[gentoo-dev] Postmortem: Gentoo + wireless

[Joseph Carter]

Okay, I've attempted to get wireless working on my (Gentoo 1.4) notebook,
but was faced with many, many problems.  I'll enumerate them:


 1. pcmcia-cs installation told me that I needed NO support for PCMCIA in
    my kernel at all, or it wouldn't build any modules.  The problem was
    that when I built PCMCIA kernel modules, cardmgr would start.  When I
    did not, pcmcia-cs would build all of the driver modules, however the
    ds module would not load, causing cardmgr to fail to load.

    Solution: add i82365 to /etc/modules.autoload - either i82365 or tcic
    can provide the needed symbols, and depmod can't tell which one is the
    right one to load.  Therefore, the symbol is unresolvable as far as it
    is concerned, and you need to load the correct thing yourself.


 2. pcmcia-cs seems to lock solid every single kernel I threw at the
    thing, regardless of whether or not it was actually doing anything
    with PCMCIA at the time.

    Solution: Gentoo 1.4 uses pcmcia-cs 3.2.1, which is not the current
    version.  3.2.3 is available but masked I guess until 1.4 is ready for
    release.  Lots of people report similar lockups with the drivers in
    1.4, and while I can't say it will fix everyone's problems, I know
    that it has fixed mine.


 3. D-Link DWL-650+ Linux "support"..  D-Link offered a Linux driver for
    this, but it was binary only and they pulled it, apparently because of
    GPL violations.  They promised source would be made available sometime
    in January.  Finding the binary was difficult, and it was built with
    gcc 2.x.  Attempts to hack the binary to work anyway failed.

    Solution: D-Link's official policy is that they don't support Linux,
    and if I bought the device for use in Linux relying only on some web
    page which listed it as supported, well then that's my fault.  I've
    solved this problem by returning the card and telling D-Link they can
    go to hell.


 4. The D-Link access point still has not arrived.  This turns out to be
    the fault of Gateway.  Why did I order it from Gateway?  Well, they
    had a good deal on the card and AP, and I was ordering another laptop
    battery from them anyway.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.  It's
    on its way back to them because they screwed up with UPS and I've been
    promised a credit.

    Solution: NEVER buy from Gateway, period.  Either they're incompitent
    or they're basically committing fraud.  I'm not even going into the
    details, speculate if you like, or ask me off-list(s).


 5. Replacement for the above was a Belkin F5D6130 (wth kind of model
    number is that?!) which has no only SNMP configuration.  The ap-utils
    page says it's supported, so I emerge ap-utils on my desktop machine
    and run it.  This didn't work, and basically hosed the AP so that
    nothing could even see it anymore.  Hardware reset and settings wipe
    made the Windows drivers able to see it.

    Solution: ap-utils 1.0.5 is what's in Gentoo.  This version is ancient
    and not useful with most newer APs.  1.3.1 is currently stable, so I
    had to make an ebuild for it.  Gentoo bug 15912 contains the ebuild.
    Note, the Windows crap for this thing have two options for security:
    none and single passwd for everything.  ap-config can do better, but
    after changing security settings the Belkin-provided software no
    longer recognise it as a Belkin AP.  How terrible!  ;)


 6. Replacement for the wireless card above, a Netgear MA401, gave a high
    and a low beep once inserted.  Scoured the net for settings info.
    Tried various settings in /etc/pcmcia/{network.wireless}.opts to no
    avail.  Finally figured out that it was calling the hotplug network
    agent, which may or may not have used any of the crap I was changing,
    I don't know.

    Solution: Copy /etc/init.d/net.eth0 to net.eth1, and add a line to
    /etc/conf.d/net telling it to use DHCP for eth1..  Whether any of my
    settings in either pcmcia config files did anything at all, I don't
    know.  I've got it working for me, but I don't really understand how
    it'd work if I wanted to use WEP or anything like that.  Better docs
    are needed, and if someone takes the time to make it so I understand
    how it works, I'll write them.


Mostly of interest to eug-luggers: I've opted to leave the AP open (which
is necessary as noted above), so if you're within a block of me or so,
feel free to make use of it.  A few ports have been blocked off to protect
me from being the source of something that'll make me the subject of an
abuse report.  If my bandwidth gets too drained, I'll have to apply a
shaper.  If anyone in the west campus neighbourhood is interested in
linking APs, I'm willing.  This thing doesn't take an external antenna,
but I'm sure I can do something about that if necessary.

Staples was not unreasonably priced for the AP and card, but obviously you
can do better online.


Today in a nutshell:
 - Time dealing with Gateway                        ~ 4:00 hours
 - Time getting new card/AP from Staples            ~ 0:30 hours
 - Time getting it all working                      ~ 5:00 hours
 - Time for dinner at Sakura (I deserved it
   after putting up with all of the above!)         ~ 1:00 hour

That's right, over 9 hours devoted to this...  Needless to say, I hope
that my insights may result in less time getting wireless for the next
poor fool who wants to set it all up.  For my next trick, I'll get some
tool working so I can wander around town looking for open APs..  I've got
a couple installed, but which ones actually work is TBD.

-- 
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@×××.org>             A mighty Oak is the result of
  ^ a nut                                       a nut that held its ground
 
* knghtbrd is gone - zzz - messages will be snapped like wet towels at all
  of the people who have stolen the trademark knghtbrd away message
<Coderjoe> ack
* Coderjoe prepares to defend himself from wet messages