ?

thanks in adance,

Bart

Hi all

did u checked the default path of mandrake to the firmware in the firmware.agent file ? did u enabled legacy firmware when u compiled u're kernel ? maybe u have it trying to load via legacy

hope it helps, good Luck

André Rodrigues

Yes ...

1. It's the precompiled Mdk kernel
2. the firmware path is set

The firmware loads correctly ! As long as it doesn't happen during the bootprocess. The module loads on boot, but fails to find the firmware. Once the bootprocess has completed, rmmod, followed by modprobe works !

Bart