WLAN

[Davesworld]

TI should work with acx100 driver. Done that once, but put it aside since neither WPA nor Access Point would work / are supported.
All that could change with kernel 2.6 though.

Perhaps we should stop tinkering with the old stuff and concentrate on getting newer versions out 

The Hawking they sent me is a rev T with is Ti based. Didn't pay much for it which is good.

[Davesworld]

Just for fun, on one of my test boxes I put my acx chipped Hawking in it. I actually stuck the 2.4.34 module from the IPCop driver downloads into the 2.4.36 and it depmodded clean, not sure exactly why it didn't complain, Of course it wouldn't load until I set up the firmware. I added your Wlan AP which is nice btw Olaf, and two out of the three services will actually start. I unchecked the box to prevent broadcast and restarted the services. So far, with this setup. you can't see it as an available access point. The hostapd won't start but with this combo, I'm even amazed that the driver from a 2.4.34 kernel loads. I have a Prism GT Card coming which is what I wanted. Didn't know the Hawking was a rev T. The kernel messages are pretty funny when loading the acx driver, it tells you that you should have bought a Prism chipped card.

[weizen_42]

Just for fun, on one of my test boxes I put my acx chipped Hawking in it. I actually stuck the 2.4.34 module from the IPCop driver downloads into the 2.4.36 and it depmodded clean, not sure exactly why it didn't complain

That's interesting, I at least would have expected it to fail because of the version change.
But probably this is just luck, caused by only fairly minor changes between 2.4.34 and 2.4.36-cobalt.

The hostapd won't start but with this combo

hostapd only supports a specific set of drivers. And you'd need to be able to change the ACX from Managed into Master mode, can't remember if that is possible.

[Davesworld]

I just wish the vendors would quit have several board and chipset possibilities from ONE model number.

Olaf, I believe these 3000 series Cobalts with their ali chipset are pci 2.1, not 2.2.

[Davesworld]

I'll be getting my Aironet 350 tomorrow. My collection of cards that almost work with this is growing. I'm not sure if your AP WLAN will work with the aironet card. Wound up with a Prism54 card that was made in China and I could not get any firmware to load no matter what I tried with two directories /lib/firmware and /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware. The driver itself loads fine but gives off the firmware not found error in dmesg. I believe the firmware is needed for the radio itself. Reportedly, the Chinese versions are next to impossible to get to work in Linux.

[Davesworld]

Well my Aironet 352 came today and it actually took the airo driver and not the airo_cs. I see lights blinking but as expected, the ap addon is not geared for this. It actually shows up as eth2 rather than wlan0. Nice card though. I'll need to learn a bit more about how to use it.

[weizen_42]

So that card does not need an additional driver and works thru using setup and selecting the kernel module manually?

[Davesworld]

So that card does not need an additional driver and works thru using setup and selecting the kernel module manually?

This is correct. I only had to hit manual and type airo. I tried airo_cs and even though the card has a pcmcia card mounted in it semi permanently, it almost seems as if Cisco just used a pci bridge and tapped into that part of the card and pcmcia support is not used at all, at least on my card. Other than the limitation of 802.11b (my internet connection is slower) the pci 352 works well in this and seems like a solid card and needs no firmware to hunt down and try. Yes, a card that works in IPCop on a Raq with no further messing around.

I should get my Atheros based Cisco cards in a few days. I can't believe how cheap I got them. It was a short auction that ended early Sunday morning here. Paid ten dollars US for one and 18 for the other because someone besides me actually bid on one of them. They usually cost upwards of 200 dollars a piece new. Wasn't even a 24 hour auction. The only negative on the Atheros based Cisco cards is that they use an offboard antenna so the antenna off the back of the Raq look won't be there.

BTW, I think I finally got a decent Cobalt patch for the 2.6.25 kernel.

[Davesworld]

Ok, got my Atheros based Cisco cards AIR-P121AG-A-K9 and your (Olaf's Madwifi) driver loads and I can start all three services. Interesting card as I can change it to 802.11a mode by simply choosing a channel above 11. None of my neighbors are using channel 8 so I'm using that. It would appear to work except I cannot see it with Netstumbler nor my Nokia N95. I did uncheck the disable broadcast ssid radio button on the web gui. The antenna selection mystifies me somewhat. If there is one antenna, do I chose 1 or leave it at both? The chip is an AR5213A-00.

