Thomson SpeedTouch 120g: it works

FYI: The Thomson SpeedTouch 120g, a 802.11g USB network adapter
(http://www.speedtouch.com/prod120g.htm, vendorroduct id 06B9:0120) works
handsomely under Linux using the ndiswrapper.

Configuration: kernel 2.6.8.1, ndiswrapper 0.11rc1. Earlier kernels and/or
ndiswrappers may or may not work. I believe workable USB support for
wireless adapters requires a kernel >= 2.6.5.

The ndiswrapper will generate a "speedtouch" device (doesn't work, prob. a
dummy .INF target) and a "bt4501d" device (which works). I don't know what
the BT4501D is; my guess would be an internal product id. I don't think it's
a chipset number (see below), but it might be.

Caveats/notes:
- The driver may report an NDIS initialization error. This has no effect on
further operation. On my Win2000 box, the driver produces a STOP error
during booting if the adapter is plugged in; it must be plugged in after
booting. This may be a driver bug, and may or may not be related to the
error under Linux.

- Telltale section from the .INF file:
[DeviceList.NTx86.5.1]
%A021_DESC_STR% = PRISM_A021_XP, USB\VID_06B9&PID_0120
It seems to be using a PRISM chipset, but I cannot determine which one.
It might work with the native PRISM drivers (http://prism54.org) but I
didn't have the kernel to test this, and frankly I was more than pleased to
get ndiswrapper to work. If anyone has experience with the PRISM drivers, do
share. I don't think USB support is anywhere near finished, though.

- WPA doesn't work, so don't configure the rest of your network to use it.
what I've gathered, they're still working on it. WEP works fine. There's a
private command that seems to be related to WPA, but I couldn't figure out
its semantics.

- Telltale details from the installation CD: the executable links to Qt, and
Supplicant is on the CD (see http://www.linuxant.com). I'm guessing the
bastards are all happily networking their Linux boxes over there. :-)

- NOTE: The Linux drivers Thomson (formerly Alcatel) offers on their
website are for their USB *modems*, not wireless adapters. As of 2004-10-02,
there's no specific support in the way of driver/firmware updates to the
120g.

Posting this to Usenet because I didn't know a more specific place. This is
PD, please copy and put somewhere else if you think it helps someone.

J.

"Joost R. Meerten" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:415ee1f2$0$36860$(E-Mail Removed)
> - WPA doesn't work, so don't configure the rest of your network to use it.
> what I've gathered, they're still working on it. WEP works fine. There's a
> private command that seems to be related to WPA, but I couldn't figure out
> its semantics.

Update to this: http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/WPA. RTFM,
me! Though there should definitely be nicer HOWTOs around; right now there's
an overkill of files with lots of info but no real handle on how to go about
it. It took me two days to get from scratch (as in: knowing nothing about
WLANs) to getting it to run under Linux. That's too long; if I'm Joe Blow
Linux User (he's a minority, but getting there) I want to toggle a few flags
or read a step-by-step guide and have it up and running.

I'll conveniently excuse myself from this task by saying that, hey, now that
I can use it under Linux, it's time to dust off that old Pentium 133 and
build myself a nice firewall...

J.