====== Proxim Orinoco Silver ======

{{wlan:proxim-front.jpg?250}} {{wlan:proxim-back.jpg?100}}

The exact name is //Proxim ORiNOCO 802.11b PC Card Silver//. It's an 16Bit PCMCIA card and the model number is //8421-WD//. The package says it's //Revision D//. This is important. Older cards were very well supported in linux but this one isn't. You'll see...

Let's see what ''cardctl ident'' can tell us:

  product info: "Agere Systems", "Wireless PC Card Model 0110", "", ""
  manfid: 0x0156, 0x0003
  function: 6 (network)

Okay it's an **Agere** chipset which should be supported by the Kernels ''orinoco_cs driver''. But my 2.4.26 is not able to run the card:

<code>
hermes.c: 4 Dec 2002 David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au>
orinoco.c 0.13d (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au> and others)
orinoco_cs.c 0.13d (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au> and others)
eth1: Station identity 0015:0002:0001:000a
eth1: Looks like an Intersil firmware version 1.10.2
eth1: Ad-hoc demo mode supported
eth1: IEEE standard IBSS ad-hoc mode supported
eth1: WEP supported, 104-bit key
hermes @ IO 0x200: Truncating LTV record from -2 to 6 bytes. (rid=0xfc01, len=0x0000)
eth1: MAC address 15:00:02:00:01:00
hermes @ IO 0x200: Truncating LTV record from -2 to 34 bytes. (rid=0xfc0e, len=0x0000)
eth1: Station name ""
hermes @ IO 0x200: Truncating LTV record from -2 to 2 bytes. (rid=0xfd10, len=0x0000)
hermes @ IO 0x200: Truncating LTV record from -2 to 2 bytes. (rid=0xfc06, len=0x0000)
hermes @ IO 0x200: Truncating LTV record from -2 to 2 bytes. (rid=0xfc83, len=0x0000)
hermes @ IO 0x200: Truncating LTV record from -2 to 2 bytes. (rid=0xfc82, len=0x0000)
hermes @ IO 0x200: Truncating LTV record from -2 to 2 bytes. (rid=0xfc0c, len=0x0000)
hermes @ IO 0x200: Truncating LTV record from -2 to 2 bytes. (rid=0xfc0d, len=0x0000)
eth1: firmware ALLOC bug detected (old Symbol firmware?). Trying to work around... failed!
eth1: Error -5 allocating Tx buffer
orinoco_cs: register_netdev() failed
orinoco_lock() called with hw_unavailable (dev=ca2c6800)
</code>

This [[http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=5492422|mailinglist message]] sums up what happened to the card. Looks like the only way to go is the binary driver available at [[http://www.agere.com/support/drivers/|Agere's website]]. Alas, that driver is only available for 2.4 kernels.

You need to get the source of the [[http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net|pcmcia-cs utilities]] to compile their driver. But you can still use your distributions user space tools and the kernels builtin PCMCIA support afterwards.

  $> wget http://ovh.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/pcmcia-cs/pcmcia-cs-3.2.8.tar.gz
  $> tar -xzvf pcmcia-cs-3.2.8.tar.gz

Then get and unpack the files from [[http://www.agere.com/support/drivers/|Agere's website]] on top of the pcmcia sources:

  $> cd pcmcia-cs-3.2.8/
  $> wget http://www.agere.com/support/drivers/wl_lkm_720_abg.tar.gz
  $> tar -xzvf wl_lkm_720_abg.tar.gz

Now run the ''Configure'' script answering the questions (using the default anwsers should suffice). Then run the scripts ''Build'' and ''Install'' provided by **Agere** instead of doing the usual ''make'':

  $> ./Configure
  $> ./Build
  #> ./Install

Inserting the card should load the ''wlags49_h2_cs''; restart pcmcia if necessary via ''/etc/init.d/pcmcia restart'' (or a similar command). You should have an ''eth1'' device. Set up your WLAN parameters and you should be online.

  #> iwconfig eth1 essid "MeinKleinesWLAN" key 's:13chars ASCII' mode Managed
  #> dhclient eth1