Weird Mandrake / Orinoco Card Problem

[MysticMat1]

I have this really weird problem with my Mandrake 10.0 system. I have an Orinoco Mini-PCI Wireless card. Mandrake recognizes it just fine and has no problem running it, %50 of the time. (That's an exact percentage)

The problem is that at boot up the autodetect software will either remove it if it was "installed" the last time I booted up, or it will install the card if it was "removed" from the configuration.

Is there any way I can get it to quit doing this? It just keeps installing / uninstalling it each time I reboot! Pretty annoying.

Thanks a billion!

-Matthew R. Jones

P.S. One thing I've noticed, Mandrake seems to want to use to orinoco_cs driver. On my old Debian install I just used the Orinoco driver, but I had to use modprobe to bring it up each time I wanted to use my card.

[AlienNation]

A quick fix would probably be to disable Mandrake's hardware autodetection in the Mandrake control center (or whatever the name is again...). Ofcourse, then it won't autodetect new hardware either until you re-enable it.

[Sgood1971]

I am having the exact same problem, I noticed that it is using the orinoco_cs drivers too. I disabled network hotplugging and rebooted, re-enabled it and it actually kept the card for the next 2 reboots. But, the next day when I started after a shutdown it un-installed the card again. Too weird.

[Icarus]

Originally posted by Sgood1971
But, the next day when I started after a shutdown it un-installed the card again. Too weird. The joys of Mandrake :)
Have you made any changes to the /etc/pcmcia/network.opts and /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts files? Maybe you can try that? Make backups first though ;)

[Sgood1971]

I am @ work now, but I will check into it tonight and let post what I find out. I am not real comfortable editing files yet, so any input as to what I might want to think about changing will earn my undying gratitude. :D

[Icarus]

I can't say what to edit either right now...but as long as you backup the original file you can mess it up as much as you want :D

I don't know if Mandrake will try to re-edit them at a later time, but it is worth a try...

I'll check mine later and see what you should look at changing
What did we want again? Just for it to use the modules you want?

[Sgood1971]

Yes, I think that is the thing we are trying to do. I am pretty new @ Linux but MDK was using 'orinoco' when I was @ 9.2 and never had a problem. When I switched to 10.0, it is trying to use 'orinoco_cs'. It seems to me to be tied to network hotplugging but that is just an assumption based on playing with that setting in control center. Thanks a million for all your help.

[Sgood1971]

I have looked at both wireless.opts and network.opts and I am not entirely sure what I am looking at. misc.conf also seems to reference card/driver bindings. It contains the following.

device "prism2_cs"
class "network" module "prism2_cs"

card "Advantech WLAN-9030"
manfid 0xd601, 0x0002
bind "orinoco_cs"

card "Tekram AIR.mate PCF 200 Wireless LAN card"
manfid 0x0274, 0x1613
bind "orinoco_cs"

card "EMTAC A2424i 11Mbps WLAN Card"
manfid 0xc250, 0x0002
bind "orinoco_cs"

None of these 3 reference my particular card though. Am I even looking in the right direction? MysticMat1, did you ever find a resolution?

[Sgood1971]

Just following up. I did all the bugfix updates and that didn't resolve the problem. But after I did the security updates, the problem was resolved. The key is to tell it "NO" when it tells you the card has been removed, then reboot and tell it no again when it tells you the card has been added. Then go into Mandrake control center/hardware, select your card and run the config tool on it. You should be OK at the next reboot. I hope this helps someone. Now, if I could just get that pesky winmodem going, life would be good. :D