NetGear WG511 on Linux

After a lot of trouble w/ my PCI linksys card WMP54G, I need to install a pcmcia netgear WG511 on my notebook. I usually use a Cisco Aironet but the new one is a 54g so.

It only takes 10 minutes to figure that this kind of cards are well supported in Linux.

To install:

  • download the latest kernel (2.4.23 for the test)
  • download the latest Prism54 patch
  • Patch the kernel
  • make dep; bzImage …
  • download http://prism54.org/firmware/isl3890 in /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/
  • reboot and enjoy

You should get something like this:

Loaded prism54 driver, version 1.0.2.2
eth0: prism54_mib_init()
eth0: islpci_open() 
eth0: resetting device...
eth0: uploading firmware...
eth0: firmware uploaded done, now triggering reset...
eth0: prism54_mib_init()
eth0: done with prism54_mib_init()! -- Client Managed mode

Latest point the README say that Ad-hoc mode for 2.4 kernel is a work in progress .. and it seems to work.

Update: You can get the firmware here . Take care that most recent WG511 sold now are WG511T which doesn’t use prism54 drivers but the Madwifi one.



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36 thoughts on “NetGear WG511 on Linux

  1. I’m a newb. What distro do you recommend for this driver, and do you think this driver can be installed on Lindows 4.5.72 laptop edition?

  2. Hello,

    I tried to install a Netgear WG511 Wireless PC Card

    like you describe :

    I had a Mandrake 2.4.21 kernel, so I downloaded

    sources for a 2.4.23 kernel : OK

    I applied the path from prism54.org : OK.

    I compiled and installed the kernel : OK.

    But it seems that there is a problem with devfs

    and for example /dev/fb0 does not exist any more,

    so I have no X server.

    Can you help me, please ?

    Thank you very much.

  3. You should look on mandrake mailing list, i think. to disable devfs simply remove devfsd and MAKEDEV in /dev/ but this is the wrong way.

  4. It looks that we can’t download the firmware isl3890 anymore. I tried to use WG511DCB.arm under windows, but it keeps gives me error when I do “modprobe prism54″. By the way, I’m using Debian stable with kernel 2.4.24 on Dell Inspiron8100. I have also downloaded firmware.agent. The error message I got is

    —————–

    /lib/modules/2.4.24-686/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/prism54/prism54.o: init_module: No such device

    Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters

    /lib/modules/2.4.24-686/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/prism54/prism54.o: insmod /lib/modules/2.4.24-686/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/prism54/prism54.o failed

    /lib/modules/2.4.24-686/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/prism54/prism54.o: insmod prism54 failed

    ——————

    Is it due to the incorrect firmware? If so, could any send me a copy of the firmware? Thanks a lot!

  5. Hum, it looks like downloading the firmware, break the licence agreement. So you should try the one in the windows driver.

    But anyway, it seems that the prism54 module was unable to find the card (loading the firmware is done after the detection). You should really look at the supported device list and compare it to a lspci output. It’s the first time, i heard of a prism54g on a Dell  (is it a pcmcia card ? )

  6. I’m using Netgear WG511 pccard on inspiron. I did use the firmware from windows (WG511DCB.arm) but renamed to isl3890.

    Nothing happened when I insert the card. So I manually load the module

    modprobe yenta_socket

    modprobe ds

    modprobe prism54

    Now the card starts blinking. I do dmesg, here is what I got

    Yenta IRQ list 0098, PCI irq10

    Socket status: 30000006

    Yenta IRQ list 0298, PCI irq10

    Socket status: 30000020

    Loaded prism54 driver, version 1.0.2.2

    cs: cb_alloc(bus 7): vendor 0×1260, device 0×3890

    PCI: Enabling device 07:00.0 (0000 -> 0002)

    Loaded prism54 driver, version 1.0.2.2

    eth1: prism54 driver detected card model: Netgear WG511

    eth1: islpci_open()

    eth1: resetting device…

    eth1: uploading firmware…

    eth1: firmware uploaded done, now triggering reset…

    eth1: mgt_commit has failed. Restart the                device

    eth1: islpci_close ()

    eth1: islpci_open()

    eth1: resetting device…

    eth1: uploading firmware…

    eth1: firmware uploaded done, now triggering reset…

    eth1: mgt_commit has failed. Restart the                device

    The output of lspci -vv

    07:00.0 Network controller: Harris Semiconductor: Unknown device 3890 (rev 01)

            Subsystem: Netgear: Unknown device 4800

            Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-

            Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- SERR- <PERR-

            Latency: 80 (2500ns min, 7000ns max)

            Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 10

            Region 0: Memory at 19000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]

            Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1

                    Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0+,D1+,D2+,D3hot+,D3cold+)

                    Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

    I think it could be problem with firmware.

  7. Hey dm, where did you get that firmware?  I have the same PCMCIA card and I can’t find the firmware anywhere – not on the CD, not on the NetGear site, not anywhere.  I’ve installed every driver version I’ve found on NetGear’s site to no avail – no matter what I do, I can’t seem to produce a .arm file which I could copy to linux and rename.  I’m running on WinXP (dual boot laptop).  Can somebody please point me in the right direction, or possibly email me the file for testing purposes?

    Cheers

    thither

  8. OK. Downloaded into /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware the isl3890 firmware from http://www.rpi.edu/~nichoj/isl3890

    -rwxr-xr-x    1 root    root        93996 Mar  5 14:33 isl3890

    Rebooted the system, but I get the following error:

    prism54: request_firmware() failed for ‘isl3890′

    Does anybody else experienced the same problem? Any idea is highly appreciated! With the risk of making this message too lomg and boring, I will display below important sections of DMESG, LSPCI and LSMOD results from my Debian Sarge kernel 2.4.25 laptop.

    All the best!



    Andrei

    DMESG:

    Loaded prism54 driver, version 1.0.2.2

    eth0: prism54 driver detected card model: Netgear WG511

    eth0: islpci_open()

    eth0: resetting device…

    eth0: uploading firmware…

    prism54: request_firmware() failed for ‘isl3890′

    eth0: could not upload firmware (‘isl3890′)

    eth0: islpci_open()

    eth0: resetting device…

    eth0: uploading firmware…

    prism54: request_firmware() failed for ‘isl3890′

    eth0: could not upload firmware (‘isl3890′)

    LSMOD:

    Module                  Size  Used by    Not tainted

    prism54                38528  0

    firmware_class          4220  0  [prism54]

    ds                      6996  2

    yenta_socket          10912  2

    pcmcia_core            47264  0  [i82092 ds yenta_socket]

    LSPCI:

    06:00.0 Network controller: Harris Semiconductor D-Links DWL-g650 A1 (rev 01)

            Subsystem: Netgear: Unknown device 4800

            Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-

            Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- SERR- <PERR-

            Latency: 80 (2500ns min, 7000ns max)

            Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 9

            Region 0: Memory at 21000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]

            Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1

                    Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0+,D1+,D2+,D3hot+,D3cold+)

                    Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

  9. First at all, I would like to thank you all for all the answers to the previous message (answers = 0). Also, to thank NETGEAR who sent me a .exe file (windows driver) to my request for Linux firmware (LOL). I downloaded the .exe file from the netgear website and saved it into my Trash Bin where it belongs.

    Now… How I solved the problem…

    Very simple. I got a Linksys Wireless Card. PROBLEM SOLVED! ;-)

    All the best!

  10. I’m, using SUSE 9.0 and want to use my 511T. SUSE.Support says that no other driver is necessary, because it works well with orinoco_cs! Only my notebook doesn’t accept it… Is there anybody who has tried to use this card with the driver from orinoco which seems to be available under SUSE v. 177?

  11. I have been having similar problems. I couldn’t find wg511dcb.arm anywhere ( netgear web site or cd or from any of the drivers ), however I just ignored the entry asking for the arm file and managed to get  my wg511 card work at G band.

    I found the following entry

    driverloader: NdisOpenFile: filename=wg511dcb.arm failed

    in the log

    but at least it worked. However the link has not been very reliabale. Seems to fail under a heavy load .I am not sure if this is caused by the absence of the ARM file. I did get a copy of the ARM as advised above but using this the card failed to initialise at all.

    The card works as well ( as bad? ) as it does under my XP system so I guess this is as good as it will get!

  12. After incorporating the latest Patches for the kernel (upgrading to v.192), my SUSE 9.0 seemed to accept the Netgear 511T. Sometimes. Without any special drivers it got to work at 54 MBit/s and 108 MBit/s as wlan0! The system recognized the 511T, ath_pci was loaded.To finish the installation I set the router to use WEP 128bit and bang! nothing more…

    Well, I do not have to look anymore for a new driver.

    Does anybody know why everything stopped after choosing WEP?

  13. I did not have the problem reported by Andrei Magureanu. After downloading using wget and dropping the firmware in /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware, the green light came on on the Netgear card for the first time.

    I had to follow the instructions in the prism54 README file very carefully to get to this point, including updating the linux hotplug scripts from sourceforge (on Redhat 9) and patching a 2.4.26 kernel from kernel.org.

    My system recognizes its wired ethernet port as eth0 and the Netgear card as eth1. I’ve gotten as far as "iwlist eth1 scanning", which gives a list of two functioning cells within range.

