# WPC11, wlan-ng and prism2_cs want me dead

## w00kie

I've been at it for 3 days now

tried every single line of code, config options and command parameter I found on the net

if this continues, I'm gonna eat this evil piece of silicon and hope it kills me

that will probably end my suffering...

dmesg spits this at me every time I boot

 *Quote:*   

> init_module: prism2_cs.o: 0.1.9 Loaded
> 
> init_module: dev_info is: prism2_cs
> 
> prism2_cs: GetNextTuple: No more items
> ...

 

and that is what's recorded to log whenever I insert the card while gentoo is running

 *Quote:*   

> Oct 16 22:34:03 [cardmgr] executing: 'modprobe -r prism2_cs'
> 
> Oct 16 22:34:03 [kernel] prism2_cs.o: 0.1.9 Unloaded
> 
> Oct 16 22:34:03 [kernel] p80211.o: 0.1.9 Unloaded
> ...

 

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

I'm probably a dumbass and forgot something obvious but I'm at loss here...

----------

## w00kie

gotcha!!!!

finally, I got it to load without errors

I had to change the Voltage given to the card since the default values are too low

precisions here : https://listman.redhat.com/pipermail/rhn-users/2002-February/000371.html

hovever, there is an easier way than patching the source

you can use a .CIS file to override the settings hardcoded into the card's firmware

 *Unknown Savior wrote:*   

> What you need to do is build a cis data file (after you have fixed the
> 
> wlan-ng.conf).  If you look in the source tarball for pcmcia-cs you'll find
> 
> some .cis files.  I used E-CARD.cis as a guide for what lines were needed.
> ...

 

now I'm off to configuring my network...  :Very Happy: 

----------

## w00kie

damn

I knew it sounded too good to be true

there's no way I can connect to my AP, even after disabling all the WEP stuff...

the DHCP just stalls, no connection to the AP can be made

I guess the fact that ifconfig doesn't show me a MAC Address is linked to this nightmare

```
wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:00:00:00:00:00  

          BROADCAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 

          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

          Interrupt:3 Base address:0x100 
```

now I don't have a clue on what to do...

----------

## digitalnick

ever get it all working? my wpc11 should be here tomorrow and im anxious to get it going

----------

## w00kie

nope

not yet

maybe I should try to unmerge pcmcia-cs and wlan-ng and reinstall the whole thing

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## brain

We're talking about the Linksys card, right?

You know, I used to have a hell of a time getting my WPC11 working, and then just suddenly one day it decided to work with the pcmcia-cs drivers w/o wlan-ng!! 

All I did was edit the /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts and removed the comments from the *,*,*,*) section (the comment says to do so to enable), and it worked.

The best part is that it loads the card as ETH1 instead of WLAN0, so it's friendly with network-sensitive stuff like VMWare.

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## digitalnick

you got it working without wlan-ng? nice took me about an hour to get mine woorking with it .... would be nice to have it as eth tho  oh well ..... have you setup kismet? id like to do a little war driving/ walking whatever jusst be neat to see what other wireless netowrks are in my neighborhood

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## brain

 *digitalnick wrote:*   

> you got it working without wlan-ng? nice took me about an hour to get mine woorking with it .... would be nice to have it as eth tho  oh well ..... have you setup kismet? id like to do a little war driving/ walking whatever jusst be neat to see what other wireless netowrks are in my neighborhood

 

Yea!  I'm not really sure why it just started working.  I bought a new laptop, and was going thru the nightmare of setting it up again, but I just popped it in and it found it as ETH1.   Try using the latest pcmcia-cs and see where it gets ya.

Haven't set it up yet, but I've driven (well, walked too) around with a friend of mine that has...   :Twisted Evil: 

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## digitalnick

which version of pcmcia are you using?

----------

## brain

Using 3.2.1-r1 now, but it worked with just 3.2.1 as well.

