# Toshiba A25-S207 WiFi

## patrickbores

Hello,

I've got a new Toshiba A25-S207 laptop with a built in wireless device. I'm trying to get the kernel to recognize it. I'm not sure if it's PCI or PCMCIA or what.

I can't get an interface to show up in "ifconfig -a". The Toshiba support website offers an Atheros driver for WinXP, so I went and downloaded madwifi. I successfully load wlan.o and ath_hal.o, but when I try to load ath_pci.o I get this:

driver/ath_pci.o: init_module: No such device

Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.

      You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg

dmesg and syslog say:

ath_pci: No devices found, driver not installed.

Does anyone have any experience with this laptop? Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Patrick

----------

## LightWave

what's up.

I have the exact same laptop and I love it.  Though The pre-installed Windows XP Home, as well as Windows XP Professional both run pretty sloppy / slow.  I installed a copy of Mandrake 9.1 and eveything works, including wireless.  I just wanted to see if linux would run on this hardware, happy to say that yes it does.  Not to mention its 2 times more responsive, in every respect, as opposed to the Windows XP home and my own tailored Windows XP Professional installations

I am about to install Gentoo 1.4 on this laptop, this evening, after I write this.  In order to get the built in 802.11b functioning, I'm thinking that I'll have to emerge pcmcia-cs and emerge linux-wlan-ng packages then go on from there.

Toshiba A25-S207 basic hardware specs...

Toshiba Satellite A25-S207 Intel P4-2.66 (desktop) 512mb PC2100 SO-DDR (2 x 256mb) 40Gb 4200rpm HDD CDRW/DVD combo 15" XGA TFT (1024x768) 32mb shared video memory Integrated modem, LAN & Agere 802.11b 3 USB 2.0 Secure Digital (SD) slot TV-out ECP Parallel port

I'll be installing from stage1 so it might take a couple of days for me to reply regarding wireless.  I'll post my progress in a couple of days, hopefully  :Smile:   Regardless, I love this laptop, can't wait to see Gentoo run on it.

----------

## patrickbores

Hey,

I love mine too. Gentoo runs great on it. I'll try your suggestion of emerging pcmcia-cs and linux-wlan-ng. What's bothering me though is that the device doesn't seem to be showing up when I do an lspci. I only get one Ethernet controller listed there and it's the port on the back.

Anyhow, if I make any progress, I'll post back.

Patrick

----------

## patrickbores

It seems I'm about halfway there now.

I emerged pcmcia-cs.

Ran cardmgr and it found the card, loaded a Lucent/Agere (Prism?) driver for it, and eth1 showed up in ifconfig.

Then I set up net.eth1 in /etc/init.d, but did NOT do rc-update add net.eth1 default. cardmgr appears to run the startup script for you.

It takes a few seconds, but I get an IP address assigned from the DHCP server on the base station.

Then: nothing. I can't push any traffic through. I can't ping the device from another node on the network. netstat reports that the eth1 interface is being used for the default route, but I get no connectivity, even though I'm registered with the base station.

Any clues?

Patrick

----------

## LightWave

KDE completed compiling over night and most everything is working.  Wow, Gentoo is so damn fast on this laptop!  I have most everything working except for integrated wireless and the ability to use the USB mouse and mouse pad at the same time.

Currently working on 802.11b configuration.  (USB Mouse later)

I have...

1. emerged wireless-tools

2. emerged pcmcia-cs

3. emerged linux-wlan-ng

Though my devices (Integrated and PCMCIA Card 802.11b) show up as wlan0 and wlan1, not eth1 or eth2.   Hmmm.  

Prism2_cs loads at boot, pcmcia, cardmgr, etc, all load fine.  The hardware is found and the correct driver is installed.

Anyway, hope I can get figured out and  running by the end of day today, I'm sure gentoo forums and google are filled with similiar configration issues.  Though if anyone has any suggestions or feels like pointing me in the direction, it would be greatly appreciated.

