Intel Corp. PRO/Wireless 2200BG on Fedora Core 3

On a Dell Latitude D800 with an Intel Corp. PRO/Wireless 2200BG card, intel has a project to support the miniPCI adapter on Linux at ipw2200.sourceforge.net.

In order to use the IPW2200 driver you will need the following:

  1. Linux with a 2.6.4+ kernel. See the INSTALL document for information on specific options required to be enabled in the kernel.
  2. Wireless Extensions (v16) and Tools (v27-pre23).
  3. The IPW2200 driver.
  4. The IPW2200 binary firmware image.

The install and setup was pretty easy to get the card up and talking with my wireless 802.11g network. Below is a synopsis of what I did:

  1. Download the driver.
  2. Extract and install:
      # make
      # make install
      
  3. Download the firmware.
  4. Extract the contents to "/lib/firmware" directory.
      # tar -C /lib/firmware -xvzf ipw2200-fw-#.#.tgz
      
  5. Load the driver:
      # modprobe ipw2200
      
  6. `iwconfig` now show up a wireless network interface "eth1".
  7. Configure the interface for the access point to be used:
      # iwconfig eth1 essid <ESSID of Access Point> key <hex key>
      
  8. Activate and bring up the wireless interface:
      # ifconfig eth1 <IP Address>
      # route add default gw <IP of Gateway>
      # ifconfig eth1 up
      
  9. `ifconfig` should now list out eth1 with an inet address.
  10. Setup the network script paramerters for eth1
      # cat <<EOF > /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1
      DEVICE=eth1
      BOOTPROTO=dhcp
      ONBOOT=yes
      GATEWAY=<IP of Gateway>
      TYPE=Wireless
      ESSID=<ESSID of Access Point>
      CHANNEL=<CHANNEL # of your AP>
      MODE=Managed
      KEY=<hex key>
      EOF
      
  11. Additionally, run `system-config-network` gui to set up the wireless network...

Links to Fedora Core and RedHat RPMS: IPW2200 driver, IPW2200 firmware

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Upgrading to ipw2200-1.0.4 and ipw2200-fw-2.3

  1. Download, remove old firmware and install the new compatible firmware:
    # rmmod ipw2200
    # rm /lib/firmware/*.fw LICENSE
    # tar -C /lib/firmware -xvzf /path/to/ipw2200-fw-2.3.tgz
    
  2. Remove the older versions of the modules if you see problems about unresolved symbols.
    # for i in ieee80211 ipw2200; do \
          find /lib/modules/`uname -r` -iname "${i}*"; 
          done | xargs rm -rf
    # tar -xvzf /path/to/ipw2200-1.0.4.tgz
    # cd /path/to/ipw2200-1.0.4
    # make
    # make install
    # modprobe /path/to/ipw2200-1.0.4
    

ipw2200-1.0.4 driver broken with kernel 2.6.12-1.1372_FC3

ipw2200-1.0.4 driver seems to have been broken with the upgrade to kernel 2.6.12-1.1372_FC3 . Installing the testing rpms on atrpms.net for the firmware and driver seems to have resolved the issue.

Here's what I did on 2.6.12-1.1372_FC3:

  1. Download the needed rpms:
    $ wget http://atrpms.net/dist/common/ipw2200-firmware-testing/ipw2200-firmware-2.3-6.at.noarch.rpm
    $ wget http://atrpms.net/dist/fc3/ipw2200-testing/ipw2200-kmdl-2.6.12-1.1372_FC3-1.0.4-30.rhfc3.at.i686.rpm
    
  2. Install the rpms:
    # rpm -Uvh ipw2200*.rpm
    
  3. The system needed to be restarted before I could use the kernel module.
    # shutdown -r now
    

Seperate ieee80211 networking stack for the Linux kernel 2.6.14

The ipw2200 wireless driver kernel module for the latest Fedora Core kernel 2.6.14-1.1656_FC4 requires the ieee80211 networking stack to be installed seperately.

Here's what I did on 2.6.14-1.1656_FC4:

  1. Download the needed rpms:
    $ wget http://dl.atrpms.net/all/ipw2200-kmdl-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4-1.0.8-34.rhfc4.at.i686.rpm
    $ wget http://dl.atrpms.net/all/ieee80211-kmdl-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4-1.1.8-8.rhfc4.at.i686.rpm
    $ wget http://dl.atrpms.net/all/ipw2200-firmware-2.4-7.at.noarch.rpm
    
  2. Install the rpms:
    # rpm -ivh ipw2200*.rpm ieee80211*.rpm
    
  3. Restart:
    # shutdown -r now
    

kernel-2.6.17-1.2174_FC5

$ wget http://dl.atrpms.net/all/ieee80211-kmdl-2.6.17-1.2174_FC5-1.1.14-13.fc5.at.i686.rpm
$ wget http://dl.atrpms.net/all/ipw2200-kmdl-2.6.17-1.2174_FC5-1.1.0-40.rhfc5.at.i686.rpm
# rpm -ivh *2.6.17*.rpm 
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