[Linux-wlan-ng-devel] Bug#454684: Bug#454684: device not starts

[Enrico Tassi]

On Sat, Dec 22, 2007 at 05:28:44AM +0100, Marek Straka wrote:
> Package: linux-wlan-ng
> Version: 0.2.8+svn1839+dfsg-2
> 
> this PC. But anyway it was neceassary to plug-in/plug-out the device
> many times. Maybe 10 times 

sadly, this is a known ``bug'' I've never been able to fix (nor the
upstream). In my experience, 3 plugs in/out were always enough... 

> until there were in syslog additional rows indicating that firmware
> was loaded. Than it has worked without WEP encryption quite good.
> Unfortunately now I tried it many, many times without success.
> 
> Would be usefull to try something with command "prism2dl" for
> downloading/uploading firmwares?

Assuming you have proper firmware files (you can build a deb containing
them with the script contained in the package linux-wlan-ng-firmware)
what follows is the description of the firmware loading process.

As I wrote above, I tried many times to workaround the mentioned
problem, but I've always failed. Hope that with this description you
will be motivated to try to find a workaround debuggin the firmware
loading procedure.

The firware files are loaded by the prism2_fwload function defined in
/etc/wlan/shared.prism2. This function is called by wlan_enable defined
in /etc/wlan/shared (${nsdname}_fwload). wlan_enable is called by 
/etc/wlan/wlan-udev.sh that is called by udev thanks to the rules in
file /etc/udev/rules.d/84-linux-wlan-ng.rules when the usb stick is
plugged in.

You can try to load the firmware by hand with prism2dl (look in shared.prism2
to know how it is called) but remember to do that before putting the
device in active mode (IIRC, fw loading can not be done if the iface is
up).
  
Good luck
-- 
Enrico Tassi