----------

## patrickbores

Well, I've got the USB mouse working. Mostly. Everything but the wheel. Here's how I got this far:

emerge gpm

Configured these lines in /etc/conf.d/gpm

# For the trackpad

MOUSE=ps2

MOUSEDEV=/dev/psaux

# For the USB mouse

APPEND="-M -m /dev/input/mice -t ps2"

# To make data available on /dev/gpmdata (may have to change later to get wheel action)

REPEAT_TYPE=raw

/etc/X11/XF86Config:

Identifier  "Mouse1"

    Driver      "mouse"

    Option "Protocol"    "PS/2"

    Option "Device"      "/dev/gpmdata"

    etc...

And to get rid of the "tapping" feature:

emerge tpconfig

Put this line in /etc/conf.d/tpconfig:

TPOPTIONS="--tapmode=0"

Still trying to get 80211.b to work. I'll let you know.

Patrick

----------

## LightWave

Christ it can't be this freakin hard....

Still not connected.

So, I went the wlan-ng route rather than pcmcia-cs, from what I read wlan-ng drivers can be "smoother" whatever that means.  But airsnort and kismet have a better chance of working with the wlan-ng drivers, and I want kismet to work (would be nice) so I figured what the hell.

I followed these posts....

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=18747&highlight=wlanng

specifically these instructions...

"Posted by: mbobak 

Hi All, 

After a couple of days of struggling, reading this thread, and various 

other resources, I´ve got my LinkSys WPC11 installed and working 

on my newly installed Gentoo 1.4_rc3 install. 

Here´s what you need to do: 

Make sure your kernel is built with: 

General Setup->Support for Hotpluggable devices is DISABLED 

Network Device Support->Wireless LAN is ENABLED 

BUT DO NOT SELECT ANY DRIVERS 

Now, build and boot your shiny new kernel 

Now: 

Add pcmcia and cardbus to your USE flags in /etc/make.conf 

emerge pcmcia-cs 

emerge linux-wlan-ng 

Add the module for your PCMCIA controller to /etc/modules.autoload 

(For me, Sony VAIO PCG-FX270, that´s the i82365.o module) 

Add ´alias wlan0 prism2_cs' to /etc/modules.d/aliases 

Run modules-update 

Update /etc/conf.d/wlan.conf (probably all you need to set is SSID.) 

cp /etc/conf.d/wlan-DEFAULT /etc/conf.d/wlan-<yourssid> 

Edit /etc/conf.d/wlan-<yoursid> as needed. 

Edit /etc/conf.d/net and add an entry for $iface_wlan0 

cp /etc/init.d/net.eth0 /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 

rc-update add pcmcia default 

rc-update add wlan default 

rc-update add net.wlan0 default 

That´s it! You should be up and running! 

Hope this helps others to get through it easier than I did."

===============================================

And this post with these instructions...(I can't find the URL at the moment")

"Yes, that's the right place. the beginning of my wlancfg-"SSID" looks like that:  

#=======USER MIB SETTINGS============================= 

# You can add the assignments for various MIB items 

#  of your choosing to this variable, separated by 

#  whitespace.  The wlan-ng script will then set each one. 

# Just uncomment the variable and set the assignments 

#  the way you want them. 

#USER_MIBS="p2CnfRoamingMode=1 p2CnfShortPreamble=mixed" 

#=======WEP=========================================== 

# [Dis/En]able WEP.  Settings only matter if PrivacyInvoked is true 

lnxreq_hostWEPEncrypt=true     # true|false 

lnxreq_hostWEPDecrypt=true     # true|false 

dot11PrivacyInvoked=true        # true|false 

dot11WEPDefaultKeyID=0          # 0|1|2|3 

dot11ExcludeUnencrypted=true    # true|false, in AP this means WEP is required. 

# If PRIV_GENSTR is not empty, use PRIV_GENTSTR to generate 

#  keys (just a convenience) 

# add-ons/ in the tarball contains other key generators. 

PRIV_GENERATOR=/sbin/keygen     # nwepgen, Neesus compatible 

PRIV_KEY128=true                # keylength to generate 

PRIV_GENSTR="" 

# or set them explicitly.  Set genstr or keys, not both. 

dot11WEPDefaultKey0=01:02:03:04:05:06:07:08:09:0a:0b:0c:0d              # format: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx   or 

dot11WEPDefaultKey1=            #         xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx 

dot11WEPDefaultKey2=            #  e.g.   01:20:03:40:05   or 

dot11WEPDefaultKey3=            #         01:02:03:04:05:06:07:08:09:0a:0b:0c:0d

==================================================

All of this makes sense to me, and according to the wlan-ng help files and in theory it should work.  Though they don't.  When I reboot my laptop, i get a number of errors...

"Could not get dependency info for net.wlan0"

"Failed to enable the device", resultcode= implementaton_failure"

For the love of GOD, I've been working as a QA Wireless Engineer for the past two years, and I am embarrased to say I'm having a hell of a time getting this to work on gentoo,  I've succeeded with almost every industry ridden linux distro out there, I'm gonna start over  .

"Wish I had a copy of PVCS Tracker here" -- passing thought.

I must have made a right turn at albequerque, cause this sure aint pebble beach.  Must be something in the kernel I missed or some configuration, in some file some where...heh.  sounds exciting, I know.  Time to re-read the manual.    :Twisted Evil: 

----------

## patrickbores

I feel your pain. I don't understand why linux-wlan-ng needs to be installed. It appears that it overlaps functionality with pcmcia-cs. (Includes drivers, handles wireless settings).

I tried starting over too. When I emerge pcmcia-cs, it tells me that the proper kernel config is to have PCMCIA/Cardbus disabled. So I disable it. But when I try to load cardmgr, it tells me I need to have PCMCIA/Cardbus enabled in the kernel. How frustrating.

I'm going to keep pounding my head into the wall.

Patrick

----------

## valkur

I have a toshiba Sat Pro 6100, and I am having similar issues,

I followed the instructions that were posted above and am further than I have ever been with this, but now I too am getting the

"Failed to enable the device", resultcode= implementaton_failure" 

However I do not get the dependency error.

I read on another post that the 6100 needs the orinoco_cs driver, but I cannot make it work, modprobe says it can't locate module orinoco_cs

I thought that driver was part of linux-wlan-ng, is there different USE flags that need to be used to compile it instead?

Thats where I am at, hopefully this helps others.

----------

## valkur

I have since installed the hostap drivers,  changed the entry in /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.conf to use hostap_cs instead of prism2 and now when I boot up it detects the cards, loads the module and seems happy until it tries to get an IP and then nothing.  

Failed to bring wlan0 up

----------

## patrickbores

Well, I got where I'm at by doing the following:

1. Compile kernel without PCMCIA or CardBus Support. Include Wireless Lan (non ham radio), but no drivers underneath.

2. emerge pcmcia-cs (must be done after the kernel compile and reboot)

3. emerge wireless-tools

4. configure pcmcia-cs

5. rc-update add pcmcia default

6. /etc/runlevels/default/pcmcia start

This should get an interface listed in "ifconfig -a". Configuring pcmcia-cs mostly involves editing /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts, to set up your ESSID, key, and all that.

Starting pcmcia will try to run /etc/init.d/net.ethx or /etc/init.d/net.wlanx, so set that up however is appropriate for you. Or just do things manually.

I'm still at the point where I get the interface up, get an IP address from the DHCP server on the base station, and then can't push any traffic. And I've tried both the orinoco and hostap drivers.

I'm going to start a new thread for this issue and see if anybody who can help notices.

Patrick

----------

## patrickbores

Well, my Toshiba A25 S207 is now working with WiFi!

It turns out that I wasn't pushing traffic because my base station had "Short Preamble" enabled. I changed it to "Long Preamble" and things started going.

If my method wasn't entirely clear from my posts on this thread, just let me know. I'll be happy tell you each and every step I took to get it working.

Patrick

----------

## LightWave

Patrick...

Nice.  I just got mine working too, about 5 minutes ago.  I need to post documentation as well. This is sooooo cool.  I would like to have documentation posted ASAP, but it probably won't be until tomorrow night.  Snowboarding tomorrow.   :Twisted Evil: 

Congrats Patrick.

----------

## valkur

I got mine working too    :Laughing: 

For me though I could not modprobe orinoco_cs so I had to re emerge pcmcia-cs as follows

```
USE="pcmcia wvlan" emerge pcmcia-cs
```

This fixed the missing orinoco_cs problem, after that it didnt take much, except that it wanted the interface to be eth1 and everything I had set was for wlan0.

I should note also that I had to change my cards entry in /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.conf to use orinoco_cs

Wireless rocks

----------