Here's the snapshot of the syslog as it starts the card.  You can see that it actually finds it as a Linksys WPC11...

```
Oct 29 14:04:27 brianlaptop cardmgr[5185]: socket 1: Linksys WPC11 11Mbps 802.11b WLAN Card

Oct 29 14:04:27 brianlaptop kernel: cs: memory probe 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff: clean.

Oct 29 14:04:27 brianlaptop cardmgr[5185]: executing: 'modprobe orinoco_cs'

Oct 29 14:04:27 brianlaptop kernel: hermes.c: 4 July Jun 2002 David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au>

Oct 29 14:04:27 brianlaptop kernel: orinoco.c 0.12b (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au> and others)

Oct 29 14:04:27 brianlaptop kernel: orinoco_cs.c 0.12b (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au> and others)

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x4d0-0x4d7

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x04d8-0x04ff: clean.

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0800-0x08ff: excluding 0x800-0x817 0x828-0x837 0x840-0x84f 0x860-0x877 0x880-0x88f 0x898-0x89f 0x8a8-0x8cf 0x8e0-0x8ff

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0838-0x083f: clean.

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0850-0x085f: clean.

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0878-0x087f: clean.

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0890-0x0897: clean.

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x08a0-0x08a7: clean.

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x08d0-0x08df: clean.

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: eth2: Station identity 001f:0003:0000:0008

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: eth2: Looks like an Intersil firmware version 0.8.3

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: eth2: Ad-hoc demo mode supported

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: eth2: IEEE standard IBSS ad-hoc mode supported

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: eth2: WEP supported, 104-bit key

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: eth2: MAC address 00:04:5A:CC:1D:14

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: eth2: Station name "Prism  I"

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: eth2: ready

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop kernel: eth2: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, irq 3, io 0x0100-0x013f

Oct 29 14:04:28 brianlaptop cardmgr[5185]: executing: './network start eth1'

```

----------

## digitalnick

think you can post your config files? i installed the wlan-ng drivers but am gonna remerge pcmcia hopefully thatll work ... exactly what do you do to bring up your card ...?

basically you got a step by step and your config file ... mywirelss is down now cause i messed with it to much heh  :Wink: 

thanks

[edit]

my wireless is workin again but only at home and its still on wlan0 so must mean i am still using the wlan-ng drivers right? any idea howto get rid of  em so i can try yoursetup also dunno if its just me but im havin problems accessing a cisco aironet port i guess it could just be that im trying to dhcpcd wlan0 i dunno

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## brain

Yep, no prob.

I tar-gzipped my entire /etc/pcmcia dir and tossed it up here.

I really didn't mess with hardly anything other than uncommenting that one section I mentioned in the other post.

I know what you mean though, once you install wlan-ng it seems to get its little fingers into everything.   

Maybe what you could do is backup your /etc/pcmcia dir, wipe it clean and then re-emerge pcmcia-cs and see where that gets you.

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## digitalnick

uhhgg well i just mv my pcmcia dir to pcmcia.orig then remerged pcmcia-cs .... still no go does wlan-ng mess with anything else?

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## digitalnick

thought you might wanna try this

disable all pcmcia stuff in the kernal

in netowrk device support enable wlan and also build in hermes support

emerge pcmcia-cs and add the hermes.conf file 

add some stuff to the conf file found here http://www.involution.com/linksyswpc11v3.php

see if it works for ya .. mine works great now .. even on eth0 so will work without a hitch with vmware  :Wink: 

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## w00kie

but will that let me use kismet??

----------

## digitalnick

i dunno i havent gotten that far with my wireless just yet i was primarily concerned with making vmware work on my wired or wireless lan. but when i get to it ill let ya know

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## Xor

My dad owns a WPC11 which I installed on debian...  I assume it's the same for gentoo.

you have to modify your card database. 

I recovered that from the net:

card "Instant Wireless Network PC Card"

manfid 0x0274, 0x1612

bind "orinoco_cs"

now that card should be identifiable by pcmcia-tools (of course you have to conigured (kernel config + pcmcia config) right, which might be tricky....

hope that helps....

----------

## digitalnick

yeh thats what i added to my hermes .conf file .... but i dunno if it will work with kismet or not?

what does your wlan card come up on? eth or wlan and have you tried it with kismet?

----------

## Xor

I didn't used kismet.... so I don't know... the card appears as eth1 (there's an onboard eth0)

I didn't add it to hermes.conf.... some other more generic file... /etc/pcmcia/config I guess

----------

## digitalnick

do you use any wireless exploration apps? airsornt or the like?

----------

## Xor

nope.... no kismet, no airsnort, no wardriving....  I used it in conjunction with the LinkSys Printserver.... (WPS11 I guess)

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## dgrabow

I have a Linksys WPC_11 working with the orinoco_cs driver, but it won't work with kismet.  That driver won't report raw packets...

I think I saw a patch for the orinoco_cs driver to get kismet working somewhere, but I haven't gotten it to work.

I've read that the wlan-ng drivers are a big performance upgrade to the orinoco_cs driver, so I am anxious to get that working.

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## Xor

official support is through the prism drivers.... (wlan-ng)... and they might have kismet support....

----------

## jsubl2

i use the information found here -> http://linux.oldcrank.com/tips/wpc11/

to setup mine.  wpc11

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## 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.

-MarkLast edited by mbobak on Fri Mar 07, 2003 8:10 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## paranode

Be sure your USE flag in /etc/make.conf contain pcmcia and cardbus.  I couldn't get the prism2_cs driver to compile otherwise   :Confused: 

----------

## mbobak

Ah ha!  I knew there was a more Gentooified way to make that

work.  I did the "FEATURES=noclean" workaround, which allowed

the pcmcis-cs source tree to remain in /var/tmp/portage... but it

sort of left a bad taste in my muth....I sort of thought there ought to

be a better way of making it work.

Thanks paranode!

-Mark

----------

## paranode

We need to make a unified HOWTO on getting this card to work.  So popular and cheap, but man what a pain!   :Smile: 

What's more is there are two working ways to get it recognized, using completely different drivers and configuration files   :Rolling Eyes: 

Another thing I'd like to know is if anyone can get this thing into monitor mode.  When I try:

```
iwconfig wlan0 mode monitor
```

I get:

```
Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :

   SET failed on device wlan0 ; Function not implemented.
```

 :Sad: 

But at the same time I know it works in managed mode and

```
iwconfig wlan0 mode managed
```

gives the same error so maybe there's hope somehow.

----------

## mbobak

Paranode,

Don't use iwconfig, it's not part of linux-wlan-ng.  It's part of

pcmcia-cs, and works great if you're NOT running linux-wlan-ng

drivers and your wireless interface comes up as 'ethx', rather

than 'wlanx'.  If it comes up as 'wlanx', then you're using the

linux-wlan-ng drivers, and you should use wlanctl-ng to configure

the card.

Hope that helps,

-Mark

----------

## paranode

Ah, thanks for the tip.

Have you gotten it to work with kismet or airsnort or anything like that?

----------

## mbobak

No, not yet.  I just got the card working at all last night, and 

I emerged kismet, and tried running, but it spewed a bunch of

errors and it was clear I had to setup some config files and stuff,

and it was getting late, so I blew it off and crashed for the night.

So, that's probably a project for tonight or the weekend.  I'll

update here if/when I get it working or run into trouble.

(Heading home soon, actually.)

-Mark

----------

## mbobak

This was pretty easy:

emerge kismet

edit kismet.conf and kismet_ui.conf, in /etc/kismet

Discover that kismet can use festival and talk to you as it finds networks.

emerge festival

Discover that I clobbered my alsa driver last night when I rebuilt kernel

modules

re-emerge alsa-driver

Run kismet_monitor as root

run kismet as non-root user

Voila!  wireless network detected

run kismet_unmonitor as root 

Discover card is still not working.

pop out and pop in card, and it starts working again.

