# HowTo - Orinoco Gold Classic with 2.6.2

## xcable

Orinoco Gold Classic with 2.6.2 How-to

Here is how to get your Orinoco Gold Classic working with a 2.6.2 kernel.  You can get this card from Buy.com http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10348445&sp=1&loc=101.  From what I have read this the best wifi card for Linux 2nd only to Cisco cards (which are expensive).

This card is either made by Orinoco Wireless Networks, Proxim, Lucent Technologies, or Agere Systems; looks like this company/group has been purchased many times by different companies.  The chipset is Intersil PRISM2.

The power LED on the card will NOT light up until the system gets an IP from this device (dhcpce eth1).

1) Compile kernel 2.6.x  (tested with 2.6.2-gentoo) with PCMCIA support, makeing yenta a module

```

<*> PCMCIA/CardBus support

<M>   CardBus yenta-compatible bridge support

   < >   i82092 compatible bridge support (NEW)

   < >   i82365 compatible bridge support (NEW)

   < >   Databook TCIC host bridge support (NEW)

```

2) Compile kernel 2.6.x (tested with 2.6.2-gentoo) with Hermes chip support

```

[*] Wireless LAN drivers (non-hamradio) & Wireless Extensions        

---   Obsolete Wireless cards support (pre-802.11)                   

< >   STRIP (Metricom starmode radio IP) (NEW)                       

< >   Aironet Arlan 655 & IC2200 DS support (NEW)                    

< >   AT&T/Lucent old WaveLAN & DEC RoamAbout DS ISA support (NEW)

< >   AT&T/Lucent old WaveLAN Pcmcia wireless support (NEW)

< >   Xircom Netwave AirSurfer Pcmcia wireless support (NEW)

---   Wireless 802.11 Frequency Hopping cards support

< >   Aviator/Raytheon 2.4MHz wireless support (NEW)

---   Wireless 802.11b ISA/PCI cards support

< >   Cisco/Aironet 34X/35X/4500/4800 ISA and PCI cards (NEW)

<M>   Hermes chipset 802.11b support (Orinoco/Prism2/Symbol)

< >     Hermes in PLX9052 based PCI adaptor support (Netgear MA301 etc.) (EXPERIMENTAL)

< >     Hermes in TMD7160 based PCI adaptor support (EXPERIMENTAL)

< >     Prism 2.5 PCI 802.11b adaptor support (EXPERIMENTAL) (NEW)

---   Wireless 802.11b Pcmcia/Cardbus cards support

<M>   Hermes PCMCIA card support

< >   Cisco/Aironet 34X/35X/4500/4800 PCMCIA cards (NEW)

< >   Intersil Prism GT/Duette/Indigo PCI/PCMCIA (NEW)

< >   Atmel at76c502/at76c504 PCMCIA cards (NEW)

< >   Planet WL3501 PCMCIA cards (NEW)

```

3) Configure PCMCIA network device support in the kernel 2.6.x (tested with 2.6.2-gentoo)

```

[*] PCMCIA network device support

< >   3Com 3c589 PCMCIA support (NEW)

< >   3Com 3c574 PCMCIA support (NEW)

< >   Fujitsu FMV-J18x PCMCIA support (NEW)

< >   NE2000 compatible PCMCIA support (NEW)

< >   New Media PCMCIA support (NEW)

< >   SMC 91Cxx PCMCIA support (NEW)

< >   Xircom 16-bit PCMCIA support (NEW)

< >   Asix AX88190 PCMCIA support (NEW)

```

4) Compile, install, and reboot with the new kernel

```

make clean && make && make modules modules_install

mount /boot

cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinux-2.6.2-gentoo

nano -w /boot/grub/grub.conf

reboot

```

5) Emerge the masked version of pcmcia-cs (tested with version 3.2.5-r1)

```

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge pcmcia-cs

```

6) Emerge version 3.0_pre5 of module-init-tools (3.0_pre6, 3.0_pre7, 3.0_pre8, are 3.0_pre9 are broken)

```

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge modules-init-tools-3.0_pre5.ebuild

