Major frustration here. I cannot get wireless working on my Acer TM254Elci. I've tried SuSE 9.2, .3 and finally 10.0. The card shows up in ifconfig and lspci. I've been reading all the relevent posts and have spent hours with Google. I've tried ndiswrapper. This is an Intersil Corporation Prism 2.5 Wavelan chipset (rev 01). I shut off the firewall and encryption. P-4 2.8GHz. 512MB.

lspci: (edited for length)

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/
O Controller (rev 02)
00:00.1 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor
to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:00.3 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor
to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Grap
hics Device (rev 02)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics De
vice (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 83)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (re v 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 0 3)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Cont roller (rev 03)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH 4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Mode m Controller (rev 03)
02:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1520 PC card Cardbus Controller (re v 01)
02:04.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1520 PC card Cardbus Controller (re v 01)
02:05.0 Network controller: Intersil Corporation Prism 2.5 Wavelan chipset (rev 01)
02:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139 C+ (rev 10)

route:
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.0.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
link-local * 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
loopback * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
default 192.168.0.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0

iwconfig:
lo no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"" Nickname:"laptop"
Mode:Managed Access Point: 44:44:44:44:44:44 Bit Rate:2 Mb/s
Sensitivity:1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality=0/92 Signal level=-68 dBm Noise level=-122 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.


Any ideas appreciated.

No need for ndiswrapper in this case. The Prism2.5 cards will work well with the orinoco_cs modules in most stock kernels.

modeprobe orinoco_cs

Then, use YaST to configure the card.

I ran modprobe orinoco_cs then set the card for dhcp, managed, no encryption, no firewall. Still no happiness. Kinternet does not show the network. Nor does scanning. iwconfig:

lo no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"" Nickname:"laptop"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 44:44:44:44:44:44
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s Sensitivity:1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality=0/92 Signal level=107/153 Noise level=107/153
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

btw: no problem with the Windoze partition so I'm assuming that rules out the router.

Dean

The card is not associating with the AP.

Does the ESSID match that of the router?
Is the router ESSID broadcast enabled? (disabling it can cause this problem)
Is there a BIOS setting for enabling the card? Fn-F2, for example on some laptops.
Also try manually enabling the interface: ifconfig wlan0 up

The ESSID matches the router. I even updated the firmware and re-configured it. The broadcast is enabled. There is no BIOS setting for the card. I also tried ifcofig wlan0 up.

Running /etc/init.d/wlan start I get this:

/etc/wlan/shared: line 73: [: too many arguments
Starting WLAN Devices: FATAL: Module wlan0 not found.
FATAL: Module wlan0 not found.
grep: /proc/net/p80211/wlan0/wlandev: No such file or directory
/etc/wlan/shared: line 133: _fwload: command not found
Firmware failed to load for device wlan0

I don't know enough about code to make sense of this.

btw: thanks for taking the time to help.

Those messages look like wlan_ng stuff. I hate that package. It breaks more than it fixes, in my view. The wlan_ng driver is designed to work with your card's chipset, and if it's already installed you may be able to get the card going with it vs. orinoco_cs. The commands are different, though, and someone else will have to step up. I don't know the syntax.

The driver site may have instructions that will help you. http://www.linux-wlan.org/

You are right, it 'was' wlan-ng. Last night I got so frustrated I wiped the drive and did a clean install of SuSE 10.0. Mainly because I'd screwed around with ndis and wlan-ng and thought that may be interfering with things. Still no happiness.

ps shows it running ::
/sbin/dhcpcd -C -R -G -N -Y -t 999999 -h laptop -c /etc/sysconfig/network/scripts/dhcpcd-hook wlan0

ifcofig wlan0 up = nothing. Still lost
Tried modprobe orin...
One thing that looks promising is it now appears t see the AP:
lo no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"wireless" Nickname:"laptop"
Mode:Ad-Hoc Frequency:2.462 GHz Cell: 02:02:BB:F5:CA:91
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s Sensitivity:1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

Progress.

One problem:

Mode:Ad-Hoc Frequency:2.462 GHz Cell: 02:02:BB:F5:CA:91

Change to infrastructure or managed mode:

#iwconfig wlan0 mode managed

Then try to pull an IP from the router:

#dhclient wlan0 (I think. It's been a while since I used SuSE. Normally, you'd run the interface script - ifup wlan0 - but that would probably clear the wireless settings if you haven't programmed them via YaST.)

It sees that when I change to managed I lose the AP:
wlan0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"wireless" Nickname:"laptop"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 44:44:44:44:44:44
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s Sensitivity:1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality=0/92 Signal level=-68 dBm Noise level=-122 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

It's almost to the point of breaking down and using a usb card. The only problem is I'm too stubborn. If the machine has a built in card I want it to work

My only other thought:

Is the SSID being broadcast? Disabling it can cause connectivity problems, and does nothing to make you more secure.

Other than that, I'm tapped out. Prism cards should not be this difficult.

Hey, thanks for all the help. You gave me a lot more knowledge than I had before.