BTW, with both the aironet based card and now this atheros based Cisco, I get an interface called wifi0 that seems to tell more about the state of the loaded driver than ath0 or in the case of the aironet 352 card, ethx. Is anything supposed to use this interface rather than ath0?

[weizen_42]

That reads exactly the same as my experience.
Everything seems to work, except that there is no radio signal.

Is there some way to find out wether a card needs PCI 2.2?

[Davesworld]

That reads exactly the same as my experience.
Everything seems to work, except that there is no radio signal.

Is there some way to find out wether a card needs PCI 2.2?

Other than taking the manufacturers word for it if such info is provided, I'm not sure. There must be a way since such info is vague. I do have the luxury of trying the exact same distribution and booting up my noisy Raq550 which has a serverworks chipset and a 64 bit pci slot as well as a P3 1.2ghz to see what that does. 

[Davesworld]

Ok, my Cisco Atheros based card also did not allow the radio to work in the raq 550 which has considerably more power at 1.266Ghz, a much healthier power supply, a serverworks chipset with one 64 bit pci-x slot, only thing is that the chipset is also pci 2.1 standard. If it was a power issue, the Raq550 would have taken care of it. Now, I downloaded one of the IPCop 1.4.21 512MB images from the German forum and put it in a Tyan GS12 which is way overpowered for IPCop with 4GB of dual channel ram and a P4 3ghz and gave it a go in the Tyan.

 I couldn't find the default password so I put the CF card in my reader and hand edited shadow so I could log in to root passwordless the first time and change it.

 I put the Atheros card in and added AP Wlan and of course it worked. The GS12 is 2005 technology. The only thing is that I couldn't get a steady audio stream from my Nokia N95 through this. Not a great setup as it is going through a pc on the lan in internet sharing mode rather than directly in my main unit. Of course if I uninstall AP and put an old AP in bridge mode and blue as a nic, it streams more steadily but routing through XP and to my Raq is not a great setup.

To sum up, the radio also did not work on a Raq 550 and the only thing in common is the 2.1 pci standard and of course the Cobalt drivers even though a 550 uses different parts of the same driver than a Raq3/4 thanks to "if" statements.

[weizen_42]

 

I probably had something similar between my WLAN card as access point and my Nokia N81. No reliable surfing possible.
When I changed to MadWifi as Client and an external AP all's fine.

This setup, IPCop with a WLAN card as client and an external AP, is still my favorite because the external AP is way easier to position for better reception / coverage.


The external AP gives me stability problems under load though (try telling a 20 year old, who is into online gaming, to stop saturating WLAN and Internet  ).


PS: the root password is ipcop, admin password is admin.

[Davesworld]

Streaming audio with an external ap in bridge mode on blue had given me problems in the past but with my more recent builds, it hasn't been crashing red lately. Not sure what changes may have fixed this. I'm pretty sure cosmic rays didn't cause it. 

[Davesworld]

I wound up getting about four Cisco 1231 Access points for cheap as they didn't have antennas or either the regular or poe injectors. Got them and popped the bottom cover open to discover that they had the G mini pci radios in them already, not the B radio which I suspected. I already had one unit that had both the A radio (uses a cardbus slot) and G radio (uses a mini pci slot) in it. I already had a poe injector from that purchase and a Cisco rj45 console cable from my DSL modem purchase. Of course a standard power supply can be used as well.

I fired them up and they all worked. Upgraded to a newer firmware and plugged one into my Blue ethernet of my main daily firewall. Used the reverse TNC antenna from my Aironet 352 card on the primary antenna port. After much learning and setting up this fairly complex piece of equipment, I decided to stream audio over blue on my permanent firewall. A bit of history, In 1.4.18 using a Dlink DWL900 AP plugged into Blue using bridge mode, after a short time, it would cause my red nic to jam or hang. No logs to see exactly what it did. In those days I also tried putting my VOIP adapter on the blue nic and it did the same thing while talking on the phone for about twenty minutes. Well, with this AP, not a single problem. Streamed audio for five hours with my Nokia N95 and Bose earbuds with no trouble at all. I'm using WPA, sounds simple enough until you see the choices of ciphers that Cisco offers. Holy crap!