# whats the deal with MiniPCI

## blamothe

ok, i have an orinco mini pci wireless card, and i have never been able to implement it under gentoo.  what i am not sure of is this:  are miniPCI cards just that, small versions of normal PCI cards, or are they just another form of PCMCIA cards.  i have heard conflicting reports from the forums and from other people as well, and i am not sure.  i tried both, but i still can't get my wireless working, so i guess i kinda want to know how to get wireless working as well as knowing if miniPCI is PCI or PCMCIA.  thanks

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## rojaro

well, cardbus pcmcia cards are infact PCI cards and use the very same interfaces. so those miniPCI cards are nothing else than pci cards based upon pcmcia hardware. but that does not mean they're compatible with the pcmcia cards and tools ...

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## rtwick

I also have a miniPCI wireless card (detects as prism2 card). I installed linux-wlan-ng and it works fine.

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## blamothe

so i take it that to get wireless working i need to take pcmcia support out of my kernel (i don't need it otherwise) and focus on getting it working as if it were a PCI card.  how would i go about doing that?  i have looked up all of the howto's, and they are all about setting up a wireless network, well i have the network, i just need to connect to it.  thanks.

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## MBCook

A mini PCI card is basically that, it's a form of PCMCIA for laptops. Mine has a combo ethernet and modem card. They really aren't that big, roughly the same size as a PCMCIA card only more square. They are one of the only standardized things in laptops. If you look at Tom's Hardware Guide, they had a story about them a while ago with pictures.

They are basically there to provide a standard way to upgrade laptops other than PC cards. Now if only they would make a combo ethernet/wi-fi card...

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## blamothe

 *Quote:*   

> A mini PCI card is basically that, it's a form of PCMCIA for laptops

 see, now you totally confused me.  is it a form of PCMCIA or a smaller version of a PCI interface.  from the name, it seems like it should be a smaller version of a PCI card, and many people say that this is true, but many people also say that it behaves just as a PCMCIA card, like you just did.  whats the deal?  and, anyway, i basically need to get wireless working, even if you tell me that it behaves like an MCA card, if that gets wireless to work, then i am ok with that.  thanks

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## xr31Daisy

 *MBCook wrote:*   

> A mini PCI card is basically that, it's a form of PCMCIA for laptops. ..

 

No, a mini-PCI is a smaller version of a PCI card. And it's got nothing to do with PCMCIA. That's the simple version.

Now, to confiuse people a little bit, some manufacturers have been having a very nice idea : put pcmcia hardware on mini-pci cards ! 

e.g Dell TrueMobile 1150 :

there's a pcmcia version ( just fine ).

And there's a mini-pci version, based on the pcmcia version, which acts like a minipci to pcmcia bridge.

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## rtwick

here's what I did to get my miniPCI wireless card working

I do have pcmcia support in kernel though not in use.

```
emerge linux-wlan-ng
```

in /etc/conf.d/wlan.conf I put the following

```
WLAN_DEVICES="wlan0"

SSID_wlan0="UTKALIKA"    

ENABLE_wlan0=y

cp /etc/conf.d/wlancfg-DEFAULT  to /etc/conf.d/wlancfg-UTKALIKA

cp /etc/conf.d/wlancfg-UTKALIKA to /etc/wlan/wlancfg-UTKALIKA

rc-update add wlan default

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

rc-update add net.wlan0 default

```

reboot and every thing was perfect.[/code]

UTKALIKA  is the SSID set in my wireless router.

Hope This Helps

R'twick

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## rtwick

Oh I forgot to add

in /etc/modules.autoload put

prism2_pci

[/code]

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## MBCook

This page is the one at Tom's Hardware I was talking about. It shows a picture of a MiniPCI card, a diagram of how it might be placed in a laptop, and a little information. This is from an article about laptop technology from 2001. Hope this clears up confusion.[/url]

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