HOWTO - Wireless Netgear WG511 and Fedora FC3

Here is the way to get the wg511 on air with fedora fc3.
It´s a little bit different from the fc2 release.

1.) First, check out that your wireless card is supported by
www.prism54.org.

2.) Download the proper firmware add-on release. This is not a
firmware update for the card, but a microcode

add-on which has to be loaded everytime your system starts up. Your
card firmware won´t be changed.
In my case, I took the 1.0.4.3.arm firmware add-on release.

3.) Check your pcmcia daemon is running from startup. If not, just
type "chkconfig pcmcia on" an restart your system.

4.) Copy your firmware add-on to the /lib/firmware directory. The
directory already exists !
If the directory is not there, take a look at the firmware path
stated in the /etc/hotplug/firmware.agent script. In FC3 there is no
need to update the firmware agent at all by additional stuff from the
prism54.org page.


Example: /etc/hotplug/firmware.agent

----------------- snip ----------------
# directory of the firmware files
FIRMWARE_DIR=/lib/firmware
----------------- snap ----------------


5.) Rename your firmware add-on from "1.0.4.3.arm" to "isl3890".

6.) Edit your /etc/modprobe.conf. In my case, the wireless card points
to eth1. Change the alias: alias eth1 islpci_cb

Example: /etc/modprobe.conf
------------- snip ---------
alias eth0 e100 # build-in ethernet adapter
alias eth1 islpci_cb # netgear wg511 pcmcia adapter
------------- snap ---------


7.) Restart your system and check with "lsmod" the existence of the
prism54 driver.

8.) Setup your wireless card configuration by editing the ifcfg-eth1
script. Everything is setup there.

Example:

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1

------------------ snip --------------------
DEVICE=eth1
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=none
IPADDR=192.168.0.111
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.0.254
DOMAIN=
DHCP_HOSTNAME=
HWADDR=00:09:5B:C56:2C # Mac Adress of the wg511 card !
TYPE=Wireless
USERCTL=no
PEERDNS=yes
IPV6INIT=no
ESSID=HomeNetwork
CHANNEL=12
MODE=Auto
RATE=Auto
----------------- snap ----------------------

9.) If you use wep security then you will have to add an additional
file called "keys-eth1" to the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/
directory. This file contains the hex hash of the password for
encryption.

Example:

[root@laptop]# cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/keys-eth1

KEY=20D1B5765EFAD5BB3879A908D9

10.) To check that everything is fine you can use the iwconfig
command:

[root@laptop]# iwconfig

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 IEEE 802.11b/g ESSID:"HomeNetwork"
Nickname:"my.laptop.int"
Mode:Auto Frequency:2.462GHz Access Point:
00:09:5B:F8:40:54
Bit Rate:54Mb/s Tx-Power=31 dBm Sensitivity=20/200
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
Encryption key:50DE-B536-5EFD-D5BB-3879-A908-D8 Security
mode:restricted
Link Quality:174/0 Signal level:-30 dBm Noise level:-200
dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Hope that helps !

Henrik Knoblauch


(E-Mail Removed)

PS:

If you receive an error like "SIOCSIFFLAGS: no such file or
directory", than your firmware (.arm) is in the wrong path !!!! Check
your firmware.agent settings. This is similar to the error "speed
settings cannot be set", which means your are not using the right
firmware. The build in driver from fedora fc3 is broken.