Linksys WPC11 & prism2

[mindprober]

I picked up a cheap Linksys WPC11 card (looks to be the first rev).

I know I can update the firmware to support WPA2 encryption but I just  want to use it as it came for now on an unsecured wireless network. I  have the prism2v2 drivers installed.

From the prism2 manual, my wireless.prefs should look like this:

network={
    key_mgmt=NONE
}

to use the first available unsecure network. When I execute the  wirelessmanager command, I see a change in the LED activity on the card  but it does not seem to be making a connection. I checked my router and I  do not see a new device attached. I have no security to prohibit new  MAC addresses.

I also tried specifying my SSID and the key=none but it did the same.

This particular Linksys WPC11 does not match any other images I have  found (see attached). Most have two LEDs that say POWER and Tx/Rx. The  one I have says LINK and Tx/Rx. The rev 1 manual I found on the Linksys  website does not mention different colors for the LEDs either. The LINK  LED on my card flashes RED. The Tx/Rx LED is also flashing which does  not make sense since it should not be transferring or receiving any data  yet. From what I gather, I should have a solid green LINK LED to indicate  a successful connection.

I wonder if the card is bad. I see a rev 3 available. I know I should not go higher than that to maintain compatibility.

I went ahead and tried launching Roadshow after running wirelessmanager  (even though it did not seem to work) but I still could not go anywhere.  I am using a simple ftp program to test.

Any ideas?

[mindprober]

Thanks all for your help.

@Sir_Lucas

I decided to start with prism2v2 because it still mentions WEP support. Better still, it supports no encryption at all. There does not appear to be a need for the adapter to be WPA capable in firmware. I can try downgrading to the older prism2, although that could get messy.

I did already try modifying my wireless.prefs file just as you have suggested. I did it with and without the SSID. I do not have anything automatically starting up. I made certain to comment everything out after the installs were complete. I am doing it all manually for now.

Oh, might be a good time to mention that my router is a Linksys WRT 1200AC. It should be able to support an old wireless B card like this at the most basic level.

[mindprober]

Here is the output with VERBOSE enabled:

Initializing interface 'prism2.device:0' conf 'ENV:Sys/Wireless.prefs' driver 'default' ctrl_interface 'N/A' bridge 'N/A'
Configuration file 'ENV:Sys/Wireless.prefs' -> 'ENV:Sys/Wireless.prefs'
Reading configuration file 'ENV:Sys/Wireless.prefs'
Line: 1 - start of a new network block
key_mgmt: 0x4
Priority group 0
   id=0 ssid=''
*** [wpa_sm_init] sm->pmksa=0x82751e4 ***
Own MAC address: 00:04:5a:0d:9f:40
RSN: flushing PMKID list in the driver
Setting scan request: 0 sec 100000 usec
EAPOL: SUPP_PAE entering state DISCONNECTED
EAPOL: Supplicant port status: Unauthorized
EAPOL: KEY_RX entering state NO_KEY_RECEIVE
EAPOL: SUPP_BE entering state INITIALIZE
EAP: EAP entering state DISABLED
EAPOL: Supplicant port status: Unauthorized
EAPOL: Supplicant port status: Unauthorized
Added interface prism2.device:0
State: DISCONNECTED -> SCANNING
Starting AP scan for wildcard SSID
EAPOL: disable timer tick
EAPOL: Supplicant port status: Unauthorize


My interpretation of this is that my router may not be allowing the connection and/or the "AP wildcard SSID scan" is failing. Keep in mind, I hardcoded the SSID and it still failed.

[mindprober]

Yes. I duplicated what I did on another system with a wired Ethernet adapter. I have CardReset only. I later learned about CardPatch but never saw a need for it as CardReset did the job of waking up the card. I see CardPatch takes care of another bug involving a system slow down. I will have to look into it more.

Missing CardPatch should not affect what I am trying to do with this wireless card, right?

One more thing. Do you have CardReset and CardPatch installed?

[mindprober]

On a somewhat related note, I came across this PCI adapter. I am wondering if a firmware update is still possible if the wireless card is installed in one of these.

Cheaper and takes up less space than an old laptop.  

[mindprober]

Thanks! The Windows PC I plan to install it in is running Windows 7. I think I read that the firmware updaters work under Windows XP or Linux only. Maybe I can use a live boot of Ubuntu.
 

My experiences says if the computer recognizes the card in that adapter, then yes.  Those PCI-PCMCIA/CardBus adapters generally use the same or a compatible chip-set as found in laptops.

[mindprober]

Got my PCI adapter yesterday. Looks like Windows 7 is a no-go for driver support and I do not have a Windows XP machine.

Next option is an Ubuntu 16 install to an external hard drive. The system tells me there is a PCI wireless network bridge attached but does not tell me anything about the actual card. It is inserted all the way and I see the activity lights flashing.

I am trying to use these instructions below:

http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=36064&forum=27&1

but I receive the following error when executing the "hostap_diag wlan0" command:


ioctl[PRISM2_IOCTL_HOSTAPD]: No such device
 Could not communicate with the kernel driver.


Also, I do not actually see a device listing for the wireless card itself in the network properties, only my Ethernet.

Starting to look like a bad card??

[mindprober]

Just an update on this.

I was able to get the card to work. It needed the firmware update alright. The firmware it came with was not only old, it was very old.

Much thanks to the prism2 author for his assistance. The only OS available to me for the firmware update was Ubuntu and it took a lot to get it to work.

[mindprober]

:roflmao: