HOWTO: ipw2200 + wpa

[Emerick]

With ipw2200 1.0.4 you will get error while compiling unless you run the remove_old script from the ipw2200 1.0.4 sources. Also I'm getting a ton of firmware errors, so you may want towait till 1.0.5.

Mike

Strange, i've got some warnings during compilation, but no error.
I'm sending you this message with these drivers.
Did you take the sources from cvs or as me from the website ?

[luca_linux]

I'm giving 1.0.4 driver version a try this afternoon...then I'll let you all know.

[luca_linux]

Ok, just updated the driver to 1.0.4 without any problem. Just following my howto.
Anyway there've been some fixes, especially about the power management stuff.
I suggest this update.

[luca_linux]

Ok, HowTo updated to 1.0.4: now every link refers to the new driver version.

[dejitarob]

Yup works great. Thanks again for your excellent how-to. Also, the "remove-old" sh script included with the new drivers is an easy way to ensure the upgrade goes smoothly without any symbolic errors from leftovers of the old driver. You may want to mention that in your how-to for future easy reference.

[Emerick]

Yup works great. Thanks again for your excellent how-to. Also, the "remove-old" sh script included with the new drivers is an easy way to ensure the upgrade goes smoothly without any symbolic errors from leftovers of the old driver. You may want to mention that in your how-to for future easy reference.

I didn't see this script. How silly i am
In fact, it's logical, because i used my script to install this driver

[hshen]

Hi Fulco,

very informative list.

I have a question about your step 4 "Check if the driver works". After you install the ipw2200, ieee80211 and firmwire, and run modprobe, does dmesg show only those 3 lines related to ipw2200? How do you know your ipw2200 driver works properly?

In addition to these 3 lines, I also got something like

    ipw2200: failed to send TX_POWER command

I believe that the driver does not work properly, even though I installed ipw2200 1.0.3. I disabled hotplug as Ubuntu hung during the boot when loading hotplug. I am not sure if this the root cause of ipw2200 driver failure.

Thansk!
hshen

Step 4: Check if the driver works
The best thing to do first is make sure you have an open network at this time (no WPA, no WEP, no MAC security). Also it might be a good idea to use a static IP. Configure your Wireless connection in the network settings according to your network IP range. Now let's enable the driver.

modprobe ipw2200
dmesg | grep ipw

If it works you will see something like this:

ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.0.3
ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2004 Intel Corporation
ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection

[luca_linux]

I have a question about your step 4 "Check if the driver works". After you install the ipw2200, ieee80211 and firmwire, and run modprobe, does dmesg show only those 3 lines related to ipw2200? How do you know your ipw2200 driver works properly?

In addition to these 3 lines, I also got something like

    ipw2200: failed to send TX_POWER command

I believe that the driver does not work properly, even though I installed ipw2200 1.0.3. I disabled hotplug as Ubuntu hung during the boot when loading hotplug. I am not sure if this the root cause of ipw2200 driver failure.

Yes, just those 3 lines have to be shown.
The latest driver version 1.0.4 has fixed many bugs especially about the power management stuff: so, you'd better give it a try.
You need hotplug and in particular the kernel option "Device Drivers -> Generic Driver Options -> Hotplug firmware loading support", that's enabled by default.

[luca_linux]

Yup works great. Thanks again for your excellent how-to. Also, the "remove-old" sh script included with the new drivers is an easy way to ensure the upgrade goes smoothly without any symbolic errors from leftovers of the old driver. You may want to mention that in your how-to for future easy reference.

Done!

[MechR]

1.0.4 Upgrade successful I have a couple questions, though...

1. Is it necessary to remove the old 2.2 firmware files? They don't get overwritten by the 2.3 files because of their different names. I removed them myself just to be sure.

2. Both times I've tried this, after the reboot I'd find that wireless isn't working, and that "dmesg | grep ipw" would give no output. Trying "modprobe ipw2200" would show that Linux is looking in the wrong places for the files (i.e., the places that the driver "make install" installs to, as opposed to the places I moved them to afterward). Running "sudo depmod" seems to straighten things out.

(Note, I'm not really knowledgeable about Linux I just figured #2 out from bits of prior info and trial-and-error by man-page reading. Still happy with getting everything working, though )