Problems with hostap_plx and US Robotics 2415

[Jason Boxman]

On Sunday 20 October 2002 03:56 pm, Martin Troester wrote:
> Hi,
>
<snip>
> The scenario:
>
> PC 1 (Linux)
> - Debian 3.0 r0 woody - Kernel 2.4.18
> - hostap-2002-10-12.tar as hostap driver source
> - US-Robotics PC-Card/PCI adapter (equiv. to PLX) with 2410 PC Card
> - wireless tools 23-2

You can probably snag wireless tools v25 from Sarge, but that's not the 
problem. :)

(Now that I think about it, if you get wireless tools v25 iwconfig will 
probably complain your kernel wireless extensions aren't recent enough.  You 
need to patch a 2.4.20-pre* kernel to get the latest wireless extensions, 
version 15.)

> PC 2 (Windows)
> - Windows XP Professional
> - Compaq WL 1000 PCMCIA Card
>
<snip>
> hostap_plx: Registered netdevice wlan0
> wlan0: NIC: id=0x8002 v1.0.0
> wlan0: PRI: id=0x15 v0.3.0
> wlan0: STA: id=0x1f v0.7.6

Your STA firmware revision is suspiciously low.  I'd recommend upgrading to at 
least revision 0.8.3.  You can use a utility on the Windows box to do the 
flashing, since both cards are just PC Cards.  Having to flash a PCI card is 
a bit more challenging, since you may need to move it to a Windows box -- but 
you won't have that problem. :)

<snip>
> Letting the Windows XP PC scan for available nets (all
> encryption/authorization etc. deactivated) I find the net "bla"
> without any problems in the list of available nets. Assigning the
> WinXP pc-card a static IP like 192.168.0.2, it should then be no
> problem to get the two devices communicating, but now I don't know how
> to proceed: both cards have found each other, are both transmitting on
> the same channel #11, but it is not possible to PING each other.

My guess is it's the firmware revision.  If I'm wrong I know someone will set 
me straight, though.

<snip>
> I really do not know what to try any more, so please let me know if
> you have any suggestions about how to get the PLX-Card version
> running.

On a fact finding note, it's interesting to see your PLX card works as PLX.  I 
talked to someone a few weeks ago who's PLX-style card was recognized as a PC 
Card and he used the usual PC Card stuff to initialize it instead.

Anyone know how/when this difference presents itself?

> Thanks!
>
> Regards
> Martin

-- 

Jason Boxman
Administrator TrekWeb.COM
http://trekweb.com/~jasonb/articles/ - Linux Pages