Fwd: Messed up PCMCIA firmware

[Pavel Roskin]

On Sat, 2008-07-19 at 16:11 -0700, Madhusudan Singh wrote:

> If I do the following :
> 
> sudo prism2_srec -vv -gp -O /proc/net/hostap/wlan0/pda wlan0
> ak010101.hex (this file is from version 1.5.6 of the firmware on
> linux.junsun.net)
> followed by,
>  sudo prism2_srec -vv -rp -O /proc/net/hostap/wlan0/pda wlan0
> rf010704.hex (this file is from version 1.7.4 of the firmware)

Why did you need to override the path to pda?  From what I see in the
code of hostap-utils-0.4.7, it should not be needed.

> and wait a few seconds, I can get Networkmanager to get the interface
> working again (with WPA support - which I am using to send this
> email).

Great.  So, things are not so bad.

> The problem now is that once I eject the card, and then re-insert it,
> I have to load the primary firmware and the station firmware again.
> 
> I do not mind doing that manually in a pinch, but if there were a way
> to restore this card to its pre-mess up stage, it would be better. You
> do not need to tell me what I need to do, I will figure out the
> commands I need. No hand-holding needed.
> 
> I imagine I need to use the -f option (the one that got me into this
> mess to start with) with some version of the primary firmware, but I
> do not know which.

You need flashable primary firmware that starts with "pk" (like
pl010101.hex) and flashable secondary firmware that starts with
"sf" (sf010704.hex for 1.7.4 firmware).

> Hopefully, I can someday use this card with the orinoco drivers
> without the need to load the firmware everytime I need to get on the
> network.

That should work once you flash the firmware.  But orinoco driver
doesn't support WPA yet.  There are experimental patches, but there was
absolutely no interest to them.  I haven't seen anyone reporting success
or failure with those patches.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin