Intel 3945 driver needs hotplug firmware

Question

I'm having some issues getting the Intel 3945 wifi adapter to become recognized by Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.5.
It seems that the 802.11 and the driver are present however it seems to need a microcode piece as well. This is documented at:
[http://ipw3945.sourceforge.net/|http://ipw3945.sourceforge.net/]
Step 1 on the requirements listing is for the microcode.
The install docs say to look at /etc/hotplug/firmware.agent file to get the directory.
I just redid my installation and this file is still not present.
It also lists the steps to use the kernel source to come up with the directory.
So, make gconfig and take a look:
Device Drivers ->
Generic Driver Options ->
are present, however,
Hotplug firmware loading support
after that is not present. I saw some options for CPU hotplugging and memory hotplugging but the install docs are calling for this option which doesn't seem to be present.
So, what's the easiest way to get hotplugging support on this version of Linux? I've tried the Red Hat forums but everyone there says to just install the ucode to /lib/firmware and off you go.
thanks in advance,
alan

Answer 1

http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/ipw3945d/
http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/dkms-ipw3945/
http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/ipw3945-firmware/
All of these kept giving 404 errors unless I chose the source option. Oh well. So I gave up and thought I'd just compile up the latest kernel and see if that would help.
I checked for the hotplug option and it still isn't there so I have no clue what Intel was talking about.
I did remember seeing another message about the ucode file having a different file name so I finally ran it down.
All you need to do is to find the firmware file and copy it so it reads:
/lib/firmware/iwlwifi-3945-2.ucode
and then service network start and up she comes. I tried various permutations of strace -f trying to figure out the filename but never could come up with it. Oh well. Then it's:
add the following to modprobe.conf
options iwl3945 disable_hw_scan=1
and finally:
service NetworkManager restart
to get the little network icon on the upper right-hand side so I can get the easy wifi access point pick list.
Then I ran firefox and it connected to web pages.
Thanks for effort,
alan