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====== 3COM OfficeConnect on Linux======

{{wlan:3com-front.jpg?250}} {{wlan:3com-back.jpg?200}}

The exact name is //3com OfficeConnect 11Mbps Wireless LAN CardBus PC Card//. It's an 32Bit cardbus card and the model number is //3CRSHPW796//. A label on the card says its //Version 1//.

Because this is cardbus card and not a simple PC card it does not show up whith ''cardctl ident'' - instead it is handled by [[:hotplug]] and gets registered as PCI device. ''lspci'' has something to tell:

  0000:01:00.0 Network controller: 3Com Corporation 3CRSHPW796 [OfficeConnect Wireless CardBus] (rev 15)
        Subsystem: 3Com Corporation 3CRSHPW796 [OfficeConnect Wireless CardBus]
        Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 9
        I/O ports at 4000 [size=256]
        Memory at 10800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
        Expansion ROM at 10400000 [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

===== General Setup =====

I'll use a vanilla Kernel 2.4.26 from www.kernel.org with PCMCIA and Wireless LAN support. In userspace I use the latest ''pcmcia-cs'' (3.2.5-7), ''[[:hotplug]]'' (0.0.20040329-11) and ''wireless-tools'' (26+27pre22-1) packages from [[:Debian]]s unstable branch. Everything is done on my Fujitsu-Siemens [[:Lifebook]].

===== ADMtek Driver =====

There is some info at http://www.espina.info/papers/officeconnect/ stating the card uses an ADMtek chipset. The page describes how to run this card with the half propritary driver provided by ADMtek so I tried that first. You need a patch from this site and the sources from www.admtek.com.tw but I couldn't reach their server :-(. However I found a copy [[http://www.latinsud.com/adm8211/ADM8211_src_105.tar.gz|here]] (or [[http://freecache.org/http://www.latinsud.com/adm8211/ADM8211_src_105.tar.gz|through cache]]). So here is what I did following the instructions on the mentioned page.

  $> wget http://www.latinsud.com/adm8211/ADM8211_src_105.tar.gz
  $> wget http://www.espina.info/papers/officeconnect/ADM8211_src_105.patch
  $> tar -xzvf ADM8211_src_105.tar.gz
  $> cd ADM8211
  $> patch -p0 < ../ADM8211_src_105.patch
  #> ln -s /usr/src/linux /usr/src/linux-2.4
  $> make
  #> cp 8211.o /lib/modules/`uname -r`/pcmcia/
  #> depmod -a

The ''depmod'' returns an ''unresolved symbols'' error but adding the following to ''/etc/pcmcia/local.conf'' gave me a new ''eth1'' device:

<file>
device "8211"
   class "network" module "8211"

card "3Com Corporation"
  manfid 0x10b7,0x6000
  bind "8211"
</file>

Even the ''dmesg'' output looked fine:

<code>
cs: cb_alloc(bus 1): vendor 0x10b7, device 0x6000
PCI: Enabling device 01:00.0 (0000 -> 0003)
ADM8211 Linux driver version 1.05 (June 24, 2003)
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 01:00.0 to 64
8211: Hardware Address 00:0B:AC:E6:9C:D8, IRQ 9.
eth1: ADMtek Wireless rev 21 at 0x4000
</code>

Everything looked good but setting the ESSID with ''iwconfig eth1 essid "foo"'' failed. There is no error message but the ESSID gets not set. Some googling brought up [[http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?postid=1000617#post1000617|this post]] saying the driver does not work with newer Kernels. Doh! :-/

===== GPL Driver =====

Luckily there is a GPL'd driver available at http://aluminum.sourmilk.net/adm8211/ - it is very new and should be considered as beta. It is developed for the 2.6.x series Kernel but the INSTALL file says it works with 2.4.x, too. So lets try:

  $> wget adm8211-20040711.tar.bz2
  $> tar -xjvf adm8211-20040711.tar.bz2
  $> cd adm8211
  $> make
  #> make install

Be sure to delete the ''8211.o'' module if you tried the factory driver before. Then insert the card and run ''dmesg'' to check what happens:

  cs: cb_alloc(bus 1): vendor 0x10b7, device 0x6000
  PCI: Enabling device 01:00.0 (0000 -> 0003)
  adm8211: Copyright 2003, Jouni Malinen <jkmaline@cc.hut.fi>; Copyright 2004, Michael Wu <flamingice@sourmilk.net>
  adm8211: release 20040711
  PCI: Setting latency timer of device 01:00.0 to 64
  eth1: EEPROM type: 93C66
  eth1: RFtype=1 BBPtype=1 Specific BBP=0 Transceiver=0
  eth1: Channel range: 1-11
  eth1: hwaddr 00:0b:ac:e6:9c:d8, IRQ 9, Rev 0x15, PCI ID: 0x82011317, mem @0x10800000 (len=0x400)

Looks nice :-) Lets get it up:

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

Did it work? Well for me it did :-D. 1:0 for open source :-)


=====3com Driver=====

I just discovered that 3com it self provides a linux for the card at their [[http://www.3com.com/products/en_US/result.jsp?selected=all&sort=effdt&order=desc&sku=3CRSHPW796|support page]]. It looks a lot like the ADMtek driver but unlike the above mentioned driver it works ;-)

The setup is easy. Get the driver from the support site, unpack compile and install:

  $> tar -xzvf 3CRSHPW796.tar.gz
  $> cd source
  $> make
  #> cp adm8201.o /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/
  #> modprobe -a

Running ''depmod'' prints an //Unresolved Symbols// error, but inserting the card loads the driver:

<code>
cs: cb_alloc(bus 1): vendor 0x10b7, device 0x6000
PCI: Enabling device 01:00.0 (0000 -> 0003)
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 01:00.0 to 64
eth1: EEPROM type: 93C66
eth1: RFtype=1 BBPtype=1 Specific BBP=0 Transceiver=0
eth1: Channel range: 1-11
eth1: hwaddr 00:0b:ac:e6:9c:d8, IRQ 9, Rev 0x15, PCI ID: 0x82011317, mem @0x10800000 (len=0x400)
</code>

Again setting your WLAN parameters and getting an IP via DHCP is just two commands away:

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

Nice. Now you have two different drivers to choose from for this card.