PCMCIA and hermer/orinoco_cs drivers b0rken?

Since very early 2.4 somewhere it has been impossible to use my two wireless cards, a NetGear ME401 and a Lucent card (both orinoco-based). Both are able to load the modules when pluggen in, but trying to use them is futile, as nothing gets transmitted, and dmesg show tons of this:

eth1: Station identity 001f:0006:0001:0003
eth1: Looks like an Intersil firmware version 1.03
eth1: Ad-hoc demo mode supported
eth1: IEEE standard IBSS ad-hoc mode supported
eth1: WEP supported, 104-bit key
eth1: MAC address 00:09:5B:27:DC:F9
eth1: Station name "Prism I"
eth1: ready
eth1: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, irq 6, io 0x0100-0x013f NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth1: transmit timed out
eth1: Tx timeout! Resetting card. ALLOCFID=0128, TXCOMPLFID=0127, EVSTAT=800c eth1: Error -110 writing packet to BAP
eth1: Error -110 writing Tx descriptor to BAP
eth1: Error -110 writing Tx descriptor to BAP
NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth1: transmit timed out
eth1: Tx timeout! Resetting card. ALLOCFID=0128, TXCOMPLFID=0127, EVSTAT=800c

The situation is similar for both cars, and I'm wondering if this is a known broken setup, or I've messed up?

Currnently I'm on 2.4.20, tried both with and without the ACPI and preempt patches (vmware deosnt make a difference either), the hardware is a Compaq Evo n800c notebook and this is the cardbus bridge:

02:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 02)
Subsystem: Compaq Computer Corporation: Unknown device 004a
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- Latency: 168, cache line size 20
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
Region 0: Memory at 40000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] Bus: primary=02, secondary=03, subordinate=03, sec-latency=176 Memory window 0: 30400000-307ff000 (prefetchable) Memory window 1: 30800000-30bff000 I/O window 0: 00004800-000048ff
I/O window 1: 00004c00-00004cff
BridgeCtl: Parity- SERR- ISA- VGA- MAbort- >Reset+ 16bInt+ PostWrite+ 16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001

mvh,
A

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Alexander Hoogerhuis                               | [email protected]
CCNP - CCDP - MCNE - CCSE                          | +47 908 21 485
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Hi,

Are you using the modules from the kernel source or from pcmcia-cs? Are you using yenta_socket or pcmcia-cs? pcmcia-cs has given me a lot more positive results than trying to use yenta_socket and the built in kernel modules. Also, try binding your card IDs to use wavelan_cs instead and see if it works (maybe those cards are a bit older and as such need older drivers.)

Hope this helps you.
Regards

-Josh

Warning: Driver for device eth1 has been compiled with version 14 of Wireless Extension, while this program is using version 13. Some things may be broken...

Quoted 9 lines · Joshua Kwan

Hi,

Are you using the modules from the kernel source or from pcmcia-cs? Are you using yenta_socket or pcmcia-cs? pcmcia-cs has given me a lot more positive results than trying to use yenta_socket and the built in kernel modules. Also, try binding your card IDs to use wavelan_cs instead and see if it works (maybe those cards are a bit older and as such need older drivers.)

Avoiding the kernel-side PCMCIA-stuff and using the standalone package got me a lot further. After a few tweaks int he config files I get the interface up and things startes to happen:

lapper root # ifconfig eth1
eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:09:5B:27:DC:F9

          inet addr:172.31.255.242  Bcast:172.31.255.247  Mask:255.255.255.248
          inet6 addr: fe80::209:5bff:fe27:dcf9/10 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:3 errors:8 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:516 (516.0 b)
          Interrupt:11 Base address:0x100 

lapper root # iwconfig eth1
Warning: Driver for device eth1 has been compiled with version 14 of Wireless Extension, while this program is using version 13. Some things may be broken...

eth1 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"humbug" Nickname:"lapper.ihatent.com"
Mode:Ad-Hoc Frequency:2.417GHz Cell: 02:09:A7:FB:DC:F9
Bit Rate:11Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:6875-6262-61 Encryption mode:open
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0 Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Seems I need to get the wireless tools rebuilt and I'll be in touch with a WLAN in a few hours, but this all seems swell now.

After inserting the card (NetGear MA401) I get this in my log tho:

eth1: Station identity 001f:0006:0001:0003
eth1: Looks like an Intersil firmware version 1.03
eth1: Ad-hoc demo mode supported
eth1: IEEE standard IBSS ad-hoc mode supported
eth1: WEP supported, 104-bit key
eth1: MAC address 00:09:5B:27:DC:F9
eth1: Station name "Prism I"
eth1: ready
eth1: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, irq 11, io 0x0100-0x013f
eth1: Error -110 setting multicast list.
eth1: Error -110 setting multicast list.
eth1: Error -110 setting multicast list.
eth1: Error -110 setting multicast list.
eth1: Error -110 setting multicast list.
eth1: This firmware requires an ESSID in IBSS-Ad-Hoc mode.
eth1: This firmware requires an ESSID in IBSS-Ad-Hoc mode.
eth1: This firmware requires an ESSID in IBSS-Ad-Hoc mode.
eth1: Error -110 writing packet to BAP
eth1: Error -110 writing Tx descriptor to BAP
eth1: Error -110 writing Tx descriptor to BAP
eth1: Error -110 writing Tx descriptor to BAP
eth1: Error -110 writing Tx descriptor to BAP
eth1: Error -110 writing Tx descriptor to BAP
eth1: Error -110 writing Tx descriptor to BAP
eth1: This firmware requires an ESSID in IBSS-Ad-Hoc mode.

