[nzlug] WiFi USB Adaptor that works under Ubuntu & Red Hat

[Peter Butler]

> I used the drivers at http://zd1211.ath.cx/download/ and definitely
> had success with r80 and some earlier ones too.
I used r83 and it's tantalizingly close to working.  I have WPA turned 
off for the moment while I try to get this going, so I'm just trying to 
connect to an open network.
> What went wrong? Eg, could you bring up wlan0? Did iwconfig show the
> access point? Did wpa_supplicant complain in dmesg or syslog?
When I plug it in the driver seems to load OK, dmesg ends with the 
following:

zd1205: (exit) zd1205_config, /home/peter/zd1211-driver-r83/src/zd1205.c 
line 2601
zd1205: (exit) zd1205_init, /home/peter/zd1211-driver-r83/src/zd1205.c 
line 8570
usbcore: registered new driver zd1211b
zd1205: (enter) zd1205_open, /home/peter/zd1211-driver-r83/src/zd1205.c 
line 4353
zd1205: (exit) zd1205_open, /home/peter/zd1211-driver-r83/src/zd1205.c 
line 4436

Not sure what the zd1205 stuff is doing there, it seems to be debug 
info.  I have put the stock Ubuntu driver (zd1211) into 
/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist to ensure it doesn't load instead of the 
newly-built one.

"lsmod | grep zd" shows:
zd1211b               269036  0
usbcore               130820  3 zd1211b,uhci_hcd

"iwlist wlan0 scan" shows this:
wlan0     Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:11:95:05:81:2B
                    ESSID:"default"
                    Mode:Master
                    Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
                    Extra:SignalStrength=52%,LinkQuality:84%
                    Encryption key:off
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 22 Mb/s
                              6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s
                              36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Extra:bcn_int=100

/etc/network/interfaces contains this:
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid default

When I try ifconfig wlan0 up, I get the following in dmesg:

ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

I also get lots of messages like this in dmesg:
zd1211:Pure B-Mode

I've also tried using a static IP address but this doesn't work either.  
I've googled around for this error but no luck so far.
> Did you build for zd1211b (you have to edit the makefile otherwise it
> builds for the other chipset)?
Yes, built for the "b" version.
> I've since upgraded my boxes to Edgy and moved back to wired, but I'll
> poke around this evening to see if I can retrace my steps.
Thanks for that, much appreciated.

Cheers

Peter