Ipw3945 driver manual installation for Debian Etch

Step by step installation

Downloads

driver from http://ipw3945.sourceforge.net/ for example

wget http://ufpr.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ipw3945/ipw3945-1.1.0.tgz

ieee80211 subsystem from http://ieee80211.sourceforge.net/ for example

wget http://ufpr.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ieee80211/ieee80211-1.2.15.tgz

firmware from http://bughost.org/ipw3945/ for example

wget http://bughost.org/ipw3945/ucode/ipw3945-ucode-1.13.tgz

regulatory daemon from http://bughost.org/ipw3945/ for example

wget http://bughost.org/ipw3945/daemon/ipw3945d-1.7.22.tgz

Install kernel headers

(Install these modules ONLY if you didn't compile your own kernel)

apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.1x-1-686-smp
apt-get install gcc-4.0

Complile and install modules

tar -zxvf ieee80211-1.2.15.tgz
cd ieee80211-1.2.15
make
make install
cd ..
tar -zxvf ipw3945-1.1.0.tgz
cd ipw3945-1.1.0
# if you have problems here with kernel 2.6.18 see notes
make
cd ..
tar zxvf ipw3945-ucode-1.13.tgz
mkdir /usr/local/lib/firmware/
cp ipw3945-ucode-1.13/ipw3945.ucode /usr/local/lib/firmware/
tar zxvf ipw3945d-1.7.22.tgz
cp ipw3945d-1.7.22/x86/ipw3945d /sbin/ipw3945d-$(uname -r)
cd ipw3945-1.1.0
cp ipw3945.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)
depmod -a

Init script

create init script: /etc/init.d/ipw3945

#!/bin/bash

case $1 in
start)
 echo -n "Load ipw3945:"
   modprobe -i ipw3945
   /sbin/ipw3945d-$(uname -r) --timeout=30
   sleep 2
   echo " done."
;;

stop)
   echo -n "Unloading ipw3945:"
   /sbin/ipw3945d-$(uname -r) --kill
   modprobe -ir ipw3945
   sleep 2
   echo " done."
;;
esac

exit 0

chmod 755 /etc/init.d/ipw3945

Enable start on boot

update-rc.d ipw3945 defaults 30

Interface configuration

Change /etc/network/interfaces to:

auto eth2
iface eth2 inet dhcp

Notes

• If your are planning to use your wireless interface in monitor mode, for example to use kismet, uncomment "CONFIG_IPW3945_MONITOR=y" from the driver Makefile before running make.
• If you have error: "too few arguments to function ‘ieee80211_tx_frame’" problems compiling ipw3945-1.1.0 with 2.6.18 kernel. ipw does not properly recognize the version of ieee802.11 stuff in the kernel. A quick hack is to change "EXTRA_CFLAGS += -DIEEE80211_API_VERSION=$(IEEE80211_API)" to "EXTRA_CFLAGS += -DIEEE80211_API_VERSION=2" on line 96 of Makefile. (http://dotcommie.net/projects/XPS-M1210/)

References

• http://eomer.mine.nu/?q=node/18
• http://alidhaey.blogspot.com/2006/08/instalar-debian-etch-en-un-dell.html
• http://math.umh.ac.be/an/D820/#Wireless