If you have an idea about the errors, drop me a line, and if not I'll dig into it :)

mvh,
A

Quoted 5 lines

Hope this helps you.
Regards

-Josh

Sure did :)

-A

Signature · 8 lines

Alexander Hoogerhuis                               | [email protected]
CCNP - CCDP - MCNE - CCSE                          | +47 908 21 485
"You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."  --Scott McNealy
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Quoted 3 lines

Warning: Driver for device eth1 has been compiled with version 14 of Wireless Extension, while this program is using version 13. Some things may be broken...

First of all, what kernel are you using? That's an ancient version of the WE. If this is 2.4.2[01], download the following diffs from Jean's fine site:

* http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/iw240_we15-6.diff
* http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/iw241_we16-3.diff

Patch these against the top of your source tree with -p1. This might fix your problem, otherwise it's just eliminating one potential cause of the problem. Then copy include/linux/wireless.h to /usr/include/linux/wireless.h, so that things that require WE to compile (notably pcmcia-cs' wireless modules) will be using the right version.

Next of all, try upgrading the firmware on your card.

The error writing packet to BAP error always seemed just like a small nuisance to me during large file transfers. It did not correlate with any connectivity problems, so I just commented it out in the orinoco/hermes/orinoco_cs source (it's in one of those files.)

Yes, rebuild wireless-tools once you have patched to WE16 and copied it to /usr/include. If you use debian, the easiest way is to apt-get source wireless-tools and just tweak it to look at wireless.h v16, then fakeroot debian/rules binary and replace your package with that. This is probably feasible with SRPMs too, but I don't know how.

Hope your wireless endeavors succeed - I just spent all week getting hostap_plx to work (and I'm now reaping the benefits because I now have wifi access all over my house) :)

Regards
-Josh

Quoted 3 lines

Warning: Driver for device eth1 has been compiled with version 14 of Wireless Extension, while this program is using version 13. Some things may be broken...

First of all, what kernel are you using? That's an ancient version of the WE. If this is 2.4.2[01], download the following diffs from Jean's fine site:

* http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/iw240_we15-6.diff
* http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/iw241_we16-3.diff

Next of all, try upgrading the firmware on your card.

The error writing packet to BAP error always seemed just like a small nuisance to me during large file transfers. It did not correlate with any connectivity problems, so I just commented it out in the orinoco/hermes/orinoco_cs source (it's in one of those files.)

Hope your wireless endeavors succeed - I just spent all week getting hostap_plx to work (and I'm now reaping the benefits because I now have wifi access all over my house) :)

Regards
-Josh

Any benefit of using an AP over an ad-hoc network if it's only two or three nodes in a room?

Quoted 4 lines · Joshua M. Kwan

Quoted 3 lines

Warning: Driver for device eth1 has been compiled with version 14 of Wireless Extension, while this program is using version 13. Some things may be broken...

Quoted 9 lines

First of all, what kernel are you using? That's an ancient version of the WE. If this is 2.4.2[01], download the following diffs from Jean's fine site:

*
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/iw240_we15-6.diff
*
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/iw241_we16-3.diff

No warnings anymore, and it all works. I now have a full 2 yards of wireless netowrk and dont have to run a cat5 over to muy couch :)

Apart from that, Jean Tourrilhes' site was a treasure of HOWTOs and FAQs, so I'll spend a lot of time reading up there. Next thing up is bluetooth, and the site seems to be the right place for that, too.

Quoted 2 lines

Next of all, try upgrading the firmware on your card.

Went trough the motions of finding NetGears support on this. NetGear now officially has landed on my list of gear not to recommend. The while sitiation on finding firmware and tools to flash it didn't strike me as very orderly, and I ended up using some Dlink tools I found through Google to get my card slightly upgraded, but it seemed to do the trick. The other Lucent/Orinoco card I had was more simple and done in a few minutes.

Quoted 6 lines

The error writing packet to BAP error always seemed just like a small nuisance to me during large file transfers. It did not correlate with any connectivity problems, so I just commented it out in the orinoco/hermes/orinoco_cs source (it's in one of those files.)

I never got to try it on large files, I had a few dozen errors from a card idling with no connectivity :)

Quoted 4 lines

Hope your wireless endeavors succeed - I just spent all week getting hostap_plx to work (and I'm now reaping the benefits because I now have wifi access all over my house) :)

Any benefit of using an AP over an ad-hoc network if it's only two or three nodes in a room?

Quoted 3 lines

Regards
-Josh

mvh,
A

Signature · 3 lines

Alexander Hoogerhuis                               | [email protected]
CCNP - CCDP - MCNE - CCSE                          | +47 908 21 485
"You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."  --Scott McNealy