D-link DWL-520 not 520+

[James B Hiller]

Hi.  See comments embedded below.

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Andrew Barr wrote:

> The success stories you are reading about, at least the recent ones, have to
> do with revision E of this card, which is a firmwareless Prism2.5-based

Correct.  However, in the Jun 03 timeframe when I began my hostap quest,
I found on this list, and using the linux-wlan-ng site, that DWL 520 in
Rev A1 and B1 were reported to be functional with hostap, as those two
revs used the Prism 2.5 (actually, I think that included A2 and maybe
B2 as well, if such things existed - check the linux-wlan-ng site for
clarity on this point).

The rev of the card makes all the difference as to whether what Andrew
says applies or what I say applies, so you need to check that (by
inspection - the only sure way).

In Jul and Aug, I secured what turned out to be one of each Rev A1 and B1
of the card, and have used them both since with hostap, since its version
0.0.4.  I did take care to flash firmware on both cards past what they
were delivered with (like 1.3.4), based on reports in this list of a
packet loss problem with any version < 1.3.6.  I believe I witnessed
that problem prior to the flash.  Since the flash (am running STA 1.7.4
with PRI 1.1.1), they run like champs.

[snip rest of Andrew's text; all correct from what I've seen)

> > a PC card). I've tried the hostap drivers(hostap_pci, 
> > hostap_plx) and they say no device found. I've read else 

Don't bother with plx; no use there.  You may be experiencing issues
in compilation or module loading.  I don't have the very latest
hostap, but there were some glitches with recent kernels and recent
hostap versions.  Am going from memory since I'm away from my box,
but believe you have to do like make hostap, rather than make
hostap_pci.  If you still have issues this weekend, hit me off-list
and I'll try to help.

> > where success stories about the 520 using the hostap driver, 
> > but I believe they were talking about the 520+, which (I 
> > believe) is different.  So, my question is, has anyone here 

Any stories about the 520+ would only have been with the kernel
driver for it that's being developed, and not hostap, as the 520+
uses a TI chipset, acx1100, I believe.  The site for that driver
is acx1100.sf.net (if I got the nomenclature right).

> > gotten the DWL-520 (not the520+) working with the hostap 
> > drivers or any others. Thanx for your help.

As above - I have it working with both hostap and with the Prism
driver included in the linux kernel.  I have one card in service
as an AP, the other as a basic client, but have used both in both
capacities.

> > P.S. - The D-Link website points me to the RealTek website 
> > when I look for linux drivers.  Specifically the rtl8180_24x 
> > driver. This driver loads w/ no problem and I see wlan0, but 
> > I can't get an ip (dhcp).
> > I have not tried loading this driver at boot time, does 
> > anyone know the parameters to pass to it at boot time?

As Andrew pointed out, this would only be useful for the later
revs of the card, IF that's what you're dealing with.