I am using Mandrake 10.1 with the 2.6 kernel.
I have a D-Link dwl 520e wireless card.
I have a netgear mr814v2 b router.
I have read that it uses the prism 2.5 drivers

I have read that the dwl 520e card is a monster to set up since it doesn't load any firmware at startup. I has to have some primary and secondary firmware in the software to load each time at boot.

I downloaded the firmware ware and the prism drivers. I followed the instructions but still cannot get it to work.

I have heard someone say the kernel had to be recompiled.

I have heard of two different methods of getting the card to work.
1 is using ndis wrapper and using the windows drivers in XP.

1 Another one is to use driver for HostAP to get it to work. The Host Ap is a wireless access point but I have heard you can make that work.

If I can't get this card to work does anyone have any suggestions to a card that works and is easily configured.

Thanks Charlie

Oh the dreaded DWL cards!

Yeah I went thru something like this with a DWL-650+ card.

I finally got it somewhat working, but this card was so much grief that I purchased a DELL Truemobile Mini-PCI card and integrated it into my Laptop (retrofitting the wireless antenna's in a notebook is a bitch!).

The Orinioco cards are all directly supported under Linux and Windows, so you can't go wrong with these.

thanks I think I will probable see if they have one of the cards for the desktop.

I can spend a lot of time figuring this out. I would probably be a lot better off with one of those cards.

I think the 650 was the same card as mine except it was for the laptop.

Did you ever get your d-link card working ?

There were some drivers posted on sourceforge for the TI chipset used, but I never really got them to work well nor handle wep.

ndiswrapper is far more promising as a way to get these cards to work under Linux, though I haven't tried it with the Dlink.

I am using a Broadcom adapter under Linux by employing the ndiswrapper (urpmi ndiswrapper) and setup was a snap.

ndiswrapper enables Linux to use the Windows drivers.

A pretty brilliant solution.

Well,
I installed ndis wrapper and tried to get it to work on my card. I had checked the list of cards it worked on and mine wasn't listed.
I tried it anyway since a lot of times those aren't up to date. Got ndis wrapper going and it found my card loaded the drivers but it still a no go. I'm going to try another wireless card soon when I can figure out a card that works with Linux out of the box. I went to Comp USA to ask if someone knew one but they were all guessing. THe ones they recommended I checked and they seemed to have problems.

I heard the orinico worked well but I can't find one for PCI.
Anyone know of a good wireless pci card that works with Mandrake? Are the usb one's any good ?

Thanks Charlie

All you really need to know is which chipset the card uses.

For instance many Dell Truemobile cards utilize the prism chipset which is directly supported by Linux.

Any of the sites on WiFi and Linux should list compatible PCMCIA cards all you need to do is find their analog for PCI.

Remember that on MANY PCI cards, all they do is use a MINI-PCI adapter (for notebooks) and mount that on an adapter board.

That is why many PCI WiFi cards have "cans" around the Mini-PCI units, partly as an anti-noise measure and partly to hide that the vender is merely reusing the same cards and interface used on laptops.

BTW: With the ndiswrapper driver installed,

1) Does the card appear available in the MCC?

2) Does typing iwconfig show the card?

My card shows up in MCC when i click the hardware and look in network the wireless card shows up. Looks like the equivalent of windows device manager.

I don't remember what iwconfig showed. But, I did the ndiswrapper -l and it listed my card. I will check when I get home to find out what iwconfig said.

I think my card is a little more difficult since it doesn't have the firmware loaded. I think it has to load the primary and secondary firmware.

I have picked the prism drivers from the configuration wizard and it doesn't find anything. I have tried the prism 54 wireless setting and the prism 2 pci setting with no luck.....

I've also gone to a prism 54 web page. Downloaded the firmware, downloaded the drivers. Made a directy for the firmware. Renamed the arm file to isl3890

Then uncompressed the prism 54 drivers and make configure module ?
Then depmod-a

What I mentioned above is from memory and not exact....
Anyway, thanks for the info
Charlie

I saw on Dlink's web site that they have a firmware update for the card which is used independant of the drivers.

This update may flash the card, as opposed to the XP drivers which may use a temporary firmware image.

Anyway check the output of iwconfig as this is the single most important thing as far as determining if your card will work.

If it shows up try setting the card.

e.g.

iwconfig wlan0 key 0000000333 essid MYESSID

Then run

iwconfig again by itself like this

iwconfig wlan0

If the first line "takes" then the second iwconfig will show any changes that you have entered.

In turn if the changes work then the card is probably operational.

You may want to check the other thread where I talked about getting a Dell Truemobile card running as my "dump" applies to you.

Well, I just ran the iwconfig wlan0 key 0000000333 essid myessid

It came back set failed no such device

I ran iwconfig wlan0 no such device

In MCC under hardware/network I have ISL3874aprismll.5 iee802.11b wireless lan

I ran iwconfig wlan0 essid xxxxx with the same results.
Is the key to take up space for the encryption that i can adjust later in my router ?

Anyway, I have tried going to the prism54 web site and downloading the firmware. then downloading the drivers. Followed the instructions.

Then later tried the ndis wrapper with the xp drivers with no luck.

I have a generic wireless card that I can't even find a name for that works in windows. I think Ill install it and check the chipset in xp and try to get that going in Linux. The only thing I could find on the manual was m73-apo01-600. I did a google search and it came up as an encore card but i checked their web site and it wasn't listed.

Anyway, I just about given up on the d-link card.
I play with this later on.
Thanks for all the help though

I used wlan0 as an example.

After loading the ndis wrapper just run iwconfig by itself and it will list the wireless devices for which there are drivers installed and tell you the name of the device.

I have ran the iwconfig by itself and it said the same thing" no device" or somthing similiar.

Later I think I will replace my wireless card with a cheap one I have around that works in windows. Then check the drivers in windows and see if I can find the chipset. Then try and get it running in LInux.

I have heard a lot of people having trouble with my card. I checked ndiswrapper and my card isn't listed as one it supports. I have tried www.prism54.org and downloaded the drivers and firmware and went throught that with no luck. I have went to a bunch of forums and I haven't read of anyone getting the card to work. On the other hand I have read of a lot of them selling the card on ebay and getting different cards and having no trouble installing them.

Thanks Charlie

Yeah, if the ndiswrapper is functioning you get at least one "dump" which looks somewhat similiar to what you normally see in ifconfig.

Unless you see something like this, there is little chance of getting the card to work, even under ndiswrapper.

The prism54 drivers do not work either with that card. Ugh.

Thanks for the help....

I just going to say it's a done deal and look for alternatives...

Still looking for a card that will Mandrake supports right out of the box.........

Tanks again

Maybe there is hope,

After serching around some more I found a site that claims to have gotten the card to work. The site is http://home.columbus.rr.com/andrewba...0e1.html#intro

He claims to use the HostAP drivers and makes it work in the Infrastructure/Managed mode.

He has two files he uses to load the primary and secondary firmware. Anyway, I will check into it later. Might have to find some local guru to help me set it up. I'll read it over and see if I think it's doable for me.....
I just sent this to you FYI in case someone else has this card this might be their best bet. Will let you know something later.

Thanks again for you help......