DWL-650P Automatic Firmware Download

[Andrew Barr]

Hello all,

Maybe someone can help me out here: I am trying to get the firmware to
download into my DWL-650P automatically upon either bootup or insertion
of the card. To do this, I've added these two lines to
/etc/modules.conf:

alias wlan0 hostap_cs
post-install hostap_cs /usr/sbin/hostap_fw_load wlan0

So when the init system tries to start wlan0 on boot, it is directed to
the hostap_cs module, which will run '/usr/sbin/hostap_fw_load wlan0'
after installation. And when cardmgr runs 'modprobe hostap_cs' it runs
the firmware downloader as well.

Now, here's the problem: If I type 'modprobe wlan0', or 'modprobe
hostap_cs', the script executes and the firmware loads. For whatever
reason, when cardmgr executes 'modprobe hostap_cs', it fails. It outputs
this in the syslog:

Mar  8 10:58:18 nala cardmgr[3363]: socket 1: D-Link DWL-650 Rev. P1
Mar  8 10:58:18 nala cardmgr[3363]: executing: 'modprobe hostap'
Mar  8 10:58:18 nala cardmgr[3363]: executing: 'modprobe hostap_cs'
Mar  8 10:58:18 nala kernel: hostap_cs: 0.2.0 - 2004-02-15 (Jouni
Malinen <jkmaline at cc.hut.fi>)
Mar  8 10:58:18 nala cardmgr[3363]: + Host AP driver data for device
wlan0 not found in procfs.
Mar  8 10:58:18 nala cardmgr[3363]: +
/lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2115.nptlcustom/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/hostap_cs.o: post-install hostap_cs failed
Mar  8 10:58:18 nala cardmgr[3363]: +
/lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2115.nptlcustom/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/hostap_cs.o: insmod hostap_cs failed
Mar  8 10:58:18 nala cardmgr[3363]: modprobe exited with status 255
Mar  8 10:58:18 nala cardmgr[3363]: module
/lib/modules/2.4.22-1.2115.nptlcustom/pcmcia/hostap_cs.o not available
Mar  8 10:58:18 nala kernel: hostap_cs: Registered netdevice wifi0
Mar  8 10:58:18 nala kernel: hostap_cs: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, irq 3, io
0x0100-0x017f

It seems to me that it is trying to download the firmware before the
driver is ready. So, I've tried introducing delays with 'sleep', but to
no avail.

A similar setup works fine on my desktop PC with a DWL-520E, but
obviously the module is not being loaded by cardmgr.

I should note that editing /etc/pcmcia/network (Red Hat/Fedora ignores
the wireless script) does work, but it will not work for boot-time
configuration of the card, because cardmgr is not running at that time
(that's why I need the line 'alias wlan0 hostap_cs').

Any help is appreciated.
-- 
Andrew Barr <barr.156 at osu.edu>

P.S. I recently switched both my machines to Fedora Core 1, so I'm not
using Slackware anymore.