    -dreq

  14. Hi,

    There is a lot of information on this forum about the WG511 wireless card, but I can’t even get as far as any of you that have already posted. I have patched my 2.4.26 kernel with the Prism54 drivers and I have verified that they have been installed, however, the Prism54 driver will not load when the kernel tries to load it during boot time. I am running an IBM Thinkpad 760ELD 64MB RAM 3GB HD Slackware v10 Kernel 2.4.26 w/ the Prism54 patch. Okay, so here are the error messages that get printed when I do "modprobe prism54":

    /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/prism54/prism54.o: init_module: No such device

    /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/prism54/prism54.o: Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters. You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg

    /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/prism54/prism54.o: insmod /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/prism54/prism54.o failed

    /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/prism54/prism54.o: insmod prism54 failed

    Okay, so I looked in the "syslog" and "dmesg" files to see what the problem was and here’s what I found:

    "syslog" file excerpt from the most recent boot:


    Sep 8 05:43:19 darkstar kernel: PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 00:02.0. Please try using pci=biosirq.
    Sep 8 05:43:19 darkstar kernel: PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin B of device 00:02.1. Please try using pci=biosirq.
    Sep 8 05:43:20 darkstar kernel: PCI: Enabling device 04:00.0 (0000 -> 0002)
    Sep 8 05:43:20 darkstar kernel: PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 04:00.0. Please try using pci=biosirq.
    Sep 8 05:43:22 darkstar kernel: PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin B of device 04:00.1. Please try using pci=biosirq.
    Sep 8 05:43:22 darkstar kernel: eth0: could not install IRQ handler

    Now, I am pretty sure that the PCMCIA Netgear WG511 card is this device "04:00.0" and "04:00.1" for the interrupts. I don’t know why the IRQ handler isn’t being loaded and I don’t know where to use "irq=biosirq" parameter and if it would even work. Following this excerpt are messages from "modprobe" (I assume) because they are exactly what I listed at the beginning of this post. There seems to be NO messages in "dmesg" that relate to this PCMCIA card and its PCI device or IRQ.

    Any help in getting this Prism54 driver to load would be helpful! Thanks!

    mdrayman

  15. Hi,

    My previous post about the WG511 got cut off. It must have been some character limit. Here is the part that got cutoff:


    There seems to be NO messages in "dmesg" that relate to this PCMCIA card and its PCI device or IRQ.

    Any help in getting this Prism54 driver to load would be helpful! Thanks!

    mdrayman

  16. Hi,

    My previous post about the WG511 got cut off. It must have been some character limit. Here is the part that got cutoff:


    There seems to be NO messages in "dmesg" that relate to this PCMCIA card and its PCI device or IRQ.

    Any help in getting this Prism54 driver to load would be helpful! Thanks!

    mdrayman

  17. Hi,

    My previous post about the WG511 got cut off. It must have been some character limit. Here is the part that got cutoff:


    There seems to be NO messages in "dmesg" that relate to this PCMCIA card and its PCI device or IRQ.

    Any help in getting this Prism54 driver to load would be helpful! Thanks!

    mdrayman

  18. I’m pretty sure that you forget to build the support for pcmcia. In fact you need to have pcmcia working before starting the modprobe prism54..

    – ?

  19. hi

    i am new here and i would ask u guys/girls a question?

    i have a Linksys WMP54G PCI Wireless ADAPTER and i want this driver to work on LINDOWS 4.5.212. Do you guys/girls have any suggestions to help me. I really want to go on the internet with my OS Lindows.

    I HOPE SOMEBODY CAN HELP ME

    THANX IN ADVANCE

    BYE

  20. Hi,

    In response to JKX responding to me about my PCMCIA Netgear wireless card not working:

    > I’m pretty sure that you forget to build the support for pcmcia.
    > In fact you need to have pcmcia working before starting the
    > modprobe prism54.

    Okay, I have double checked, but after the kernel finishes booting, loading all modules, and I login as "root", I did an "lsmod" to list all modules that are loaded and here is the full list:

    Module Size Used by Not tainted
    ds 6548 2
    yenta_socket 10336 2
    pcmcia_core 39940 0 [ds yenta_socket]

    So, we can see here that I DO have pcmcia running and that support is built into the kernel. At least I think it is working right. Anyway, if this clarifies more, then that’s good, but otherwise I can offer some more detailed information. I do know that I followed the instructions in the README on prism54.org’s website as I was rebuilding the kernel. Thanks for anyone’s help!

    mdrayman

  21. Hey all, here is the (unfortunate) answer you have been looking for:
    Some of these cards work, some don’t. I think it depends on how new your card is.

