[ale] Gentoo and 802.11b

Bao C. Ha bao at hacom.net
Fri Aug 9 14:14:08 EDT 2002


On Fri, Aug 09, 2002 at 01:42:07PM -0400, Randy Janinda wrote:

Hi Randy,

> You are correct about it being Prism2. I am by far, NOT a wireless guru.
> I have gotten this particular card working using various drivers and
> what-not and can't remember all the combinations. Right now my setup
> (lsmod) shows:
> 
> orinoco_cs              4264   1 
> orinoco                31808   0  [orinoco_cs]
> hermes                  3360   0  [orinoco_cs orinoco]
> 
> When I get more time I will play with the other drivers and see if there
> is any difference.

Since many of the Prism2-based cards use the same MAC controller
as the Orinoco cards, the Orinico driver can set them up and use
them, albeit with certain limitations.  The wlan-ng driver
would be a better choice for the Prism2 ones.  But then the
wlan-ng driver does not fully support the ioctl of the Linux
wireless toolkit (iwconfig), and have their own ways of doing
things.

I am still in shocked and amazed at what these people were doing.
Basically, the 802.11 people created another protocol stack right
in the middle of the physical and link layers.  At the same
time, about 1997, another group was trying to solve some sort
of imaginary roaming problems, i.e. PPPOE, at the right place,
the link and network layers.  The multihop wireless networking 
is in shamble, or maybe too much advanced for me to comprehend.

Thanks.
Bao

> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Randy
> 
> 
> On Fri, 2002-08-09 at 13:35, Bao C. Ha wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 09, 2002 at 01:30:09PM -0400, Randy Janinda wrote:
> > 
> > Hi Randy,
> > 
> > > Check the /etc/pcmcia/config for your card. You may need/want to change
> > > the module from orinoco_cs to wvlan_cs. I ended doing this for my SMC
> > > card under Gentoo.
> > 
> > I thought the SMC is Prism2-based, not Lucent-based as the
> > Orinoco.  I have no problem using iwconfig to set the ESSID
> > of orinoco cards.  However, other drivers may not be fully
> > compliance with the Linux wireless toolkit.
> > 
> > Bao
> > 
> > > 
> > > Randy Janinda
> > > 
> > > On Fri, 2002-08-09 at 12:21, Joseph A Knapka wrote:
> > > > Hey folks,
> > > > 
> > > > I'm trying to get my Compaq laptop running Gentoo. I
> > > > can boot fine, and bring up PCMCIA services and
> > > > cardmgr. But it insists on using the orinoco_cs
> > > > driver for my LAN card instead of the wvlan_cs
> > > > driver that I use under Slack. That would be fine,
> > > > except that I need to set the ESSID, and I have
> > > > no man page for the orinoco_cs driver that would
> > > > tell me how to do that. With wvlan_cs, the
> > > > module parm "network_name" does it, but orinoco_cs
> > > > won't recognize that parm. Anyone know how to
> > > > set the ESSID for the orinoco driver?
> > > > 
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > 
> > > > -- Joe
> > > > 
> > > > ---
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> > > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > ---
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> > -- 
> > Bao C. Ha                    voice: (310) 675-3510
> > 8D66 6672 7A9B 6879 85CD  42E0 9F6C 7908 ED95 6B38
> > Primary Perpetrator of "Slackware Linux Unleashed"
> > 
> > ---
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> > 
> 

-- 
Bao C. Ha                    voice: (310) 675-3510
8D66 6672 7A9B 6879 85CD  42E0 9F6C 7908 ED95 6B38
Primary Perpetrator of "Slackware Linux Unleashed"

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