Intel Wireless 2100 LAN Card Setup Nightmare
 

Dear all,

I intended to setup my Wireless mini LAN card on my Centriono notebook.Its model is "Intel Pro 2100".

I have checked out the website regarding this mini LAN card.Download those fireware,driver,IEEE80211 stack are easy.However,here comes big problems.

• Kernel has to be rebuilt

• Worse still,I upgraded my kernel via slackware package

• Upgrading kernel takes a great deal of time

That's what I am worrying.Because I don't really interested in compiling kernel and I have a lot of experiences on it (Set up my IrDA device).Is there a quick way to get that up and running quickly without compiling kernel?Also,my college is using WPA encryption.Is that mean I am forced to re-compile my kernel?Last,I use package to upgrade my kernel so the path to find the modules(e.g.IEEE80211,ipw2100 and others) is different.

Please guide me on this one.:) Thanks.

I would upgrade to a 2.6 kernel due to the better support for wireless. Try this site out to see if it can help. http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/

jstephens84,thanks for your reply.

I did visit the website which you recommended.Also,I have kernel 2.6.14 from package upgrade.What I mean is,I knew re-compiling my kernel is inevitable,and I want to see whether it is possible to use my wireless mini LAN card without recompiling (A lot of work).

May be I'm wrong, but I use a wireless device ipw2200. I think the way to make it run is the same as with a ipw2100.

I didn't recompile my kernel (Slackware current kernel 2.6.16.22 out of testing). I compiled ieee80211 (version 1.1.13) and ipw2200 (version 1.1.2). The default kernel modules ieee80211 and ipw2200 were removed and replaced by the new ones (I did a "./remove-old, make, checkinstall")

My ipw2200 is working with WPA-PSK without problems.

Fluxx.

Fluxx,thanks for your reply.
Yeah,the important point is here.I am not using a kernel which I compiled myself but using package from slackware.When I issued remove-old,it couldn't found the proper files because package kernel's path is different from custom kernel.
Also,I have no idea whether WPA modules are included in the kernel.I can't take this risk.
It's very troublesome.

To make things clear: I DO NOT use a custom kernel, I use a Slackware kernel (slackware-current, testing, packages, linux-2.6.16.22, kernel-generic-2.6.16.22-i486.tgz).

I have installed kernel sources (I think this may be the problem, that you may not have installed kernel sources) 2.6.16.22.

Then all commands run fine (./remove-old, make, checkinstall).

For WPA-PSK you need wpa_supplicant from their homepage (untar, configure, make, checkinstall) and a wpa_supplicant.conf for your configuration.

Fluxx.

If you have a 2.6 kernel I would think you would have to just install the driver. I could have sworn I say that your card was compatible right out of the box with 2.6 kernel.

jstephens84,thanks for your reply.
However,when I installed the driver,it prompted me to install ieee80211...Worse still,when I "make" ieee80211,it told me that it couldn't find some files in /build and other directories.What gives?

Is there any shortcut which I can use my Wireless LAN card right away?Can I upgrade my kernel via slackware package to do that?Thanks.

Where did you download you compiled kernel. I really do not fell like compliling a new kernel.

jstephens84,I downloaded from the slackware mirror site,/testing/packages/....

By the way,can I upgrade my kernel and use the driver?

If you are running the Slackware 2.6 kernel from /testing, then you can build the ipw2200 and ieee80211 packages external from the actual kernel, and then place them in the modules directory.

Having done this in the past on a few people's laptops, I can tell you that you would be better off just compiling a kernel yourself. It is a lot more hassle building them outside the kernel, and there are many more places for something to go wrong.

If you have installed the 2.6 kernel and kernel sources from Slackware /testing, then all you should have to do is run "make menuconfig" in /usr/src/linux, select the Centrino drivers, and then compile and install the new kernel modules. It should take all of 15 minutes.

That is the fastest and easiest way to do this.