[NBLUG/talk] Installing WiFi cards

[Lincoln Peters]

On Tue, 2004-06-08 at 11:29, Lincoln Peters wrote:
> Can anyone recommend a Linux-compatible 802.11g PCI card that supports
> WPA?  I've already tried the LinkSys Wireless-G PCI cards with no
> success (fortunately, I was able to return them to CompUSA for a refund
> with no restocking fee because they were incompatible).  Based on the
> chipset, it looks like the SMC 2802W card would work (it uses the Prism
> GT chipset), but I wanted to check here before going any further.

I purchased the SMC 2802W cards after finding out through Google that it
has been used successfully on Linux before.  Now I find myself trying to
configure it.

I'm using the stock 2.6.6 kernel, and I've compiled the "prism54" driver
as a module.  The module appears to load properly, but when I run
"iwconfig eth1", I get the following:

eth1      NOT READY!  ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Managed  Channel:6  Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
          Tx-Power=31 dBm   Sensitivity=0/200
          Retry min limit:0   RTS thr=0 B   Fragment thr=0 B
          Encryption key: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

When I try to bring eth1 online, I get the following:

Ignoring unknown interface eth1=eth1.

I can set the proper ESSID and encryption key, but it still reports "NOT
READY!"  I've also tried applying the latest patch from
http://prism54.org/pub/linux/snapshot/kernel/v2.6/ and installing the
firmware file, but nothing seems to have any effect.

What am I missing here?

---
Lincoln Peters
<sampln at sbcglobal.net>

The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be broken.