[NCLUG] Help with wireless USB

[Ben West]

are you suing ubuntu? sorry, btw, apparently I'm confuisng the item you
bought with another that is generally available;  if, as I assume, it's a
broadcom device, there should be a kernel driver (native, but you'll have to
figure out how to access the usb-mass-sotrage device to pull the firmware
off and use fwcutter to unpack it; after you insmod the driver, dmesg will
tell you where it expected to find the firmware it didn't find; put the
firmware there, and then rmmod the kernel driver and insmod it again;
insmodding is sometimes easier using modprobe; you'll need to add that
driver to modules.autoload in /etc, which might be in a subdirectory,
etc,etc.  YMMV ubuntu will probably be able to autoconfigure this if it's
supported; might be worth using a liveCD  for reference; you'll want a wired
ethernet connection to download updates, drivers, firmware for that, though.

Good Luck;

On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 11:18 AM, Bill Thorson <bill at tstorms.com> wrote:

> Ben,
>
> Thanks for the reply.  The web page at actiontec, which i read after
> buying, says this:
>
>    "the Adapter plugs into an external USB port on your desktop or
>     notebook (a PC running Windows XP or Vista). Since all of the
>     drivers sit directly on the adapter"
>
> Surely it is closed source, but, it is using a driver that is in modern
> Linux kernels and does recognize the vendor and product IDs.  My chances
> should be high.
>
> Bill
>
> Ben West wrote:
> > you bought a device designed to work with the actiontec dsl modem, which,
> > btw, is a linux-based device, but the driver is closed source, AFAIK.
>  I'm
> > not sure the device is configured to work the way you expect it to.
> >
> > On Sun, Apr 4, 2010 at 9:44 PM, Bill Thorson <bill at tstorms.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Folks,
> >>
> >> I am stumped and just want to see if someone local has the experience I
> >> do not.  I've scoured the net for ideas.
> >>
> >> I took a chance and just picked up a wireless-N USB device at Best Buy
> >> expecting that I could figure out how to make it work.  I have lived and
> >> worked in a strictly Linux ( Microsoft Free Zone(TM) ) since 1992.  In
> >> the old days I would have never spent money without knowing first.  I
> >> thought we were almost beyond those days.  I've built more drivers and
> >> kernels that any non-kernel developer should ever have to.  For the last
> >> few years I have carefully tried to avoid that.  That being said, here
> >> is the problem.
> >>
> >> I picked up an Actiontec Wireless N USB Adapter
> >> <http://www.actiontec.com/products/product.php?pid=196> at Best Buy a
> >> couple weeks ago.  Unknowingly, it is one of these cool new "driver
> >> less" devices.  In this case it means it shows up first as a USB disk
> >> with a windows driver and after windows installs the driver it becomes a
> >> net adapter and never shows up as a disk again.  That's cool, the
> >> fantastic Linux folks have already gotten beyond that weirdness.
> >>
> >> Anyway, as far as I can tell, the driver knows and supports my device,
> >> knows how to screw with the usb disk first stuff and should be able to
> >> work.  It just doesn't!  Any help appreciates and info below.
> >>
> >> Bill
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> OS: Ubuntu 910 (Karmic) with all updates
> >>
> >> root# cat /proc/version
> >> Linux version 2.6.31-20-generic (buildd at palmer) (gcc version 4.4.1
> >> (Ubuntu 4.4.1-4ubuntu8) ) #58-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 12 05:23:09 UTC 2010
> >>
> >> root# lsmod |grep zd
> >> zd1211rw               45472  0
> >> mac80211              181140  1 zd1211rw
> >> cfg80211               93052  2 zd1211rw,mac80211
> >>
> >> root# lsusb |grep Zy
> >> Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0ace:20ff ZyDAS
> >>
> >> root# modinfo zd1211rw
> >> filename:
> >>
> >>
> /lib/modules/2.6.31-20-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/zd1211rw/zd1211rw.ko
> >> version:        1.0
> >> author:         Daniel Drake
> >> author:         Ulrich Kunitz
> >> description:    USB driver for devices with the ZD1211 chip.
> >> license:        GPL
> >> srcversion:     891EB6D7C8EF72E1D24FD0E
> >> alias:          usb:v0ACEp20FFd*dc*dsc*dp*ic*isc*ip*
> >>  ...
> >> alias:          usb:v0ACEp1211d*dc*dsc*dp*ic*isc*ip*
> >> depends:        mac80211,cfg80211
> >> vermagic:       2.6.31-20-generic SMP mod_unload modversions 586
> >>
> >> root# dmesg (edited for pertinent info)
> >> [1352654.940082] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory
> domain
> >> [1352655.121201] usbcore: registered new interface driver zd1211rw
> >> [1352655.236169] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
> >> [1352655.236174]        (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth),
> >> (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
> >> [1352655.236178]        (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300
> >> mBi, 2000 mBm)
> >> [1352655.236181]        (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300
> >> mBi, 2000 mBm)
> >> [1352655.236184]        (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300
> >> mBi, 2000 mBm)
> >> [1352655.236187]        (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300
> >> mBi, 2000 mBm)
> >> [1352655.236191]        (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300
> >> mBi, 2000 mBm)
> >> [1352684.344019] usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and
> >> address 5
> >> [1352684.476987] usb 1-5: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
> >> [1352684.477708] usb-storage: device ignored
> >> [1352684.477747] usb 1-5: Ejecting virtual installer media...
> >> [1352684.477754] zd1211rw: probe of 1-5:1.0 failed with error -22
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >
> >
> >
>
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Benjamin West