Zydas ZD1201

Muzzy · 04-07-2004, 02:23 PM

Hi all,

I have a USB wireless network dongle, which under Windows identifies itself as a ZD1201. I am not sure how to get this working under Linux. It appears that the Linux support for this device is poor, according to this entry in the HCL for a similar dongle based on the same chip:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/sh...hp?product=721

However it does say that eventually he got it working :

"Getting this stick to works requires patching the kernel, building the drivers, and mucking about with them until some random plug/unplug insmod/rmmod interactions make it work."

Has anyone else had any experience with a ZD1201? I have done everything that should be necessary : patched the kernel sources, rebuilt with the Prism module, and modprobe orinoco.cs, but now I am not sure what to do. How do I know when it is working? Should it appear when I do ifconfig -a?

What command can I issue to see whether or not the device is detected? Is there anyone that can give me a clue as to what sort of "mucking about" I should be doing to get it to work?

Thanks in advance,

Mark Byers.

GingerDog · 04-25-2004, 08:01 AM

see http://linux-lc100020.sourceforge.net/

Muzzy · 05-02-2004, 12:17 PM

Thanks for the link, but I have already tried that and it didn't work. I am using 2.4.26 and there is no patch for the 2.4.26 kernel, so I used the 2.4.24 but it's not a patch, it's just a complete file, could this be a problem if I use it on my 2.4.26 kernel?

I think I am going to give this up and get a new wireless card that is supported. Maybe, now that I am a bit more experienced with Linux, I will have one last try when I have a few spare days to waste but I'm not feeling confident about it

Mark.

Muzzy · 05-09-2004, 11:23 AM

I got a bit further... I installed the drivers, according to the pdf instructions included in the download in the above link.

Code:

modprobe prism2_usb

Then I typed some of the wlanctl-ng commands in. When I was half-way through I realised that the list of commands is for reference only and you aren't supposed to type them all in in sequence! D'oh!

Anyway I deactivated WEP on my AP, set the SSID to muzzy and changed it to channel 9.

Code:

# wlanctl-ng wlan0 dot11req_scan bsstype=any bssid=00:00:00:00:00:00 scantype=both probedelay=0 channellist="01:02:03:04:05:06:07:08:09:0a:0b:0c:0d:00" minchanneltime=200 maxchanneltime=1000 ssid=""
message=dot11req_scan
  bsstype=any
  bssid=00:00:00:00:00:00
  ssid=''
  scantype=both
  probedelay=0
  channellist=01:02:03:04:05:06:07:08:09:0a:0b:0c:0d:00
  minchanneltime=200
  maxchanneltime=1000
  resultcode=success
  numbss=3

# wlanctl-ng wlan0 dot11req_mibget mibattribute=p2CommunicationScanresult
message=dot11req_mibget
  mibattribute=p2CommunicationScanresult
SSID: Dot: Channel: 7 BSSID: 00:0D:54:9F:E8:23 ANL: 47 SL: 17
SSID: muzzy: Channel: 9 BSSID: 00:C0:02:FB:15:76 ANL: 11 SL: 60
SSID: NETGEAR: Channel: 11 BSSID: 00:09:5B:6C:F3:16 ANL: 10 SL: 24

  resultcode=success

I think I am pretty close to getting it working! I can see my AP in the list, but what do I do now?

Muzzy · 05-09-2004, 12:10 PM

This might be useful to help find what my problem is:

Code:

# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

Warning: Driver for device wlan0 has been compiled with version 15
of Wireless Extension, while this program is using version 16.
Some things may be broken...

wlan0     IEEE 802.11-b  ESSID:"muzzy"  Nickname:"muzzy"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412GHz  Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
          Tx-Power:2500 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr=2500 B   Fragment thr=2500 B
          Encryption key:off
          Link Quality:0/1  Signal level:-100 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

I am worried about all the zeros. How do I get it to detect my AP?

Muzzy · 05-18-2004, 02:38 PM

Has anyone got this device working with the 2.6 kernel?

Muzzy · 05-21-2004, 09:37 AM

I'm trying again but this time using a fresh unpatched 2.4.21 kernel, and a new USB device based on the same chipset! I can get as far as I got before, but no further.

