WiFi Howto

For Mandrake 9.1

Herman Oosthuysen

General

Getting a WiFi adapter to work on Linux can be a very time consuming affair. The new drivers support many different types of chips, but your mileage will vary. Prism2 and Prism2.5 chips are probably your best bet. A complicating factor is that most USB chips have some confounding bugs in them.

This howto attempts to get you started. The README file will give you some information on the configuration details, for WEP and routing. You'll have to RTFM...

Kernel Sources

You must have configured kernel sources for the build of these drivers to succeed. Launc Mandrake Update and get the latest kernel source update 2.4.0-0.25mdk.

Then do the following to configure your kernel sources:

$ su
password
# cd /usr/src/linux
# make mrproper
# make menuconfig
Press right arrow, enter, enter to save the configuration.
# make dep

This will take a while, so get some coffee.

Your kernel sources will now be configured.

Driver Installation

Go to ftp://ftp.linux-wlan.org/pub/linux-wlan-ng/

Download the latest tar file, README and FAQ.

Follow the README:

su
rootpassword

Untar

make config
yes, yes yes, whatever

make all

make install

Driver Configuration

Go to the end of the README where it says "FOR USB USERS". (Ignore the "FOR PCI, PLX OR USB USERS" on the previous page).

Make sure your network is happy, up and running:

# ifconfig -a

everything should look normal

Plug in the USB dongle

Do the steps outlined in B, C, D, E, F:

Something like this:

# modprobe prism2_usb prism2_doreset=1
# wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable
# wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_autojoin ssid=YourStationName
authtype=opensystem
# ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.100

At each step the results should be

resultcode=success

if you get:

resultcode=implementation_failure

Then some corrective action is required:

# modprobe -r prism2_usb
Remove and replug dongle

Now redo steps C, D, E, F

When the dongle is happy, the LED will be flashing - this is counter intuitive.

If you do:

#ifconfig -a

The new wlan0 port should show up, with IP address 192.168.1.100 as input above.

Life should be good now...

Have fun!
Herman