Arch Wireless Trick?

Question

I have two wireless PC cards. One is a D-link DWL-G650 with the Atheros chip set and the other is a Netgear WG511 with the Prism GT chip set. I have only one card installed at any one time. I just have the two cards available for my use.
Both of these card work perfectly in three other distros, Debian, Slackware and Vector. I know how to install the madwifi drivers and the Prism54 firmware. I know how to use iwconfig and ifconfig and route and lsmod and modprobe.
Well, despite my success with these cards in the other distros, I have been unable to get either to work in my Arch 0.7 hard drive installation. As an example here is what happens when I try to activate the Netgear card.
The Prism54 firmware has been installed to the /lib/firmware directory and renamed to isl3890. Modprobe loads the Prism54 driver which I verify with lsmod.
But iwconfig doesn't show any wireless interface. And ifconfig -a doesn't show any interfaces except lo and sit0 (Whatever that is.) So or course nothing else works because there is no recognized interface.
If I install the D-link card and try to activate it, the same thing happens, modprobe ath_pci loads the madwifi drivers which I verify with lsmod. But iwconfig doesn't show any wireless interface and ifconfig -a doesn't show any interface except for lo and sit0.
So, what am I missing in this Arch 0.7 hard drive installation that is keeping my wireless PC cards from working?
Note: My wired ethernet connection works perfectly. I just modprobe sis900, then ifconfig eth0 <ip address>, then route add default gw <gateway address> and everything works. I will work on automation later when I get the wireless PC cards to work.
Thanks for any help, jimbo

Answer 1

Hello,
I don't remember exacly how I did the setup for my Zyxel G110 (prism54) but it does work (using it now).
Running prism on eth0.
Ehh, kernel version 2.6.11 (not arch pkg.gz)
kernelconfig:
CONFIG_NET_RADIO=y
CONFIG_PRISM54=m
ls -l /lib/firmware/         
total 192
-rwxr--r--  1 root root 93996 2005-04-07 20:32 1.0.4.3.arm
-rwxr--r--  1 root root 93996 2005-04-07 20:58 isl3890
(.arm is just to remember firmware version, not used)
#lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
prism54                52744  0
firmware_class          7424  1 prism54
/etc/rc.conf:
INTERFACES=(lo eth0 eth1)
WIRELESS_PROFILES=(home-eth0)
DAEMONS=(hotplug iptables !wireless pcmcia)
Disable wireless in DAEMON's section, wait until firmware and modules have been loaded!
(not sure about the need of pcmcia bcause I'm also using another pcmcia nic that is using it)
reffering to WIRELESS_PROFILE in rc.conf
cat /etc/conf.d/wireless-profiles/home-eth0/config
#! /bin/sh
# The following sample contains the bare minimum working wireless
#  profile.  Other options are commented below.  Copy this script
#  and modify for a working profile.
INTERFACE="eth0"
# Interface options (same as in rc.conf) - either dhcp or paramters for ifconfig
IFOPTS="eth0 192.168.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255"
# Wireless ESSID (extended network name)
ESSID="your_acesspoint_essid"
# This value is free-form, used for informational scripts
# INFO="W-Profile"
# Network/Domain ID
# NWID=""
# Mode [Ad-Hoc, Auto, Managed, Master, Repeater, Secondary, Shared]
MODE="Auto"
# Frequency or Channel of Wireless Radio
# FREQ=""
CHANNEL="6"
# Signal Sensitivity
# SENS=""
# TX/RX Bit Rate
# RATE="auto"
# Encryption Key (see `man iwconfig` for extended information
KEY="secretkey"
# RTS Threshold
# RTS=""
# Fragmentation Threshold
# FRAG=""
# Misc Parameters for iwconfig
# PARAMS=""
Let hotplug install the firmware before running /etc/rc.d/wireless start
Hope something here will help you!
//xor