-MarkLast edited by mbobak on Sat Mar 08, 2003 7:48 am; edited 1 time in total

----------

## paranode

w00t

Yeah I got it working as well just before I came back to check this post.  I also got airsnort up and running but it only seems to work when I log into KDE as root.  I'll have to investigate that one.

It's good to know this card is now fully functional in Linux!

----------

## mbobak

Is Airsnort any better than Kismet?

I just got Kismet working.  Any reason to bother w/ Airsnort?

-Mark

----------

## paranode

Nah you only want to run Airsnort to crack WEP keys I think.  Kismet seems to do the job well for wireless discovery.

And you need to add localhost or 127.0.0.1 to your xhosts to get it working logged in as another user in KDE.  I have this problem with emacs and some other stuff.

----------

## paranode

I seem to have gotten better consistency when I was using the hermes.conf hack.  Do you notice any trouble bringing the network up and down after you're already in X or whatever?  Seems like I have to fidget with restarting pcmcia, wlan, and net.wlan0 to get it to work.  I'm on a 128-bit WEP AP, perhaps that's got something to do with it.

*Edit - putting prism2_cs in /etc/modules.autoload fixed this problem.  Now I just have to run "/etc/init.d/pcmcia start" to get it up.  I didn't want to add it to the default runlevel because I move around a lot with my laptop.

----------

## D33T

OK, I read around on here and managed to get my wireless card (WPC11 ver.3 on my e500 laptop) working WITHOUT linux-wlan, which is key if you want the card to be eth* (some apps like this better, like my traffic montor dockapp). Anyway, I configured the kernel as such...

General setup->support for hot-puggable devices -on-

Network devices->network device support -on-

Network devices->wireless lan (non-hamradio)->wireless (non-hamradio) -on-

Network devices->wireless lan (non-hamradio)->hermes chipset 802.11b support -on-

Network devices->wireless lan (non-hamradio)->hermes pcmcia card support -on-

Network devices->pcmcia netowrk device support->pcmcia network device support -on-

Network devices->pcmcia netowrk device support->ne2000 compatable pcmcia support -on-

I'm pretty sure that's all I turned on to get it working, and you might not need the ne2000 or hot-pluggable device stuff.

I also emerged pcmcia-cs for the cardctl and cardmgr stuff, and pcmcia-cs-drivers cause I didn't know if I needed them or not. I don't remember if I edited any other files either. runniing cat /var/run/stab gives me this:

Socket 0: empty

Socket 1: Linksys WPC11 11Mbps 802.11b WLAN Card

1       network orinoco_cs      0       eth1

Then, i edited my /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts to remove the lines i didn't need (most of them). Basically, this is all I have left....

case "$ADDRESS" in

*,*,*,*)

  INFO="My settings"

  ESSID="kj"         #this is my networks essid

  MODE="Ad-Hoc"  #the server is in ad-hoc mode, not infrastructure

  CHANNEL="6"      #may or may not need this line, but it's right

  ;;

esac

Then, copy the /etc/init.d/net.eth0 to /etc/init.d/net.eth1, making sure the "use pcmcia" part at the top is not commented out, and added the following to my /etc/conf.d/net:

iface_eth1="dhcp"

This is all well and good, but I can't get onto my network. The card DOES work though, because I keep getting on my neighbor's linksys router (which is not even ad-hoc...). Any ideas on what I am missing?! I wouldn't mind so much, but his network is WAY slow ('cause the signal is weak). I NEED to get unhooked soon, I am sick of being roped to my desk! :)

Thanks in advance for any help!

----------

## mbobak

Yeah, that's a perfectly fine way to use the hardware.

You're just using the kernel drivers rather than the

linux-wlan-ng drivers.

One point, if you want to use kismet or airsnort to do

wireless sniffing, you'll need use linux-wlan-ng drivers,

as the orinoco_cs driver does not provide support for

promiscuous mode.

----------

## mbobak

Oh, I forgot to mention, did you check what SSID you

have set?  That may explain why you connect to the

neighbor's network but not your own.

