Re: Thinkpad T20 wireless troubles - revisited

[Sjoerd Hiemstra <shiems146@kpnplanet.nl>]

In an effort to get wireless on my IBM Thinkpad T30 laptop working,
Wayne Topa wrote:
> Sjoerd Hiemstra wrote:
> > The installer saw three connection systems in the laptop:
> >   - wireless connection with interface wifi0
> >   - wireless connection with interface eth0
> >   - ethernet connection with interface eth1.
> > Odd enough, only eth0 worked, not wifi0 as one would expect.
>
> Now we need even more info.  Did you use the orinoco card to do the
> install or was it eth1?  I suspect eth1 might be an IBM internal
> Wireless interface.

The installer used eth0, as far as I recall.

> At a console prompt do
> 
> lspci -v 
> 
> Be sure the orinoco in plugged in when you run that.
> That will tell us what the Network interfaces are.  They work in
> windows so we have to find out what they are.  We need the lines like
> these from my T40.  
> 
> 0000:02:02.0 Network controller: Intel Corp. PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B
> Mini PCI Adapter (rev 04)
> 
> 0000:02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82801BD PRO/100 VE (MOB)
> Ethernet Controller (rev 81)

Relevant output of 'lspci -v':

    02:02.0 Network controller: AIRONET Wireless Communications Cisco
    Aironet Wireless 802.11b

    02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801CAM (ICH3)
    PRO/100 VE (LOM) Ethernet controller (rev 42)

(As a sidenote, there's no orinoco card; the OP had one.)

> Most (all) IBM interfaces will work in Linux so you need to know what
> modules have to be loaded before bringing the interfaces up.

>From [1] I found that I probably need to do a 'modprobe airo_cs'.

Following the directions at [2], the entry for wifi0
in /etc/network/interfaces now looks like this:

    iface wifi0 inet dhcp
    wireless-essid <....>
    wireless-key <....>
    auto wifi0
    allow-hotplug wifi0

If I do an 'iwlist wifi0 scan' then my AP is detected correctly (as
well as two neighbouring APs - interesting).

There is only one remaining obstacle.
The following messages appear if I do an 'ifup wifi0'.
They also appear after '/etc/init.d/networking stop' and then
'/etc/init.d/networking start'.
And they also appear if I do a 'dhclient wifi0'.

    wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
    wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
    Listening on LPF/wifi0/
    Sending on LPF/wifi0/
    Sending on Socket/fallback
    DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
    DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
    DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
    DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
    DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
    DHCPDISCOVER on wifi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
    No DHCPOFFERS received.
    No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.

Something wrong with DHCP on the AP?  My main computer works well with
it, through a wired ethernet connection.

[1]
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Linux.Wireless.drivers.802.11b.html

[2]
http://newbiedoc.berlios.de/wiki/How_to_set_up_a_wireless_network_card_using_drivers_from_Debian_packages#Short_version_if_you_are_impatient