Problems with Dell Inspiron 8200 w/mini-PCI Truemobile WIFI

schwaz · n00b Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Posts: 8

I am having problems initializing my WIFI card before installing Gentoo. I initialize the cardmgr but it only detects the Ethernet port. I don't know what the module is for the card but I have tried Orinoco and Wavelan. Anyone who has made this work successfully, please let me know.

xr31Daisy · Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2003 9:55 am Post subject:

What's the model of your wifi-card ? Truemobile 1150 ? 1180 ? ( a simple cat /proc/pci should do the trick : if you see a third pcmcia slot, it's the 1150, if you see a broadcom adapter, it's the 1180. An alternate solution is to look directly at the hardware : if it's written BCM4301 on the chip, it's the 1180)

If it's the 1150, the orinoco should have done the trick.

If it's the Truemobile 1180, (let me guess, you just bought the new laptop, with the brand new card ? ) you're screwed, it's based on the Broadcom BCM 4301 chipset, and there are no linux drivers for this chipset.
I sincerely hope that's not your case.

<flamemode>
Broadcom sucks : they won't release a driver, they won't publish docs to enable anybody to write a driver. They won't even respond to a request for documentation ( Yeap, I did write, I didn't get any answer ). In the future, I'll try not to buy anything that's broadcom based. that's it.
</flamemode>

You can always try and sign the petition.
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schwaz · n00b Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Posts: 8

it's the 1150 card. I bought the laptop in August. When I go to run wlan0, nothing happens. I am also running WEP and I am not sure how to initialize that.

CrimsonScythe · Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2003 3:37 am Post subject:

schwaz:
I have the Truemobile 1150 and spent quite some time to get it working. I thought I had done something wrong during the setup since I could not connect to my AP at all, but it turned out that my problem was that the antenna cable had to be plugged in the second connector on the wireless card. Go figure! I wonder if my card might be a faulty one, but it might be worth trying... When I swapped the antenna connection, I just followed one of the pcmcia wireless card tutorials I found here on Gentoo forums. Good luck!
BTW, my card was recognized as eth1 and not wlan0 though.

If nothing helps, this might be a very good resource:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linux-dell-laptops/

Thomas
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