-Mark

----------

## D33T

Yeah, the ssid is for mine. I have no idea what my neighbor's ssid is since i don't really know my neighbor. I *do* know that his is not ad-hoc..... i have used kismet before  :)

Perhaps I'll ditch all this and use the wlan drivers, since I like to play with kismet, and I also like being able to connect to my own network.

I am mainly looking for a reason it seems to be ignoring my settings and defaulting to any access point.

----------

## christsong84

 :Sad:  :Sad:  :Sad:   If I have a card in the socket or put one in at any time (including before it boots) my computer freezes...it's an Inspiron 8100 and I had it working a while back...I've gone and removed all the drivers and such, rebuilt the kernel and followed all the instructions here and at the noclean post...what's wrong?  Inspiron 8100 with WPC11

----------

## christsong84

Am I really the only one who's had this problem? (I've gone through the two sets of instructions I've found...the one in this post and the one with the noclean option about four times now)

Edit: never mind...found the problem was with pcmcia...got it working by removing a range in the port section (searched for pcmcia)

----------

## ephesus

Does anybody know what causes the mac address to show up as all zeros? I'm using a proxim rangelan/ds (got it for $10 on ebay) and it used to work, and works fine *now* under windows 98se, but when I load the prism2_cs module, wlan0 shows up from ifconfig -a, but has no mac.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:00:00:00:00:00  
> 
>           BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
> ...

 

then when i use wlanctl-ng it says wlan0 does not exist! I have no idea what causes this. Any ideas?

----------

## thepeel

It doesn't appear that your card is all the way set up yet since an IP has not yet been assigned. Maybe the following will help you:

```

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

```

This is a repeat from a previous post in this thead, I would just like to point out the differences I did to get my card to work. I really don't know what my wireless card is, it is integrated into the sides of the lcd. Doing a lspci shows, Harris Semiconductor Prism 2.5 wavelan chipset (rev 01). I have a IBM thinkpad r31.

Changes:

did not modify any of the USE flags

in /etc/modules.autoload, added only p80211 and prism2_pci

in /etc/conf.d/net, added dhcpcd_eth0="-t 2 -R" (decreases timeout value); you could add the same for dhcpcd_wlan0...

did not copy net.eth0 to net.wlan0, instead copied /etc/rc.d/init.d/wlan to /etc/init.d/wlan, then ran rc-update add wlan default

everything else was the same

Now my question is how do I change the order that scripts are run in the /etc/init.d folder? Samba and sshd are failing to start because the wireless connection is started afterwards. I guess this isn't a big problem since I won't be really serving stuff wirelessly, but I would still like to know!  :Smile: 

----------

## MyZelF

 *w00kie wrote:*   

> dmesg spits this at me every time I boot
> 
> ```
> init_module: prism2_cs.o: 0.1.9 Loaded
> 
> ...

 

I had same problem with a no-name prism2 card:

```
# cardctl info

PRODID_1="11Mbps"

PRODID_2="Wireless LAN PC Card"

PRODID_3="Version 01.02"

PRODID_4=""

MANFID=0156,0002

FUNCID=6

```

I solved it rebuilding my kernel with

```
[*] ISA bus support

```

Hope this helps.

----------

## skir84

Just a quick note that may help someone out:

After upgrading to the 2.6.11 kernel, my wireless stopped working. I tried emerging linux-wlan-ng and pcmcia-cs again; however I found that linux-wlan-ng and pcmcia-cs emerged together was causing me problems. It appears that the wlan-ng driver wasn't loading properly. So I unemerged linux-wlan-ng, and edited the following file:

```

# vim /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.conf

```

Then I commented out the following lines

```

card "Linksys WPC11 11 Mbps 802.11b WLAN Card"

     version "Instant Wireless ", " Network PC CARD", "Version 01.02"

     bind prism2_cs

```

I suppose if linux-wlan-ng isn't emerged anymore, this file could probably be deleted... but I haven't quite tested that yet...

Rebooted, and the card works fine as eth1 now...

----------

