[lug] Intel 3945 wireless on Fedora Core 5

[Matthew Snelham]

On 24 Jun 2006 06:31 PM or thereabouts, D. Stimits wrote:
> 
> >See here: http://ipw3945.sourceforge.net/INSTALL
> >
> >It tells you exactly what to run and why.  
> >
> The part where it starts diverging for me:
> 
> DIR=$(sed -ne "s:^FIRMWARE_DIR=\([^, ]*\).*:\1:p" \
> 		/etc/hotplug/firmware.agent)
> 
> There is no /etc/hotplug/ on FC5, although there is on FC4. There is no 
> "firmware.agent" anywhere on FC5 at all...the closest I can come to this 
> is the "/etc/udev/rules.d/51-hotplug.rules". There seems to be a new way 
> of working with hotplug in FC5 (and I do have hotplug installed and 
> working...at least with USB it seems to work).

FC has replaced hotplug completely with HAL/udev.  Most (every?) other
distro still use hotplug/udev in some fashion.  Basically, ignore that SED
line and place the firmware file in /lib/firmware.  I don't have a Fedora
box, but that's the accepted standard location, and I'd be shocked if they
changed it. 

(aside, I haven't played with HAL enough yet to know if I like it, but it's
certianly a big change)

Make sure that in your kernel config,  'Generic Driver Options --->
[*] Hotplug firmware loading support' is enabled. 

Your udev rules should be fine as is.  HAL definitions, I don't know, but
I'd assume they do the right thing.  Loadable firmware is pretty darn
common.

Continue on from there.
 
> It was mentioned that the ieee80211 stack that is used by this driver 
> probably is not compatible between the kernel-supplied version and the 
> one for this item. This might be part of the problem, since I had 
> originally added this as a non-module permanent part of my kernel 
> config. I'm going to try rebuilding my kernel with this as a module, and 
> then switching over to their 80211 stack (which makes me a bit worried, 
> I'm wondering what other things this particular implementation is not 
> compatible with).

Yeah, keep ieee80211, ieee80211_crypt, and the ipw3945 'driver' as modules.
They're changing a lot faster than the mainline kernel, and the updates can
be worth having to stay current with your Intel driver. 

Intel is a key contributer to the generic ieee80211 segments in the kernel,
so they tend to develop against the latest and greatest.  The mainline
patch acceptance process moves a bit slowly compared to the drivers
themselves... thus the loss of sync.   You should be fine running the
ieee80211/ipw3945 set recommended. 
 
> I might buy a separate wireless card and forego the Intel one if I get 
> too desperate...since I won't be using a Fedora-supplied 
> kernel/configuration.

Despite the silly userspace daemon, the 3945 is a great wireless card, and
its (functional, if not OSS) linux support is going to be among the best
you can get.  It's just brand new hardware, so the distros are going to
play catchup (which is taking longer because of the OSS issues, sadly).

--Matthew
infinite at sigalrm.com

--
   "But Calvin is no kind and loving god! He's one of the old gods! 
    He demands sacrifice!"
       -Calvin