[Prism54-users] NOT READY-issue

[Bob Beers]

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 14:26:03 +0100, Mike Gabriel
<mgabriel at ecology.uni-kiel.de> wrote:
> hi sudha,
> 
> i am not so deeply into kernel and hotplug, but to my knowledge, plugging in
> the prism54 card (a presume you have a cardbus-WLANNIC) calls /sbin/hotplug
> and hotplug will load the prism54 driver and consequently manages the
> firmware upload to the card (this might also be the other way round)... but i
> think the developers on this list can provide you deeper information...

Hi Mike, Sudha,

I am not a "developer on this list", but I have been trying out cards
and driver lately.
As I understand it, the firmware is not actually loaded into the card
until one brings
 the interface "up", as with the command:  "ifconfig eth0 up".  After that, the 
 "iwconfig eth0" output should look more like you would expect. 
Here's what I think
 are the critical parts (I've been using a 2.6.10 kernel):

1 - prism54 kernel module ( or built into kernel )
2 - firmware_class kernel module ( or built into kernel )

### you can check for these components in your current kernel by 
      "cat /proc/kallsyms | grep prism54"
      "cat /proc/kallsyms | grep firmware_class"

3 - sysfs support

### you can check for this in the output of "/sbin/mount"
      you should see a line like "sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)"
      If it is not there make sure you have a /sys directory and
       try "/sbin/mount -v sysfs /sys -n -t sysfs"

4 - /sbin/hotplug
5 - /etc/hotplug/firmware.agent
6 - /etc/hotplug.d/default/default.hotplug
7 - firmware file ( renamed from e.g., 1.0.4.3.arm ) in specified
location either:
    /lib/firmware/isl3890
  or
    /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/isl3890
  depending on what is declared in your firmware.agent for value of
FIRMWARE_DIR.


Also, for trouble shooting, check the syslog ( "tail /var/log/syslog") for
 messages about what happened wrt firmware loading when you tried
 to "up" the card

<snip> 

HTH,

-Bob