Code:

# modprobe prism2_usb
# iwconfig wlan0 essid muzzy
# ifconfig wlan0 192.168.0.10 up
# iwconfig wlan0
Warning: Driver for device wlan0 has been compiled with version 15
of Wireless Extension, while this program is using version 16.
Some things may be broken...
 
wlan0     IEEE 802.11-b  ESSID:"muzzy"  Nickname:"muzzy"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412GHz  Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
          Tx-Power:2500 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr=2500 B   Fragment thr=2500 B
          Encryption key:off
          Link Quality:0/1  Signal level:-100 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

Has anyone got any ideas at all on what I can do, or an explanation of what these mysterious numbers mean? I have never successfully got a wireless card working so I don't know if this information is normal, but it worried me that there are so many zeros. Am I missing something obvious?

Muzzy · 05-21-2004, 09:53 AM

I have also tried following this description with the same results as before:

http://lists.linux-wlan.com/pipermai...er/011866.html

bstrik · 05-24-2004, 12:34 PM

Hi,

I put the following in rc.local.
Before that I got the same results as you!!

#!/bin/sh
#
# /etc/rc.d/rc.local: Local system initialization script.
#
# Put any local setup commands in here:
/sbin/wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable
/sbin/wlanctl-ng wlan0 dot11req_mibset mibattribute=p2CnfPortType=1
/sbin/wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_autojoin ssid="putyourssidhere" authtype=opensystem
/sbin/dhcpcd -t 10 -d wlan0

p2CnfPortType = 1 for infrastructure
p2CnfPortType = 0 for adhoc

Muzzy · 05-26-2004, 04:24 PM

Wow!!! It worked!!

Big thank-you! This message was posted using wireless techonolgy

Yippee

GingerDog · 01-04-2005, 05:24 AM

Hi,

Just a follow up.

I'm using a zd1201 card with Ubuntu on PowerPC (ibook g4) and Intel platforms. It works fine on each.

Steps required :

1) Install 2.6.10 (or later) kernel. This has a fix allowing the kernel to discover the USB device, otherwise it prints out messages about a broken wire or something

2) Go to http://linux-lc100020.sourceforge.net/ and download the driver for the 2.6 kernel (currently version 0.13 - zd1201-0.13.tar.gz )

3) Boot on the 2.6.10 kernel, install the kernel sources, link /lib/modules/2.6.10-XXX/build to where the kernel source is

4) cd $KERNEL_SOURCE/ && cp /boot/config.XXXX .config

5) make oldconfig

6) make (required to build shared dependancies it seems.. you can ctrl+c it after about 2 or 3 minutes)

7) tar -zxf /path/to/zd1201-0.13.tar.gz

8) cd /path/to/zd1201/ && make

9) make install (NOTE: Install places the module in the wrong tree (i.e. /lib/modules/2.6.10, when it should have been /lib/modules/2.6.10-1-k7 on my system), so check, and manually move across to the right tree if necessary. (After moving the module, run "depmod -a")

10) I have the wlan-ng package installed, but it appears to be of little use.

11) Plug in the usb adaptor, run "modprobe zd1201" and check that "iwconfig wlan0" returns something half useful. Running wlan-ng-ctl commands on this device appears to have no effect from what I Can see (As listed by someone else above in this thread)

12) "/sbin/dhclient wlan0" and it should work.... assuming you have dhcpd running on your network

Good luck

http://david.codepoets.co.uk

Muzzy · 01-13-2005, 02:58 PM

Looks like they updated the driver to use iwconfig

. Here is a guide for Gentoo using the new driver.

http://muzzy.is-a-geek.com/moinmoin/...i/Zd1201Gentoo

tgreensmith28 · 01-21-2005, 09:19 PM

Hello, i recently bought the zd1201 usb dongle, downloaded the zydas linux drivers from the zydas driver rpoject (url mentioned earlier somewhere, cant remmeber offhand). During the make config it asks for my kernel source tree, my kernel was an rpm, and so did not build a source tree, so i downloaded the src.rpm version of it and installed that. But when i point it to the path /usr/src/redhat/BUILD, or any other folder in the redhat dir it says

'Kernel headers present, but not full source code'
'Could not find kernel source tree'

Please help me, total linux newbie im afraid, any help greatly appreciated as these damned wires on my floor are annoying me now :P
Thanks in advance.
Tom

Windows - A bad choice for a bad person! Naughty person, bad!