```

7) Modify /etc/conf.d/pcmcia to make "PCIC=yenta_socket"

```

nano -w /etc/conf.d/pcmcia

```

 :Cool:  Modity config scripts (will fill in later when I figure out what to do here)

References and related posts:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=115862&highlight=module+prism2cs

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=128724&highlight=fatal+module+calculating+dependencies

http://members.iinet.net.au/~mtriggs/wireless.html

http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/SUPPORTED.CARDS

http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Wireless.html

Heath Holcomb

[ORIGINAL POST]

Anyone got a prism2 (Orinoco Classic Gold PC Card specificily) pcmcia 802.11b working with 2.6.x. 

I'm using 2.6.2-gentoo and it does not have the prism2 driver (only Hermes, Cisco/Aironet, Atmel, Planet, and Intersil Prism GT/Duette/Indigo). 

Linux-wlan-ng does offer this driver but I have never got it to compile the dirvers when using a 2.6 kernel (during compile it says that I have wireless drivers compiled in, although I don't, and it says it will only compile the utilities not the drivers).

[END ORIGINAL POST]

Heath HolcombLast edited by xcable on Tue Feb 10, 2004 2:37 pm; edited 3 times in total

----------

## gwlinden

I have a LinkSys WPC-11, which has a Prism2 as well.

When I moved to 2.6.x, I had to drop linux-wlan-ng, and use the kernel support for both PCMCIA, and the hermes wireless driver (as modules). Then I reinstalled pcmcia-cs, configured wireless, and that worked.

I have tried getting linux-wlan-ng to work, but failed also...

----------

## xcable

Did you only include the hermes driver as a module, nothing else (like orinoco_cs or orinoco)?  

Do you set up /etc/modules.autoload/kernel-2.6 to autoload the module?

I have a Orinoco Gold Classic PCMCIA card, and I can't get it to work with 2.6 (the power led on the card does not even move on).  I does work the 2.4 (tested with Knoppix).

When I compile (ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge pcmcia-cs) and install (rc-update add pcmcia boot) pcmcia-cs it complains that there is no "prism2_cs".

```

cardmgr[3019]: watching 1 socket

cardmgr[3019]: starting, version is 3.2.5

cardmgr[3019]: socket 0: Intersil PRISM2   Reference Design 11Mb/s WLAN Card

cardmgr[3019]: executing: 'modprobe prism2_cs'

cardmgr[3019]: + FATAL: Module prism2_cs not found.

cardmgr[3019]: modprobe exited with status 1

cardmgr[3019]: modules /lib/modules/2.6.2-gentoo/pcmcia/prism2_cs.o not avalable

cardmgr[3019]: bind 'prism2_cs' to socket 0 failed: Invalid argument

```

Is there anything that I missed?

Thanks a bunch for any help!!

heath holcomb

----------

## echo6

I have a Dell Truemobile,  orinoco based card,  and Sitecom cards,  based on Prism2/ZCOM working fine in 2.6.2.

I use the kernel drivers,   you still need David Hinds' pcmcia-cs for the cardctl and cardmgr utils.

I don't bother with modules.autoload,  I just modprobe yenta_socket then execute cardmgr which picks up the card and loads the correct modules,  i.e. orinoco_cs,  orinoco and hermes.

My kernel config is as follows;

```
Bus options (PCI, PCMCIA, EISA, MCA, ISA)  --->

   PCMCIA/CardBus support  --->

      <M> PCMCIA/CardBus support 

      <M>   CardBus yenta-compatible bridge support

Device Drivers  --->

   Networking support  --->

   Wireless LAN (non-hamradio)  --->

      <M>   Hermes chipset 802.11b support (Orinoco/Prism2/Symbol)

      <M>   Hermes PCMCIA card support
```

----------

## raylpc

I have a PLANEX prism2 card. I managed to get the latest linux-wlan-ng to work with 2.6 (with FEATURE=-sandbox),  but it's very unstable. It crashed my system completely after some use, and I had to do a hard shutdown. 

So now I will try to use orinoco. But I couldn't find its documentation. Can someone point me to its site or a guide? Thanks.

----------

