Re: [gentoo-user] realtek 8197 wireless card setup

[Jeff Cranmer]

On Friday 21 December 2007 09:21:03 am Hans-Werner Hilse wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:45:26 -0500 Jeff Cranmer
>
> <jcranmer01@×××××××××.net> wrote:
> > > > The card I have is an 8197, not an 8187.  I wonder if this is
> > > > part of the problem.  Could it be that the kernel driver does not
> > > > support the 8197?
> >
> > [...]
> > At the moment, I think the key line in dmesg is .
> > phy0: RF calibration failed! 0
> >
> > If I could figure out what this line meant, and what I could do to
> > fix it, I might be on my way to a potential solution.
>
> Well, although you managed to bring it to a point where at least the
> driver recognized the device, there is still the possibility it won't
> work anyway. My guess here is that the driver does not fully support
> your device. Probably, some back end mechanics is different. WLAN cards
> often consist of separate modules, some of them even being small
> computers running a firmware. I guess at that point your hardware
> differs from what the driver supports.
>
> Did you find indications on the Web that the 8187 driver should work
> for the 8197? Or did you chose to try based on the similarity of the
> two numbers? you might also want to try asking on the driver's mailing
> list.
>
> -hwh

I think I'm getting closer now.
I removed the driver from the kernel, and installed ndiswrapper.
I got the inf driver from a guy from realtek, and used
ndiswrapper -i drivername.inf  to install it.

Now, when I run
iwlist wlan0 scanning, I can actually see my access point listed, plus lots of 
other local wireless networks.

connecting to it is a different matter, however, as the connection always 
appears to time out.  I'm using iwconfig to manually set the ESSID, wep key 
etc. at the moment, and have tried the trick of setting the speed manually to 
5.5M to avoid timeouts.

When I try to run dhcpcd wlan0 the first time, I get Error, wlan0: timed out
The second time I try to run it, I get an error because dhcpcd is already 
running.

Also, when I try running /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 start, I get the error
WEP key is not set for "my_wireless_network_name" - not connecting
followed by similar errors for other nearby wireless networks, then
*	Couldn't associate with any access points on wlan0
*	Failed to configure wireless for wlan0

Damn, this has to be the most frustrating thing I've tried to do on gentoo.
I know I'm close, because the OS can now see the access point.  All I need to 
do is stop it timing out and connect to it :-/

Jeff
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