Re: Need help with driver installation please!

From: Christoph (spuhler1122_at_yahoo.co.in)
Date: 07/14/03 

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 10:42:08 +0200

Hi, I think by installation directory it just means the directory where you
unpacked the files, i.e. the directory where the instruction file is
probably located.

On Sun, 13 Jul 2003 20:41:52 -0400, Not me <themanjerca@yahoo.ca> wrote:

> Hi can I please get some assistance with installing an acx100 driver to
> enable my dwl-650+ pc card to work with Mandrake 9.1
>
> I am having serious problems with one particular spot regarding creating
> a
> subdirectory in the installation directory (I am new to linux and NOT
> sure
> what it means by installation directory). Having problems with the
> paragraph with the "**********" around it.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Has anybody done this before?
>
>
>
> The instructions are as follows:
>
> Background:
> -----------
>
> There are currently various 802.11b+ cards on the market which provide
> enhanced
> 802.11b performance of 22Mbs. All of the well known cards are based on
> the
> Texas
> Instruments acx100 chipset, (e.g. D-Link DWL-650+, USR, Pheenet),
> unfortunately
> thus far the manufactures of these cards have not released public Linux
> drivers
> and TI has not released technical specs to enable the development of open
> source
> drivers. However, a set of binary drivers compiled against a small
> selection
> of
> Linux kernels is currently available (see the Links section), the
> intention
> of
> this document is to explain briefly how to get them installed on
> different
> Linux
> distributions and what tweaks are needed to get them running.
>
> This is by no means a replacement for the development of open source
> drivers
> which are well under way (see http://acx100.sourceforge.net) but
> hopefully
> will
> provide a temporary solution to those people who want to try to get these
> cards
> working.
>
> Also, I hope that with more people using these drivers at an early stage,
> there
> will be feedback generated of potential problems, pitfalls and
> workarounds
> which
> may well be beneficial to the open source driver development.
>
>
> Introduction:
> -------------
>
> This document is intended to explain the steps necessary to get the
> binary
> releases of the acx100 drivers up and running on distributions other than
> those
> directly listed in the binary driver package.
>
> The following table shows the available binary modules in the current
> binary
> driver package (acx100_bin_20030503.tgz), the linux distribution they
> were
> built
> with and the version of GCC that was used to compile them.
>
> Module Distro GCC
> ------------------------------------------
> 2.4.18-14 RedHat 8.0 3.2
> 2.4.18-6mdk Mandrake 8.2 2.96
> 2.4.18-6mdk3 Mandrake 8.2 3.0.4
> 2.4.18-686 Debian 2.95.4
> 2.4.19-16mdk Mandrake 9.0 3.0.4
> 2.4.20-8 RedHat 9.0 3.2.2
> 2.4.21-0.13mdk Mandrake 9.1 3.2.2
>
>
> Installation
> ------------
>
> Make sure you have a recent enough version of wireless tools installed,
> the
> binary drivers are built with wireless tools version 15.
>
> Obtain and extract the binary driver package:
> "tar -xvzf acx100_bin_20030503.tgz"
>
> If you happen to be running a stock distribution that matches one of the
> supplied binaries, then you should be able to simply run the installation
> script
> "InstallAcx100" and skip straight to the Configuration section, lucky
> you.
>
> Relabelling the module
> ----------------------
>
> If your distribution doesn't match, or you are using a custom Linux
> system
> then
> all is not lost, as long as your kernel is compatible with one of the
> binaries
> you should be o.k.
>
> The first step is to determine what you are running if you don't already
> know.
> The kernel version can be obtained using "uname -r", you should also know
> what
> version of gcc your kernel was compiled with. If you are using a
> distribution
> and didn't compile it yourself then "gcc -v" will display the version of
> the
> gcc
> compiler you have installed, which should match the compiler used to
> build
> the
> kernel.
>
> # TODO Perhaps add a list of popular distributions and their GCC
> versions?
>
> The table above shows the names of the modules which match the kernel
> versions,
> and the version of gcc that they are built with. You need to choose a
> module
> that matches your kernel version and gcc version. Tip: If you are using a
> 'stock' 2.4.21 or 2.4.19 kernel, then you will probably find that the
> 2.4.20
> and
> 2.4.18 kernels respectively are a closer match than the Mandrake kernels
> of
> the
> same version number.
>
>
> **************I REALLY HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THIS PARAGRAPH (I dont know
> what it means by the installation directory... :
>
> Next create a subdirectory in the installation directory that matches
> your
> "uname -r" value and make a copy of the driver for your chosen kernel.
> The
> kernel file should be renamed "acx100sta-"uname -r".o. (Clearly you don't
> 'need' to make a copy of the file in a subdirectory named as such if you
> install the module by hand, but it might be handy to keep the
> installation
> all
> together)
>
> Then enter the new directory and relabel the kernel info on this file
> with
> the
> following commands: echo -ne "kernel_version="`uname -r`"\0" > version
> objcopy --remove-section=.modinfo --add-section=.modinfo=version
> acx100sta-*.o
>
> Try to install using the install script to see if this works for you. If
> so,
> just skip to the configuration section.************************
>
> If the module fails to initialise then you'll most likely have unresolved
> symbols problems. To see a list of the failed symbols, type: depmod -ae
> If the dependency problem is with version information on symbol names you
> will
> see a series of unresolved symbols ending in "_R" followed by a hex
> number
> e.g. "__ioremap_R9eac042a".
>
> If the missing symbols are due to mismatches between symbol name
> suffixes,
> then
> running the "fixscript" script on the module may solve the problem. Then
> try
> installing again.
>
> If there are still missing symbols but they appear to be just for
> debugging
> /
> logging, you may be able to get away with writing a small C app that
> creates
> a
> small stub function and then using "ld -r" to link the object file into
> the
> module.
>
>
> Configuration
> -------------
>
> If the module loads without problems, (you will get a warning that
> loading
> the
> module taints your kernel, its safe to ignore this warning) and the card
> springs
> into life then you're ready for the next step....
>
> Firstly add to /etc/modules.conf
> alias eth1 acx100sta
>
> Either write a start script to initialise your card, or modify your
> distributions scripts to work around some of the problems with the binary
> driver. It appears that it is necessary to repeat the iwconfig commands
> for
> the
> card to associate correctly with an AP with a short delay in between.
>
>
>

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