1. Driver Information

• Driver Name: prism2_usb / Prism II
• Module Name: prism2_usb

For all releases prior to Ubuntu 8.04, install the linux-wlan-ng package to use this driver! The package is included on all Ubuntu CDs.

2. Support Channels

See also WifiDocs/Device/DWL-122 and WifiDocs/Device/NetgearMA111 for help on manual configuration.

The prism2_* drivers for the Prism II chipset (1) are developed by the linux-wlan (tm) Project. Unfortunately they are not actively developed (2) and have not been merged into the main kernel tree. Only a few Linux Wireless Extensions are supported, but recent versions can be used with for instance NetworkManager. The Ubuntu kernel includes the prism2_* kernel modules from the linux-wlan project. The linux-wlan-ng package in Ubuntu ships the linux-wlan-ng user space utilities/scripts that integrates with the ifupdown utilities. This works fine with the Gnome network configuration network-admin (3) as well. Since Ubuntu 8.04, the driver works out of the box without installing any packages and the linux-wlan-ng package is only needed if you use the firmware RAM loading for "updating" firmware on-the-fly.

(1) For more information on the Prism II cards, see http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Linux.Wireless.drivers.802.11b.html#Prism2

(2) http://lists.linux-wlan.com/pipermail/linux-wlan-announce/2005-August/000095.html

(3) For related bugs, see the linux-wlan-ng package in launchpad.

2.1. Supported devices

The following USB devices are handled by the prism2_usb driver. Use lsusb to find your USB device's Vendor and Product ID. (Info taken from the prism2_usb.c source file)

2.2. WEP info

You will need stationary firmware version 1.7.0 or newer in order to get WEP to work. Check the output from dmesg (the sta f/w line) to see what firmware version you have on your card, and see the "Updating firmware" section below if applicable.

Since Ubuntu 7.04 you can enter the hex WEP key pretty much how you like, but for older versions, read on:

Whether you use network-admin or manually edit /etc/network/interfaces, make sure you enter the WEP key as xx:xx:xx:xx:xx, that is, with colons between every two hex digits. Note that using network-admin to enter the WEP key does not work out-of-the-box in Ubuntu 6.06. See bug #37451 for a patch for this. Without the patch, you'll have to add these lines to your wlan0 configuration in /etc/network/interfaces:

wireless_mode managed
wireless_enc on
wlan_ng_key0 xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

Then unplug your device and reinsert again, and the network should come up by itself.

2.3. WPA info

No support in this driver

2.4. Alternative drivers

Note that non-USB Prism II/III cards are supported by the hostap driver, which also supports WPA. For the moment the hostap driver does not support USB cards (1).

With the help of Ndiswrapper, you can use a Windows driver for your card (2). In that case, you should blacklist the prism2_usb module.

(1) http://lists.shmoo.com/pipermail/hostap/2006-January/012401.html

(2) http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=195553&highlight=prism2_usb

3. Updating firmware

It is possible to upload a newer firmware to the device's RAM which will then be used instead of the old firmware in its ROM. The firmware license does not allow Ubuntu to include the firmware files. However, the package linux-wlan-ng-firmware contains a script linux-wlan-ng-build-firmware-deb which can download the firmware from the internet and put them into a new, local package called linux-wlan-ng-firmware-files. You can then install this package.

sudo apt-get install debhelper fakeroot make
sudo apt-get install linux-wlan-ng-firmware
linux-wlan-ng-build-firmware-deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-wlan-ng-firmware-files*.deb

Unfortunately, the automatic uploading of firmware at device initialization is broken in Ubuntu 6.06, see bug #29706 thesis writing fat burner for patches.

4. Compile Newer Driver

The current development version (upstream) can be retrieved from the linux-wlan-ng project's subversion repository (make sure you have the subversion package installed):

svn co svn://svn.shaftnet.org/linux-wlan-ng/trunk linux-wlan-ng

You can then compile the kernel driver modules. The upstream scripts have to be modified in able to work with Ubuntu 6.06, so you are probably better off using scripts from the Ubuntu packages. If you are interested in improving the Linux Wireless Extensions support for this driver, have a look at src/p80211/p80211wext.c.

5. Ubuntu Release Specific Info

5.1. Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary)

See http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=25676 for a howto.

5.2. Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy)

Please upgrade to Dapper A quick, ugly fix that might help for firmware loading:

echo "wlan_nsdname () { echo prism2 ;}" | sudo tee -a /etc/wlan/shared

5.3. Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper)

The official linux-wlan-ng package is not really plug-and-play and firmware loading is broken. There are some updated (backported from Edgy) unofficial packages that fix all this: http://tormod.webhop.org/linux/wlan

5.4. Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy)

linux-wlan-ng works very well in Edgy. Only firmware loading is currently broken.

5.5. Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty)

There are patches available which enable the use of WifiDocs/NetworkManager, but they are not yet integrated into the official packages. See bug #104037 for more info.

5.6. Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy)

The prism2_usb driver works out of the box, also with NetworkManager.

5.7. Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy)

The prism2_usb driver works out of the box, even without the linux-wlan-ng package.

CategoryHardware CategoryNetworking CategoryWireless