WG311v3 ALMOST WORKING? IS IT? no... its not

[jasperthecoder]

So I've been trying to get this 400mhz, 128mb of RAM with an old voodoo card old athlon computer working as a VectorLinux v5.9 Light server. I'd really like to have it on my wireless network to act as a dual wifi and ethernet server. I don't know a whole lot of linux but I have been experimenting with it for about a year now (on and off). First some history:

I had a 320gb hard drive boot issue, MBR would give me garbled L 99 99 99 jargon. So I found when I create a dummy partition below the 1024 cycle limit (some old computers have this), the MBR works fine. This was done by creating a 512mb 'dummy' partition before the swap and linux partition. So now I was finally ready to install my wireless card that was previously installed on a 200mhz dell optiplex with 128 mb of RAM on vectorlinux soho previously.

So I go through the whole same-old shenanigan with two sets of drivers :

Code:

ndiswrapper -i DRIVER
ndiswrapper -i DRIVER
ndiswrapper -l
ndiswrapper -m DRIVER (also did -ma and -m here and there)
depmod -a (sometimes depmod -aq)

I Downloaded both the official netgear wg311v3 and marvell chipset drivers trying practically every combo for ndiswrapper (Win98, 2k, XP), but everytime I would modprobe ndiswrapper it would stop, right at the insmod for the .ko file. This suggested to me some sort of IRQ/PCI communication problem.

Eventally to my shock: with noapic and no hardware clock kernel params, and through enabling some crap about IRQ Master 0 and Master 1 READ WRITE in my bios - modprobe didn't crash the kernel fricking finally (this part was today).

Sweetness, I type:

Code:

ifconfig -a

...and get no wlan0

iwconfig
 
...shows me lo && eth0 with no wireless ability like I don't have wireless now

wtf... I eventually decide to nano /etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.conf, I add wlan0 to the interfaces and uncomment the #ARGS_wlan0 line and reboot to no avail. Am I going to have to do some pci scan, tweak, pciset to fix this ish? Or would this be in the wrong direction. I have come a long way with this computer so far, currently this has to have 25 man-hours to it. 25 frickin man hours (in 3 days I might add). I'm doing full time shifts to get this computer working I need helllllllllpppppp. I think ndiswrapper started to crash again too. I would appreciate any sort of help a whole lot.

BTW

I compiled the latest ndiswrapper after trying it a multitude of times with the one that comes with vector. After adding CFLAGS+=i586 in the Makefile, modprobe ndiswrapper would work flawlessly. Too bad it wouldn't show up in my ifconfig, and ifconfig wlan0 up didn't see it either.

CURRENTLY

So now it seems that the computer is rejecting my driver later even after properly it was properly modprobified into the system. It crashed on udev, so I had to pop in the vect cd and mount the partition. damn it's now 6 am I hope to resolve this issue soon. I need a sooner bed time. Good night (or morning).

[bigpaws]

Older motherboards assigned pci irqs to specific spots try
moving the position of the cards. I have found (not a hard rule)
that general pci slot 1 and 3 are linked in the irq assignment.

HTH

Bigpaws

[jasperthecoder]

TY for the prompt response bigpaws; from what I've seen it looks like IRQ 0 is being shared by a USB bus controller and PCI to ISA bridge and the PCI network card. This is from my recollection (now this might sound n00b, I honestly am pretty lost; this is all abstract theory to me)... from my understanding of something I read old computers can use the first 3 IRQs to share PCI cards. Unfortunately, windows didn't even make use of this 3 bus feature BIOS manufacturers made the board just ignore the other 2. Windows 98 would just use IRQ0 and communicate through that; I don't even know if this is the right track arhghghhgh.

Just a quick update; that current status of this computer is ndiswrapper will crash yet again everytime I attempt to modprobe it with the drivers that I believe ought to work (not 98 drivers) it will crash like it did before... except for one minor difference. Before when I would modprobe ndiswrapper the carrot would stop blinking - as if it was a total lockup. Now the carrot still blinks, yet it's the same issue - ctrl + alt + f-key/del does nothing. I'm going to work on this some more hopefully post a scanpci or what have you. Damnit if only today could be the day. I could have a vectorlinux box for the new year filled with joyous server side experiences. Thanks for any replies in advance.

Oh right, as far as the PCI 1 and 3 thing, I do not know if this is related but I did play musical chairs with the pci cards to no avail yet again. Same issue every time - modprobe ndiswrapper crashes/hangs. Please if anyone has any other idea or suggestion that seems more logical/reasonable feel free to post me one because I need any sort of hope I can get now.

[bigpaws]

See if this helps:

http://vectorlinux.vlocity.org/index.php?topic=3042.0

Bigpaws

[jasperthecoder]

_{bigpaws wrote...}

See if this helps:

http://vectorlinux.vlocity.org/index.php?topic=3042.0

bah, I did pretty much exactly everything is that last post you sent me; unfortunately it didn't work... although it did work on my 200mhz computer. Since the USB is working I'm about to opt to buy a USB wireless adapter instead; this seems like the most pragmatic solution. So looks like my closer will come not from the WG311v3 on this one. I suppose I'll keep everyone up to date on the progress; just in-case you guys care... I didn't look for the most appropriate USB device for vector yet. So I guess I'm going to go do that now (or in an hour or two); hopefully there is a nice listing somewhere.

[bigpaws]

If you need more help let us know.

Bigpaws

[gamfa]

jasperthecoder...if you go with a plug-in wifi adapter you might try to find one that uses the Zydas chip. I finally got tried of trying to get the built-in Realtek wifi adapters working on my Toshibas and bought a couple of these off the big auction site. That chipset has been supported since kernel 2.6.6. They work great

[jasperthecoder]

Sorry for taking so long to respond, I pretty much gave it a rest instead of delving into all that. I'm basically aiming for what gamfa was saying, which is to get a plug-in adapter. Unfortunately, I'll probably have to wait till next month; as I am currently broke. Oh well, if I remember correctly, getting samba working with multiple adapters was a pain in the balls (So I'll just focus on the eth0 adapter for now). Anyway while I wait for money to arrive for me I definitely (or eventually) am going to choose a wireless USB adapter. I was going to aim for the rxlink chipset (linksys usb device I believe), as I remember that did have decent linux support, I will certainly look into the Zydas chipset - in-fact I'll most likely get that because If I hear it worked on vector - it's worth alot more to me. I'm curious though, gamfa - the drivers never crap out? With the WG311v3 I've noticed it always did eventually malfunction; but was quickly rectified by a restart. Of course since I want to make a nice server computer with both ethernet and wifi interfaces I don't want the drivers to ever crap out. (I have two WG311v3 cards and have tested them in on 3 computers, with the one I'm currently working on being the 4th - I used the cards on both debian and slackware kernels, they all crap out eventually - meaning I'm forced to reboot just to get the internet working again)