[CentOS] Dell Wireless WLAN Card Utility - mini-pci wireless card 1390

Fri Nov 30 21:13:34 UTC 2007
Barry Brimer <lists at brimer.org>

Quoting Andrew Allen <andy.allen at virgin.net>:

> On Mon, 2007-11-19 at 15:52 -0600, Barry Brimer wrote:
> > Quoting Andrew Allen <andy.allen at virgin.net>:
> >
> > > On Sun, 2007-11-18 at 19:41 -0600, Barry Brimer wrote:
> > >
> > > > I have a Dell laptop that I believe has the same card.  The CentOS 5
> > > > kernel did not appear to support it, but the RHEL 5.1 (and subsequently
> > > > upon its release) the CentOS 5.1 kernel does support it.  You will need
> to
> > > > drop the firmware into /lib/firmware .. I believe this is a bcm43xx
> card.
> > > >
> > > > Barry
> > >
> > > Thanks Barry,
> > > In view of what you say about CentOS 5.1 supporting this card, I think
> > > I'm going to wait until it's released - hope that won't be too long. Any
> > > other possible solutions (eg like using ndiswrapper) look far too
> > > complicated for a linux newbie like me!  I hope that I'll be able to
> > > update the kernel without having to do a complete re-install. In the
> > > meantime I'm just going to have to use MS Windows XP (I have dual-boot
> > > on this laptop) for any wireless networking.
> >
> > I was using ndiswrapper for this card until RHEL 5.1's kernel picked it up.
>  I
> > noticed that it now found an 'eth1' interface that didn't exist before.
> > ndiswrapper does work, but has somewhat occasional crashes most likely due
> to
> > RHEL's 4k stack size that is not really compatible with ndiswrapper.  I
> agree,
> > you should wait until the CentOS 5.1 kernel comes out because assuming you
> and
> > I have the same card, all you need is the firmware .. and it will work
> without
> > further issue.
> >
> > Barry
> >
> >
> I've now upgraded the kernel to CentOS 2.6.18-8.1.15.e15, so assume my
> OS is now effectively CentOS 5.1. However, I'm afraid I'm still at a bit
> of a loss as to how it supports my Dell laptop wireless card (bcm43xx
> card?), as it's still not listed in the list of supported adapters in
> Network Config. Can anybody please suggest where I go from here?
>
> Thanks,
> Andy

You are still on the CentOS 5 kernel, not the CentOS 5.1 kernel.  The base RHEL
5 kernel is kernel-2.6.18-53.el5 and the most recent is
kernel-2.6.18-53.1.4.el5.  I don't believe CentOS 5.1 is out yet, but I've not
checked today.

Barry