Linksys WPC11 and Knoppix

**PAlvarez** · 02-01-2004, 02:27 PM

Newb going mad!!!

I've installed Knoppx 3.3 to the HD and have tried to get my Linksys WPC11, v3 working on my Toshiba Libretto L2 but to no avail. I'm very new to this stuff and the forum searches haven't helped too much. modprobe shows the orinoco drivers loaded, but I don't think the system is detecting the PCMCIA card. The only network device that shows is the built in nic. Ideas on where to start?

**tearinghairout** · 02-01-2004, 09:52 PM

The only network device that shows is the built in nic

Where is it showing this?

What is the output if "ifconfig -a" and iwconfig?

What is at the end of dmesg after you plug the card in?

**PAlvarez** · 02-02-2004, 10:07 AM

Here's the info:

ifconfig only shows eth0 and lo

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:39:E2:44:99
inet addr:192.168.1.102 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:270 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:360 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:152530 (148.9 KiB) TX bytes:73864 (72.1 KiB)
Interrupt:7 Base address:0xc000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:22 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:22 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1404 (1.3 KiB) TX bytes:1404 (1.3 KiB)

iwconfig doesn't show ay wireless extensions

output of dmesg:

blk: queue c0334b60, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0820-0x08ff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0800-0x080f: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x1e0-0x1e7 0x408-0x40f 0x480-0x48f 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.
apm: BIOS not found.
cs: memory probe 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff: clean.
hermes.c: 4 Dec 2002 David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au>
orinoco.c 0.13b (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au> and others)
orinoco_cs.c 0.13b (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au> and others)
orinoco_cs: RequestIRQ: Resource in use
i8253 count too high! resetting..

Any help would be great!!!!!

**tearinghairout** · 02-02-2004, 11:16 AM

Well, the dmesg output suggests that your card, whilst being recognised (the fact that it even mentions orinocco), cannot actually be intialised (the line shown below).

I am using a Linksys WPC11 v3 card myself, so I know that this card works with Knoppix.

This line from your dmesg

Code:

orinoco_cs: RequestIRQ: Resource in use

seems to suggest some sort of clash with something else in your laptop. Now, I was under the impression that the whole point of plug-n-play, and then later PCI, was to dynamically allocate IRQ's, thus doing away with these sorts of problems.

All I can say is "Hmmmm, very strange".

I know you probably don't think of this as any sort of answer, but my impression of Toshiba laptops - both from my own experience and reading other peoples comments on this forum - is that Toshiba tends to do "odd" things with their hardware. Toshiba laptops seem to need more than the usual number of obscure cheatcodes just to boot up.

If I think of anything in the morning, I will post again, but for now I don't think I can really suggest anything more, except to say that your wifi card is definately supported by knoppix.

Maybe do a 'cat /proc/interrupts' before plugging the wifi card in to see if there are any IRQ's available?

Sorry, no idea.

**PAlvarez** · 02-02-2004, 02:01 PM

I've also read that acpi can wreck havok with IRQ allocation. How can I disable it to test that out? I've installed to the hard drive, so I can't use cheatcodes.....

Thanks again!

**windos_no_thanks** · 02-02-2004, 02:19 PM

Originally Posted by PAlvarez

I've also read that acpi can wreck havok with IRQ allocation. How can I disable it to test that out? I've installed to the hard drive, so I can't use cheatcodes.....

It is not turned on by default (in fact the support for ACPI isn't even compiled in in the Knoppix kernel). There are several posts in this forum suggesting a "noacpi" cheat code but for all official Knoppix versions so far that does nothing even if you are booting from CD. (I think it does do something in Mandrake or some other distro, which explains why people think it might work here too)
What you could do is check if there are any settings for ACPI in the BIOS, if there is try turning it in the opposite position. I guess there is also the possibility that you actually need ACPI support , in which case you have to get another kernel.
Another thing that has an effect on interrupts is wether APIC is on or not.
For the CD version you'd test with the noapic cheat code, if that helps the same parameter can be fed to the kernel in the lilo configuration file for booting from HD.

**PAlvarez** · 02-02-2004, 11:47 PM

Another thing that has an effect on interrupts is wether APIC is on or not.

That's what I meant!!!! I will give that a shot. I tried excluding used IRQs in config.opts, but that did not work. Also, there is no BIOS menu for Libretto L2s. The only option you have is to select what you want to boot from. A pain for situations like these.....