    Here is a bugzilla report. It looks like they aren’t planning on fixing it soon either.

    http://prism54.org/cgi-bin/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=48

    From the looks of this, all sorts of people are having this problem. I know I am.
    I am trying to use this card on a Dell Inspiron 8000 loaded with Mandrake 10.0.
    The default kernel already has the prism54 driver built-in, but when I try to
    ifconfig up the card, I get a timeout.

    Sucks. I just bought this Netgear AP/card combo, now I have to go out and get
    a different card (or install Windows on this laptop)

  22. Just so you all know, there are TWO versions of WG511 that I am aware of. (see version numbers underneath FCC/Canada ID). Version 2.0 (made in Taiwan) works with the Prism54.org drivers. as of 11/8/2004, version 3.0 (made in China) does NOT. Hopefully this hard-learned lesson which cost me 40$ will help someone.

    (the prism54.org drivers may support version 3.0 in the future)
    -Zetabyte

  23. I’m new to Linux. Installed slackware 10.0 and trying to get a Netgear WG511 card going. I’ve tried several approaches and finally managed to get one working. I used the drivers at Linuxant.

    So I moved onto the network setup using iwconfig, assigning essid, keys… Ran dhcpcd. I was able to establish a connection – Excited was I.

    The problem now is saving the settings to run automatically. I was told, "Once everything works fine you can write the correct modeprobe settings to load ndiswrapper automatically by running: ndiswrapper -m" I ran the command, restarted the computer and on restart, none of my settings were saved. Instead a set of default settings appear and have to be reset using iwconfig. Then I have to run dhcpcd again.

    What step am I missing. Oh how I feel like the newb that I am.

    Thanks for any help anyone can offer.

  24. I’m new to Linux. Installed slackware 10.0 and trying to get a Netgear WG511 card going. I’ve tried several approaches and finally managed to get one working. I used the drivers at Linuxant.

    So I moved onto the network setup using iwconfig, assigning essid, keys… Ran dhcpcd. I was able to establish a connection – Excited was I.

    The problem now is saving the settings to run automatically. I was told, "Once everything works fine you can write the correct modeprobe settings to load ndiswrapper automatically by running: ndiswrapper -m" I ran the command, restarted the computer and on restart, none of my settings were saved. Instead a set of default settings appear and have to be reset using iwconfig. Then I have to run dhcpcd again.

    What step am I missing. Oh how I feel like the newb that I am.

    Thanks for any help anyone can offer.

  25. Does anyone have an idea as to what happened to prism54.org?… No web, no ping, all timeout. Thanks.

  26. For those who have wg511 hardware revision that don’t wok with prism54.org driver:

    Use ndiswrapper and window$ driver.
    Works fine here now (writing this on Slackware 10.1 connected to the net via my WG511 v2)

    cheers
    Sebastian

  27. Does anyone have a link to the firmware that’s still up? all the links on this page are 404′d, and the prism54 site seems pretty much dead and buried — links don’t work, there’s no current status info, and no one seems to be able to answer the question as to whether the firmware is still available at all or not.

  28. Any chance of someone helping us new linux users by writing a step by step kids book about installing this PCMCIA card? if so .. it would be greatly appreciated by many of us whom aspire to one day reach your level of knowledge and wisdom :)

    here’s my email if u wanna abuse me or send me this kids book

    danieldobs@hotmail.com

  29. This website has a program that will install the original
    driver for you but the free version is only a trial.

    http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/wlan/downloads-installer.php

    I paid $19.95 for the registration and my NETGEAR WG511 v2
    (Made in China version) works wonderfully. This is an option
    for newbs like me.

    For reference I am running Fedora Core 4 with a Presario 2100
    laptop connected to a Motorolla SBG900 Wireless SURFboard Gateway.

  30. I have a Netgear WG511 v1 PCMCIA card and noticed that Knoppix 4.0 Live-CD version works well with this card. So I just copied all of the files in /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware on the Knoppix CD to my hard drive

    Just boot into Knoppix, mount your hard drive, for me this was /mnt/hda1 and copied all the files from /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware to /mnt/hda1/usr/lib/hotplug/firmware and problem solved. I am using Debian stable, sarge running the 2.6.8 kernel because of the Prism54 support. Now I am very happy not using Winblows and using my Linux laptop with wireless internet.

  31. Got a WG511 netgear wireless card. Have Fedora core 5 loaded on laptop but can’t get the link from http://prism54.org/firmware/isl3890 to work. It not connecting so i can’t get the driver. Any idea’s where else I can get it from? You might have guessed I’m new at this!!

  32. http://prism54.org/fullmac.html

    You must use official, proprietary 1.x firmware with this driver.
    You can download from here :
    &#187; Version 1.0.4.3 (for ISL3880 and ISL3890)
    &#187; Version 1.1.0.0 (for ISL3877)
    You should rename this firmware to /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/isl3890.

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