Laptops:IPW2200

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[edit] Distribution-specific

If you are running Mandrake, please see Mandrake:IPW2200 for instructions on how to get this card working in that distribution. The instructions below may not work in Mandrake.

[edit] Introduction

This page is describes how to get support for the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG and 2915ABG Network Connection miniPCI adapters found in many Centrino laptops such as the IBM Thinkpad T42.

There are two ways to get support for this card in Linux. The old way is to use the Windows drivers with the Ndis driver wrapper. On May 4, 2004 Intel launched an open source project called IPW2200 to create a Linux driver for these cards. This driver is not yet complete but is already very good. Both methods are outlined below.

[edit] IPW2200 Open Source Driver

Over the last few months a good bit of progress has been made with the open source driver for this card. Intel is supporting development of this driver as well as the IPW2100 and IPW3945.

First, download the latest driver from the IPW2200 site and unpack it in your home directory.

cd /home/username
tar zxvf ipw2200-0.14.tgz
cd ipw2200-0.14
su
# make install
# exit

Now, download the firmware for the card and install it in your distribution's reserved spot for that. On most distributions this is /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware but some distros are changing to /usr/firmware instead. In our example we'll use /usr/firmware.

cd /home/username
mkdir ipw2200-fw
cd ipw2200-fw
mv ../ipw2200-fw-2.0.tgz .
tar zxvf ipw2200-fw-2.0.tgz
su
# cp ipw2200_*.fw /lib/firmware

Now the instructions I have say reboot. I don't like to tell people to do that on Linux, because it's unnecessary, this isn't Windows. ;) So I don't have this card to test but I'm pretty sure this will do the same thing as rebooting:

# /etc/init.d/hotplug restart
# modprobe ipw2200

If the modprobe is successful, try using your distribution's network configuration tool to pull up your device.

[edit] NdisWrapper

First, see if your distribution provides a package which will install NdisWrapper. If your distribution does not have an available package, please have a look at the installation instructions (especially the prerequesites at the top) that the NdisWrapper project provides before continuing. The rest of these instructions assume that when you download something, you put it in /home/user/NdisWrapper, and that you are working from a terminal that is currently in this directory.

Download Intel's latest Windows driver for the device. Your file should be named something like wireless 8.1.1.0 - generic tic 88663.exe. If there is a newer version out and you want to know if it works check the NdisWrapper card list. Self-extracting EXE's are just glorified zip files, so we can use the unzip utility to unpack the driver.

cd /home/user/NdisWrapper
unzip -d Win_IPW2200 "wireless 8.1.1.0 - generic tic 88663.exe"

Note: Make sure the path in which you unzip your Windows drivers does not have any spaces in it.

This will make a new directory called Win_IPW2200 and put the unpacked driver there. Now download and unpack the source code for NdisWrapper.

tar zxvf ndiswrapper-0.11.tar.gz

Now it's time to compile and install NdisWrapper.

su
# make install

Note: You do not have to ./configure and make for this driver, just make install.

Now NdisWrapper should be installed on your system. To make it load the Windows .inf file, use the command

# ndiswrapper -i /home/user/NdisWrapper/Win_IPW2200

Now to check it, use the command

# ndiswrapper -l

it should produce something like this: 

Installed ndis drivers:
w22n51 present

Now edit your /etc/modprobe.conf and add the following lines to the end: 

# Module options for NdisWrapper + IPW2200 added by YourNameHere on This/Date
options ndiswrapper if_name=eth%d
alias eth1 ndiswrapper

Now load the driver and check the logs to see if it worked.

# modprobe ndiswrapper
# dmesg | tail

If all went well, the last few lines of dmesg should read something like this: 

ndiswrapper version 0.11 loaded
ndiswrapper: driver w22n51 added

To make this driver load at boot time, edit the file /etc/modules and add a line that says, simply: 

ndiswrapper
Retrieved from "http://learn.clemsonlinux.org/wiki/Laptops:IPW2200"
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