ipw3945 alternative: Intel's iwlwifi

Message

morbus · Post by **morbus** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:02 pm

Association has been pure luck for me the last times I tried... Manually setting the MAC of the ap helped though.

BTW, the d80211 stack (now named mac80211) was included in the recent -mm release...

roderick · Post by **roderick** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:40 pm

So, will layman get an update to new mac80211 vs. old d80211?

I just found this and wanted to try but it wants to download the old d80211 which is no longer available.

rmh3093 · Post by **rmh3093** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 5:55 pm

roderick wrote:So, will layman get an update to new mac80211 vs. old d80211?

I just found this and wanted to try but it wants to download the old d80211 which is no longer available.

im not updating anything in layman relating to 80211.... d80211 is now mac80211 which is now in -mm, so use an mm-based kernel or patch your kernel with the mac80211 download from http://intellinuxwireless.org/..... there is no point in having a ebuild for mac80211 because it cant be built 100% externally, there is code that must be built into the kernel (not a module) so you may as well patch your kernel

roderick · Post by **roderick** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 6:24 pm

gak!

Can you update the first post to reflect this?

I just spent an hour attempting to update the ebuilds, etc for new packages only to find out it's a waste... DOH!

roderick · Post by **roderick** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 6:25 pm

Ok, If I patch gentoo-sources, I assume I still need the net-wireless/iwlwifi-ucode.. aynthing else?

Is there an updated patch?

rmh3093 · Post by **rmh3093** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 6:46 pm

roderick wrote:Ok, If I patch gentoo-sources, I assume I still need the net-wireless/iwlwifi-ucode.. aynthing else?

Is there an updated patch?

http://skunk-sources.svn.sourceforge.ne ... 0.11.patch

CheshireCat · Post by **CheshireCat** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 12:05 pm

iwlwifi-0.0.11 works w/ a rename and removal of the two patches from the ebuild, if your kernel is patched with mac80211. any chance of an update for the layman svn repo?

roderick · Post by **roderick** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 2:16 pm

I got my wireless up and running on kernel 2.6.20 using the iwp3945 packages in portage along with NetworkManager and KNetworkManager for effortless management.

I originally thought I needed to try these drivers here, as I previously has issues with ipw3945 and the external ieee80211 package. The newer Kernels do not need this external hack anymore and thus my problem is solved.

I can now wait until this new driver is integrated into the kernel before I have to switch.

Thanks.

morbus · Post by **morbus** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:18 pm

Using 2.6.20 I have the iwlwifi driver working now -- although I didn't manage to configure it through the gentoo baselayout scripts, the association process is based on "guessing the right iwconfig params" for the moment.

CheshireCat · Post by **CheshireCat** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 12:19 pm

That's interesting, I transitioned to iwlwifi with no issues beyond getting it installed in the first place, and I'm using wpa_supplicant instead of iwconfig. You might want to give it a try, it can handle static WEP as well as WPA, and it's great if you associate with multiple networks, as you get a nice GUI for scanning and managing authentication, and it can store settings for your networks.

biboo · Post by **biboo** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 1:50 am

I have some troubles installing the 0.0.11 version.

The installation of mac80211 went well and module loads correctly.

But while compiling the iwlwifi module I had these error messages :

Code: Select all

/root/iwlwifi/iwlwifi-0.0.11/compatible/base.c:11698: error: 'struct ieee80211_local' has no member named 'num_curr_rates'
/root/iwlwifi/iwlwifi-0.0.11/compatible/base.c:11700: error: 'struct ieee80211_local' has no member named 'curr_rates'
[...]  +5 similar error lines

I decided to modify the ieee80211_i.h header where the structure ieee80211_local is defined to add the two missing members. (I know, I know... That's not a very good idea without knowing the whole structure of the driver :p)
After that, the driver compiled successfully.

But it seems that it can't load the firmware although it is placed in the directory specified in the hotplug configuration as the firmware directory.

Code: Select all

iwlwifi: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
iwlwifi: iwlwifi-3945.ucode firmware file req failed: Reason -2
iwlwifi: Could not read microcode from disk: -2
iwlwifi: probe of 0000:03:00.0 failed with error -2

Any clue?

I'm using 2.6.19-gentoo-r5 kernel and I used the files downloadable from intelwireless for my installation.

beatryder · Post by **beatryder** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 5:53 am

biboo wrote:I have some troubles installing the 0.0.11 version.

The installation of mac80211 went well and module loads correctly.

But while compiling the iwlwifi module I had these error messages :
Code: Select all
/root/iwlwifi/iwlwifi-0.0.11/compatible/base.c:11698: error: 'struct ieee80211_local' has no member named 'num_curr_rates'
/root/iwlwifi/iwlwifi-0.0.11/compatible/base.c:11700: error: 'struct ieee80211_local' has no member named 'curr_rates'
[...]  +5 similar error lines
I decided to modify the ieee80211_i.h header where the structure ieee80211_local is defined to add the two missing members. (I know, I know... That's not a very good idea without knowing the whole structure of the driver :p)
After that, the driver compiled successfully.

But it seems that it can't load the firmware although it is placed in the directory specified in the hotplug configuration as the firmware directory.
Code: Select all
iwlwifi: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
iwlwifi: iwlwifi-3945.ucode firmware file req failed: Reason -2
iwlwifi: Could not read microcode from disk: -2
iwlwifi: probe of 0000:03:00.0 failed with error -2
Any clue?

