Proxim RangeLAN-DS is an 80211.b PCMCIA card, which on the reverse also calls itself "PC CARD 8430, FCC ID: M4Y-XI-300" and says "F/W Rev.: 0.7.6". There is a firmware upgrade available to 0.8.3 which I have applied, availeble at http://www.goonda.org/archive/wireless/prism2
Breakage
It doesn't work out of the box with Ubuntu 9.04. The graphical interface doesn't show it at all. It's based on the Prism 2.5 chipset and by default Ubuntu 9.04 loads kernel modules "hostap" and "hostap_cs", presents two wireless interfaces "wifi0" and "wlan0", associates these with the wrong ESSID (it should be "SKY93819" but "iwconfig" says it has associated both interfaces with "SKY93819c", and it fails to get an IP address.
lspci doesn't say anything about the card and shows no change when it is plugged in.
Fixes
To fix it, create /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-hostap.conf containing:
# Make Proxim RangeLAN-DS 8340 wireless card work by using orinoco_cs driver. # See also /etc/modules blacklist hostap_cs
then edit /etc/modules and append the line
orinoco_cs
Now reboot and it'll appear in the usual wireless configurator.
Detail
The "dmesg" output for the non-working default hostap_cs driver says:
[ 218.960052] pcmcia_socket pcmcia_socket0: pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 0 [ 218.960067] pcmcia_socket pcmcia_socket0: cs: memory probe 0xf8000000-0xfdffffff: excluding 0xf8000000-0xfc1fffff 0xfce00000-0xfd3fffff [ 218.962415] pcmcia 0.0: pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia0.0 [ 219.042303] ieee80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'NULL' [ 219.118941] hostap_cs: setting Vcc=33 (constant) [ 219.118996] Checking CFTABLE_ENTRY 0x01 (default 0x01) [ 219.118999] IO window settings: cfg->io.nwin=1 dflt->io.nwin=1 [ 219.119002] io->flags = 0x0046, io.base=0x0000, len=64 [ 219.120158] hostap_cs: Registered netdevice wifi0 [ 219.120171] pcmcia: Driver needs updating to support IRQ sharing. [ 219.120184] wifi0: Interrupt, but dev not configured [ 219.159935] hostap_cs: index 0x01: , irq 3, io 0xd100-0xd13f [ 219.265986] prism2_hw_init: initialized in 108 ms [ 219.268923] wifi0: NIC: id=0x8002 v1.0.0 [ 219.269076] wifi0: PRI: id=0x15 v0.3.0 [ 219.269219] wifi0: STA: id=0x1f v0.8.3 [ 219.270239] wifi0: defaulting to bogus WDS frame as a workaround for firmware bug in Host AP mode WDS [ 219.275040] wifi0: registered netdevice wlan0 [ 224.126374] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wifi0: link is not ready [ 224.126429] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready [ 224.138066] wifi0: LinkStatus=2 (Disconnected) [ 224.159120] wifi0: LinkStatus: BSSID=44:44:44:44:44:44 [ 224.785042] wifi0: LinkStatus=1 (Connected) [ 224.785282] wifi0: LinkStatus: BSSID=00:18:4d:16:11:62 [ 224.785485] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready [ 224.785684] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wifi0: link becomes ready [ 224.792099] wifi0: dropped unencrypted TX data frame (drop_unencrypted=1) [ 224.852082] wifi0: dropped unencrypted TX data frame (drop_unencrypted=1) [ 225.200078] wifi0: dropped unencrypted TX data frame (drop_unencrypted=1)
while the dmesg output for the working orinoco_cs driver says:
[ 333.404658] orinoco 0.15 (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au>, Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org>, et al) [ 333.409244] orinoco_cs 0.15 (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au>, Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org>, et al) [ 349.924053] pcmcia_socket pcmcia_socket0: pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 0 [ 349.924335] pcmcia 0.0: pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia0.0 [ 350.084971] eth1: Hardware identity 8002:0000:0001:0000 [ 350.085102] eth1: Station identity 001f:0003:0000:0008 [ 350.085106] eth1: Firmware determined as Intersil 0.8.3 [ 350.085109] eth1: Ad-hoc demo mode supported [ 350.085111] eth1: IEEE standard IBSS ad-hoc mode supported [ 350.085114] eth1: WEP supported, 104-bit key [ 350.086900] eth1: MAC address 00:60:b3:67:31:97 [ 350.087002] eth1: Station name "Prism I" [ 350.087636] eth1: ready [ 350.091500] eth1: orinoco_cs at 0.0, irq 3, io 0xd100-0xd13f [ 354.142312] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1: link is not ready [ 354.159622] eth1: New link status: Disconnected (0002) [ 354.896001] eth1: New link status: Connected (0001) [ 354.896086] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth1: link becomes ready [ 365.180028] eth1: no IPv6 routers present