getting wireless to work

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 10:11:01 -0800, Rick Stevens
<rstevens at vitalstream.com> wrote:
> Mark Knecht wrote:
> > On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 08:53:44 -0800 (GMT-08:00), William
> > <wsbcomm at earthlink.com> wrote:
> >
> >>what are a few "best" web sites to help fedora3 users get their wireless(prism) working?
> >
> >
> > I hope you get an answer. The machine I built yesterday is an FC2
> > machine but I'd rebuild it with FC3 if it meant I could get wireless
> > running.
> >
> > I'm about ready to rebuild the kernel with larger stack sizes and try
> > again with ndiswrapper. I'm getting desparate.
> >
> > I did find a lot of people having problems similar to my Prism
> > problems in the Fedora forums but almost no one had answers. Just a
> > lot of questions asked...
> 
> There's several issues with Prism and/or Intersil chipsets.  The problem
> Mark's running into is very common (I've run into it myself with an
> old D-Link DWL-120 USB->wireless card) and as far as I know, is only
> addressable with ndiswrapper and the Windows drivers on a 16K stack.
> 
> The problem has to do with loading new firmware into the radio of the
> card.  It's not reliable under the various 2.6 drivers and only
> marginally better under ndiswrapper.

Rick,
   Thanks for the response, bleak as it is. 

   So, am I hosed once again? I'd say that I'll go back to the store
and buy something else, but how can I have any confidence in what I
buy? There was no way to tell the difference between the two revisions
of this card while looking at the box. If I buy Netgear or any other
reasonably priced brand then I'm subjected to the same risks and more
wasted time.  I'm far less worried about the money than the time.

   Or are you saying that my chances of success are >80% if I build a
new kernel and set stack sizes to 16K? ndiswrapper would be acceptable
since I'm using that on my son's FC2 machine also.

   If I should build a new kernel then I'd like to start with one of
the config files in the configs directory. What would be the right way
to move one of those files to /usr/src/linux? (I.e. - what do I name
it when I move it and what commands do I have to run before starting
my own extra configuration step?)

Thanks much,
Mark