Inserting Orinoco card makes applet disapear

[Timothy Smith]

I've been having a really hard time from the beginning with Network Manager which is shame because if it works I've converted two long time SUSE users.

My problem is (at the moment) when I insert (or boot) with my Orinoco gold card the entire Network Manager applet goes away. Now I'm not sure the extent of this problem because I'm also not getting the battery charge notify applet either. Basically nofitifications and network manager are freaking out.

libnotify 0.3.2-0ubuntu4
network-manager 0.6.2-0ubuntu1
network-manager-gnome 0.6.2-0ubuntu1
linux-386 2.6.15.19
linux-image 2.6.15-20.30

output from dmesg when the card is inserted:

[4296654.639000] pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 0
[4296654.639000] pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia0.0
[4296654.721000] eth1: Hardware identity 0001:0001:0004:0002
[4296654.721000] eth1: Station identity 001f:0001:0006:0006
[4296654.721000] eth1: Firmware determined as Lucent/Agere 6.06
[4296654.721000] eth1: Ad-hoc demo mode supported
[4296654.721000] eth1: IEEE standard IBSS ad-hoc mode supported
[4296654.721000] eth1: WEP supported, 104-bit key
[4296654.721000] eth1: MAC address 00:02:2D:52:7D:29
[4296654.721000] eth1: Station name "HERMES I"
[4296654.721000] eth1: ready
[4296654.722000] eth1: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, irq 3, io 0x0100-0x013f
[4296655.246000] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1: link is not ready
[4296655.336000] eth1: New link status: Connected (0001)
[4296655.642000] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth1: link becomes ready

[phillywize (rmurken)]

Hmmm, I have an Orinoco card that I'm using on a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop. It's a mini-PCI, so I can't remove or insert it per se, but I am definitely unable to see the NM applet icon, much less get any functionality out of it. My wifi config otherwise works great. I'm hardly conversant in the finer technical points, but I will say this: I came over from Fedora Core 4 (an excellent, if grittier distro), and the FC community seemed to be having fits getting network-manager to work with Orinoco cards. Me included. I'll say this though, NM under Ubuntu has a gentler way of not working...it doesn't crash my entire system, and I still have network functionality. Just no NM functions.

For what it's worth:

Apr 24 20:50:51 localhost kernel: [4294699.676000] orinoco 0.15rc3 (David Gibson <email address hidden>, Pavel Roskin <email address hidden>, et al)
Apr 24 20:50:51 localhost kernel: [4294699.679000] orinoco_cs 0.15rc3 (David Gibson <email address hidden>, Pavel Roskin <email address hidden>, et al)
Apr 24 20:50:51 localhost kernel: [4294699.774000] eth1: Hardware identity 0005:0004:0005:0000
Apr 24 20:50:51 localhost kernel: [4294699.774000] eth1: Station identity 001f:0001:0008:000a
Apr 24 20:50:51 localhost kernel: [4294699.774000] eth1: Firmware determined as Lucent/Agere 8.10
Apr 24 20:50:51 localhost kernel: [4294699.774000] eth1: Ad-hoc demo mode supported
Apr 24 20:50:51 localhost kernel: [4294699.774000] eth1: IEEE standard IBSS ad-hoc mode supported
Apr 24 20:50:51 localhost kernel: [4294699.774000] eth1: WEP supported, 104-bit key
Apr 24 20:50:51 localhost kernel: [4294699.774000] eth1: MAC address 00:02:2D:7D:6C:D3
Apr 24 20:50:51 localhost kernel: [4294699.774000] eth1: Station name "HERMES I"
Apr 24 20:50:51 localhost kernel: [4294699.775000] eth1: ready
Apr 24 20:50:51 localhost kernel: [4294699.775000] eth1: index 0x01: Vcc 3.3, irq 11, io 0xe100-0xe13f
Apr 24 20:50:51 localhost kernel: [4294699.835000] ieee80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'NULL'
Apr 24 20:50:58 localhost kernel: [4294714.839000] eth1: no IPv6 routers present

and...

Apr 24 20:51:00 localhost NetworkManager: <information>^Istarting...
Apr 24 20:51:00 localhost NetworkManager: <WARNING>^I main (): nm_data_new: Setting up dbus filter
Apr 24 20:51:00 localhost NetworkManager: <information>^Ieth0: Device is fully-supported using driver '3c59x'.
Apr 24 20:51:00 localhost NetworkManager: <information>^Inm_device_init(): waiting for device's worker thread to start
Apr 24 20:51:00 localhost NetworkManager: <information>^Inm_device_init(): device's worker thread started, continuing.
Apr 24 20:51:00 localhost NetworkManager: <information>^INow managing wired Ethernet (802.3) device 'eth0'.
Apr 24 20:51:00 localhost NetworkManager: <WARNING>^I nm_signal_handler (): Caught signal 11. Generating backtrace...
Apr 24 20:51:00 localhost NetworkManager: ******************* START **********************************
Apr 24 20:51:00 localhost NetworkManager: (no debugging symbols found)
Apr 24 20:51:00 localhost NetworkManager: Using host libthread_db library "/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libthread_db.so.1".
Apr 24 20:51:00 localhost Ne...

[mlaverdiere (mlaverdiere)]

Try using the hostap driver instead of the orinoci driver. In my case, it fixed my problem, which was similar to your.

See these page/thread:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=169222&highlight=orinoco

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DapperNetworkManager

Basically, you just have to do the following to use the hostap driver:

1. Blacklist the orinoco drivers, by creating a file named blacklist-orinoco in /etc/modprobe.d/, with this content:

blacklist hermes
blacklist orinoco
blacklist orinoco_pci
blacklist orinoco_cs
blacklist orinoco_plx

2. In the /etc/pcmcia/config file, comment out the following section (or any section that correspond to your orinoco card):

#card "Netgear MA401RA Wireless Adapter"
# version "NETGEAR MA401RA Wireless PC", "Card"
# bind "orinoco_cs"

and add this one:

card "Netgear MA401RA Wireless Adapter"
version "NETGEAR MA401RA Wireless PC", "Card"
bind "hostap_cs"

Now, after reboot, your card should use the hostap driver and you should be able to use (k)networkmanager correctly. Just don't forget to also modify the /etc/network/interfaces file like suggested in this page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DapperNetworkManager

Hope this help.