I'm using 2.6.19-gentoo-r5 kernel and I used the files downloadable from intelwireless for my installation.

I also had that exact same problem, and since I have not had any issues with the ipw3945/d system I gave up and went back to that.

biboo · Post by **biboo** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 12:55 pm

erf, for me the ipw3945 isn't really good as I didn't manage to used it with the gentoo scripts...

joda · Post by **joda** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 9:54 am

Im also getting the compile error here, and sadly the ipw3945 drivers dont work at all for me.

Waninkoko · Post by **Waninkoko** » Thu May 10, 2007 2:12 pm

iwlwifi 0.1.8 finally works for me!! I can connect to every wifi ap (when using wpa_supplicant I get some errors but it works!).

And the module name changed to iwl3945.

morbus · Post by **morbus** » Sun May 13, 2007 7:27 pm

Yay! mac80211 has been included in 2.6.22-rc1!

cyrus · Post by **cyrus** » Tue May 15, 2007 2:50 pm

Yes, but I can't get iwlwifi 0.0.18 working on 2.6.22-rc1

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Wed May 16, 2007 12:55 am

Chastise me if I'm simply being ignorant, but I'm running into the following problem:

Code: Select all

pistolero ~ # emerge iwlwifi
Calculating dependencies -
emerge: there are no ebuilds to satisfy "net-wireless/mac80211".
(dependency required by "net-wireless/iwlwifi-0.0.13" [ebuild])

I'm at revision 168 of the iwlwifi overlay from layman. There are a number of ebuilds in net-wireless/mac80211, but they are all named d80211, like so:

Code: Select all

pistolero net-wireless # ls mac80211/* -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1693 2007-05-15 17:37 mac80211/d80211-1.0.1-r3.ebuild
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1689 2007-05-15 17:37 mac80211/d80211-1.0.1-r4.ebuild
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1949 2007-05-15 17:37 mac80211/d80211-1.0.1-r5.ebuild
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4839 2007-05-15 17:37 mac80211/Manifest

mac80211/files:
total 44
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  229 2007-05-15 17:37 digest-d80211-1.0.1-r3
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  229 2007-05-15 17:37 digest-d80211-1.0.1-r4
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  229 2007-05-15 17:37 digest-d80211-1.0.1-r5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  549 2007-05-15 17:37 extern-mod-2.patch
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1533 2007-05-15 17:37 extern-mod-3.patch
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7505 2007-05-15 17:37 extern-mod.patch
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  484 2007-05-15 17:37 hostap.patch
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6580 2007-05-15 17:37 includes.patch
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  454 2007-05-15 17:37 led.patch

What's going on? Every ebuild I've ever written requires the same name for the ebuild as the directory that contains it. iwlwifi-0.0.13 has a DEPEND on "net-wireless/mac80211". Is this sloppy coding or some strange portage behavior that I haven't caught?

broadcast · Post by **broadcast** » Thu May 17, 2007 9:03 am

d80211 was renamed to mac80211 some time ago. looks like the names are a bit mixed up.

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Fri May 18, 2007 7:56 am

It appears the iwlwifi overlay hasn't been updated in a while, so I'm going to roll the drivers manually.

VinzC · Post by **VinzC** » Sun May 27, 2007 3:34 pm

hammy wrote:It appears the iwlwifi overlay hasn't been updated in a while, so I'm going to roll the drivers manually.

Could you provide a like to the ebuilds here so that I update the front page of this thread?

mikkoc · Post by **mikkoc** » Sun May 27, 2007 5:56 pm

VinzC, is this that you are talking about?
http://overlays.gentoo.org/proj/sunrise ... ss/iwlwifi
It's updated to the last version..
But I have a question: I tried iwlwifi with 4 different distros: everything goes fine, but when i do iwconfig, I find that the interface is called "wlan0_rename" instead of only wlan0. Anyone knows why?
Thanks

VinzC · Post by **VinzC** » Sun May 27, 2007 10:36 pm

mikkoc wrote:VinzC, is this that you are talking about?
http://overlays.gentoo.org/proj/sunrise ... ss/iwlwifi
It's updated to the last version...

Thanks, it should be that

.

mikkoc wrote:But I have a question: I tried iwlwifi with 4 different distros: everything goes fine, but when i do iwconfig, I find that the interface is called "wlan0_rename" instead of only wlan0. Anyone knows why?
Thanks

That's UDEV. Udev renames your interfaces but for some reason fails. Hence the strange name. You might want to add/change persistent network rules in /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules.

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Sun May 27, 2007 11:32 pm

I may give iwlwifi a try later on, but I ran into nothing but trouble when I tried it out. It would randomly hardlock, the connection was flaky, and the LED didn't work so I never knew when it was on or off.

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Mon May 28, 2007 12:59 am

Update

I was unaware that the sunrise overlay had ebuilds for mac80211 and iwlwifi, so I tried them out. The ebuilds conflicted with my already-patched kernel, so I nuked it and re-emerged suspend2-sources. I'm not typing this message to you on iwlwifi-0.0.18 courtesy of the sunrise overlay. Nice!

The LED light isn't working on my laptop right now, but that's not a big deal. I'll be playing with the module options to see if there's some setting I've missed.