I have a Netgear WG511 wireless PC card in my Sony laptop. This card uses the Prism54 driver which I compiled into my 2.6 kernel. And it requires a firmware file to be installed in /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware which I have done.

The wireless interface shows up as eth1, NOT READY when I execute iwconfig. Execution of, ifconfig eth1 up, results in an error message: "SIOCSIFFLAGS : No such file or directory." The same error was discussed in another thread but with no resolution.

I have Debian stable installed on the same laptop. The Prism54 driver is used and the firmware is installed in the /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware directory. But there is one difference. The script that is used to bring up lo, eth0, eth1, etc. is /etc/network/interfaces. In this script there is an entry that "maps" eth1 into hotplug. I don't understand the details but it has something to do with the timing between when PCMCIA services are started and when hotplug runs.

I tried to use the "mapping" statements in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1, but it gives an error about mapping being an undefined command.

So, I am not able to get this wireless card to work in Slackware 10.1, kernel 2.6 even though it works perfectly in my Debian kernel 2.6 installation.

I would appreciate any help, jimbo

Hello jimbo-62

I guess that you here two short beeps after inserting the card.

enter as root ifconfig eth1 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

This has worked every time. But, only if the card is shown as detected in /var/log/messages.

Good luck

Thanks for your reply. The command, ifconfig eth1 192.168.0.105 gives the same results. This command by default also does the equivalent of, ifconfig eth1 up, so I get the same error message: "SIOCSIFFLAGS : No such file or directory."

The card is not detected. That is the problem. The Prism54 driver is loaded at boot because I compiled that driver into the kernel and I see the boot message about Prism54 being loaded. And the firmware file is installed in the proper directory. But, just as with Debian, there has to be a "mapping" of eth1 to hotplug or the card will not be activated. But "mapping" is not recognized as a command in Slackware.

Any help will be appreciated, jimbo

The udev/hotplug people moved the firmware location between Slackware Versions 10.0 and 10.1.
Pat did not delete the old /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware directory when Slack 10.1 was released.
I bet if you check the output of "dmesg | less" you will get an error message that isl3890 was not found.

In Slackware 10.1 the firmware location was changed to /lib/firmware/isl3890.

This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to scream! I have been beating my head against a brick wall for over a week because of this! Yes, I was getting a dmesg about Prism54 not being able to load the firmware and the siocsifflags no such file or directory message. And Google turned up a thread about putting the firmware file in /etc/firmware for a Mandrake system. But nothing I tried would work.

Now my card gets activated as I expected based on my Debian experience.

There was no firmware directory in /lib but I created one and put my isl3890 file in there and did a ifconfig eth1 up and IT CAME UP!!

Thanks much for the help.

Now, how would I know that the location of the firmware directory had been changed or how would I find out where to locate the firmware directory if you hadn't answered my plea for help?

Thanks again, jimbo

I emailed Pat V. on this but I'm afraid it was not high on his list. The prism54 website has a Slackware section and I posted the firmware location at the prism54 site.

Prism54/Slackware Users forum

The firmware location was fixed today

Fri Jul 29 10:33:59 PDT 2005
a/etc-5.1-noarch-10.tgz: Added scanner group.
a/getty-ps-2.1.0b-i486-1.tgz: Upgraded to getty-ps-2.1.0b. Thanks to
Jan Rafaj for providing additional bugfixes for this package.
a/hotplug-2004_09_23-noarch-4.tgz: Changed firmware directory from
/usr/lib/hotplug/firmware to /lib/firmware.
Thanks to Lior Kadosh, Steve Caster, Lawrence Teo, Piter Punk, and
Vidar Madsen, all of whom reported this.
a/pkgtools-10.2.0-i486-4.tgz: Fixed toggling rc.dnsmasq and rc.saslauthd

What is this dark magic you speak of? ifconfig before iwconfig?

It's good stuff, whatever it is. The charm worked to awaken the little wireless card. Thanks.

For the sake of future google searches:

solution Intersil ISL390 Prism GT rev 01 NOT READY