D-Link (pcmcia) DWL-650, debian 3.0r2 and Intel ISA to pcmcia card
Hi,
After having read quite a bit about what is supported, I went out and got
the D-Link DWL-650. This wireless card is listed as working and tested
at www.linux-wlan.org, the revision is P1 which according to D-Link is
a Prism chipset. According to what I've read, the orinoco_cs driver should
support this card.
I have compiled the latest pcmcia sources with cardbus support. The drivers
load (orinoco_cs, hermes, etc...) but I only get a low tone upon insertion
of the card.
The hardware is an Intel ISA card with two pcmcia slots (*). Two other cards
have been tested and work fine: a modem (serial_cs) and a 3c-589 ethernet
card (3c589_cs).
The one thing that could be the problem is the ISA card (I think). In
different places I have read that the DWL-650 works in 16 bit and 32 bit
slots, but also that it requires cardbus. Is it necessary that the hardware
explicitely support cardbus? This is an old board so it likely does not.
Could this be the reason why this card is not working? Of course, software-
wise, the pcmcia package is compiled with cardbus support.
One other long-shot possibility: could it be that kernel 2.2.20 is too old?
I've tried 2.4.22 but have encountered disk controller hangs due to buggy
HW in this old pentium-1 box. 2.2.20 works great. Because this is such an
old box, I'd rather not spend too much money on it, but I could return the
pcmcia card and get a PCI one.
If there is no way this wireless card will work in this ISA card, what PCI
wireless card would work with debian with minimum hassle? Do pci wireless
cards use the same drivers (minus the _cs)?
I welcome any info/opinions.
Thanks.
A.
* Yeah, I know. Not strictly a laptop, but where else would it be more
appropriate to discuss laptop cards?
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