[Nottingham] WLAN Problems

[Rob Andrews]

[27-May-2005 14:33.54 (BST) / Joshua Lock]
 > I read about dmesg on the net and I have some output, seems that my 
 > kernel is trying to load firmware via prism54. Output of dmesg follows:
 > 
 > ndiswrapper: driver prisma00 (Conexant,07/20/2004, 2.1.25.0) added
 > eth1: resetting device...
 > eth1: uploading firmware...
 > prism54: request_firmware() failed for 'isl3886'
 > eth1: could not upload firmware ('isl3886')
 > 
 > Can anyone help??? Please!
 > 
 > Running Ubuntu Hoary 5.0.4, ndiswrapper 1.1

It would seem to indicate that prism54 supports the card to some extent.
Before you go using the evil that is ndiswrapper, pop on down to
http://prism54.org/ and fetch the latest firmware and see if that works
(put it into /lib/hotplug/firmware/ and rename it isl3886).

If that doesn't work out for you, you can always:

echo "alias prism54 off" >> /etc/modprobe.d/prism54-disable
rmmod prism54

As root and that will make the driver permanently stop loading. You'll
be free to use whatever driver you want then.

Just a hint though - the isl3890 chipset is supported by the prism54
chipset and a firmware is bundled with the Ubuntu hoary kernel for this
reason. You might want to try symlinking the firmware to isl3886 and
seeing if it works with your card - if it supports a newer chipset than
the 3886, the chances are you could use the opensource driver.

n.