wlan0: no wireless extensions

Shioni · 10-26-2006, 09:19 AM

Hi!
I downloaded Knoppix 3.7 because I have Netgear MA111 card witch uses prism2_usb, etc.. modules. The problem is when I connect the device, in dmesg output, I get that new usb device is attached, but it doesn't say witch device it is, etc.. But when I plug it in, I can see the wlan0 device in ifconfig, but when I do, iwconfig wlan0, I got:

Code:

wlan0: no wireless extensions

strange.. any suggestions please? Thank you!

Hangdog42 · 10-26-2006, 11:56 AM

Knoppix 3.7 is very old, so it is possible that the stock kernels didn't have wireless support enabled. Is there some reason you didn't try a newer version?

Shioni · 10-26-2006, 07:11 PM

Thanks! Yeah, because I heard that Knoppix 3.7 has prism2_usb module, that I needed for my card

jschiwal · 10-26-2006, 08:13 PM

I think that prism2_usb is a part of wlan-ng. However wlan-ng doesn't support WPA as far as I know.

Also, wlan-ng doesn't use the same linux interface that wireless-tools depends on so it may not show up in a iwconfig list even if it is working. Instead look for "linux-wlan-ng-tools".

Please read the text file at ftp://ftp.linux-wlan.org/pub/linux-wlan-ng/README

excerpt:

Quote:

FOR USB USERS:

A) Make sure your kernel usb support is running
B) Plug in the Prism2.x USB device
C) Run 'modprobe prism2_usb prism2_doreset=1' to load the driver into memory.
D) Run 'wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable' to initialize the
driver+MAC functions.
E) Run 'wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_autojoin ssid=<your ssid> authtype=opensystem'
to enable the MAC in Infrastructure Station mode.
F) Run 'ifconfig wlan0 <your IP address>'

Or, you can use the provided hotplug scripts, if your distribution has
hotplug support. :)

IMPORTANT: Due to an issue with some versions of the Prism USB firmware,
the driver usually needs to perform a port reset.

Some combinations of usb low-level drivers, kernel releases, and
hardware don't like this, and usually end up generating a kernel OOPS.
newer kernels are much better in this regard. In particular, Intel usb
controllers are the most trouble-prone.

The OOPS is due to bugs in the linux USB core, and newer kernels
(2.4.19 and later) behave much better in this regard.

However, the good news is that primary firmware 1.1.2 seems to resolve
the need for the port reset to begin with. Contact your vendor to
request this update.

Also, using the 'Alt. UHCI' controller driver (uhci.o) is broken with
kernels older than 2.4.22 due to a bug in the controller driver.

I don't know how dated this information is however.

Shioni · 10-29-2006, 02:48 AM

Thanks man!! that worked!!