Quick question: I am going to pick up a D-Link DWL-520 PCI card. I want to use a small program called KWifiManager for easy configuration. It uses the Prism chipset, and the linux-wlan-ng drivers don't work with this program because they aren't WE compatable. The HostAP drivers are, however. Can I use these drivers for accessing my router as a client (much as the linux-wlan-ng driver would) or are they exclusively for turning your machine into an access point? Thanks in advance.

That, from the HostAP web site, answers my question. I suppose I am an idiot for not knowing the meaning of those two acronyms.

What about the orinoco_cs driver? It works fine with KWiFiManager and Prism cards. Also, recent versions of the DWL-520 are RealTek.

The latest revision (revision E) of the DWL-520 reverted to the Prism chipset. It is also appears to be native PCI, so orinoco_cs isn't working.

According to lspci, this card is a Prism2.5 card. I have tried orinoco_pci, hostap, and linux-wlan-ng. All give the error: "init_module: no such device". The device DOES work in Windows. I had to switch it to a different PCI slot because even though this board (Intel D865GBF) is a PCI 2.2 board, evidently it doesn't have all 3.3v slots.

This is found in dmesg after 'modprobe orinoco_pci':

hermes.c: 4 Dec 2002 David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au>
orinoco.c 0.13b (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au> and others)
orinoco_pci.c 0.13b (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au> & Jean Tourrilhes <jt@hpl.hp.com>)
Detected Orinoco/Prism2 PCI device at 01:01.0, mem:0xE6AFF000 to 0xE6AFFFFF -> 0xe01ae000, irq:22
Reset done................................................................................................ .......................................................;
Clear Reset............................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .........................................................;
orinoco_pci: Busy timeout
eth%d: Failed to start the card

relevent lspci entry is as follows:

01:01.0 Network controller: Harris Semiconductor Prism 2.5 Wavelan chipset (rev 01)
Subsystem: D-Link System Inc: Unknown device 3700
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV+ VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Latency: 32, cache line size 10
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 22
Region 0: Memory at e6aff000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4k]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0+,D1+,D2+,D3hot+,D3cold-)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

I would appreicate any help anyone can offer in getting either orinoco_pci or hostap to work with this card. Thanks in advance!

Here's something else of interest. This problem could be PCI bus-related. I get a message at start up that repeats probably ten times:

intelfb.o.gz: init_module: no such device

I ignored it until now because everything operated okay despite the message, including graphics. Perhaps the Intel PCI bus controller (Intel D865GBF motherboard) is causing problems? I read online that passing the 'noapic' kernel parameter and then adding 'pci=3dbios' or 'pci=3dnobios' if just the first didn't work could help with the wireless card.

This thing is driving me batty! I've heard the word "over-supported" applied to Prism chipsets and yet I'm having all sorts of trouble.

Googling around I found this:

http://lists.shmoo.com/pipermail/hos...er/004941.html

it seems to indicate that the new revision E of the DWL-520 has broken the HostAP driver for that card at least. Hopefully the included patch should work!