On ndiswrapper

[Timothy Murphy]

Craig White wrote:

>> I have been trying to get an ancient Orinoco Silver PCMCIA card
>> working under ndiswrapper, but I discovered after some "research"
>> that ndiswrapper did not create *.conf files
>> matching the ID 0342:0006 of my card (as listed by lshal).
...
>> If anyone has a suggestion how to get this card working under Fedora-14
>> I should be most grateful.
> ----
> I don't have a suggestion except that I used to have a laptop and a
> silver Orinoco card and it was supported out of the box - way back...
> perhaps Fedora Core 2. It was one of the very few wireless cards that
> was supported by Linux back then.

Yes, IIRC orinoco_cs worked until Fedora-12.
I don't think it worked in Fedora-13.

> Now it's entirely possible that support for the hardware has been
> removed from the kernel (I'm too lazy to check now) but it strikes me
> that trying to futz with ndiswrapper to make it work is probably crazy.

Orinoco_cs is still in the kernel, and is the module found
when the card is inserted.
But this usually (85% of the time) causes a kerneloop.
Surprisingly, it works 15% of the time.
But re-booting 8 times is rather a nuisance.

Incidentally, the reason I'm using the card is that it is part
of a PCI-to-PCMCIA combination in an ancient Asus K8V system
(in my grand-daughter's bedroom). 
It also has a rather good extension to a large antenna.
I have to confess that this machine usually runs under Windows XP,
which supports the Orinoco cards; 
but I'd like to try it under Linux if that is possible.

> Just wondering... did you ever modprobe for the orinoco (IIRC, it was
> called orinoco_cs but don't trust my memory). As I recall, the Orinoco
> silver was only capable of 40 bit WEP which is about as useful as tits
> on a nun. What about dmesg?  Did it give you anything meaningful?

I don't mind WEP.
I used to be paranoid, but I've been cured by drinking Guinness...


For those (not me) who understand such things, the backtrace reads:
---------------------------------------------
[tim at helen kerneloops-1295409320-1410-1]$ cat backtrace 
WARNING: at net/wireless/core.c:633 wdev_cleanup_work+0x41/0x97 [cfg80211]()
Hardware name: 1871Y81
Modules linked in: sit tunnel4 michael_mic orinoco_cs orinoco cfg80211 nfs 
lockd fscache nfs_acl auth_rpcgss sunrpc cpufreq_ondemand acpi_cpufreq mperf 
ip6t_REJECT nf_conntrack_ipv6 ip6table_filter ip6_tables ipv6 uinput 
snd_intel8x0m snd_intel8x0 snd_ac97_codec ac97_bus ppdev parport_pc snd_seq 
snd_seq_device snd_pcm thinkpad_acpi parport iTCO_wdt iTCO_vendor_support 
tg3 nsc_ircc rfkill snd_timer joydev snd i2c_i801 soundcore snd_page_alloc 
irda microcode crc_ccitt yenta_socket i915 drm_kms_helper drm i2c_algo_bit 
i2c_core video output [last unloaded: scsi_wait_scan]
Pid: 2973, comm: cfg80211 Not tainted 2.6.35.10-74.fc14.i686 #1
Call Trace:
 [<c0439435>] warn_slowpath_common+0x6a/0x7f
 [<f825540a>] ? wdev_cleanup_work+0x41/0x97 [cfg80211]
 [<c043945e>] warn_slowpath_null+0x14/0x18
 [<f825540a>] wdev_cleanup_work+0x41/0x97 [cfg80211]
 [<c044acba>] worker_thread+0x141/0x1b8
 [<f82553c9>] ? wdev_cleanup_work+0x0/0x97 [cfg80211]
 [<c044df72>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x34
 [<c044ab79>] ? worker_thread+0x0/0x1b8
 [<c044dc2d>] kthread+0x64/0x69
 [<c044dbc9>] ? kthread+0x0/0x69
 [<c04038fe>] kernel_thread_helper+0x6/0x10
---------------------------------------------


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland