Intel Pro Wireless 2200
From DSL Wiki
The ipw2200 driver has traditionally been a major problem for Damn Small Linux. Originally designed for kernel 2.6.8+, the backport of the ipw2200 driver to the 2.4 kernel is both old and sketchy. Up until November 2007, attempts to compile the ipw2200 backport under 2.6.26 failed. (However, a new post on the forum by ^thehatsrule^ on November 4 suggests that he has successfully compiled the ipw2200 driver against the 2.4.26 series kernel.)
Sadly, ndiswrapper also fails--the kernel panics when the module is loaded. There are several solutions to get IPW2200 running, all of which involve using a separate kernel.
Installing the ipw2200 driver
1) [PREFERRED] Use DSL 4.0RC1 or newer, or revert back to 2.1b. These version of DSL uses the 2.4.31 kernel. If you download the MyDSL extension "ipw2200-k2.4.31.dsl" from MyDSL/System, you can follow the directions in the information file to get the module running.
To summarize, execute the following commands from the directory where the extension is stored
or move the it to /home/dsl
then:
$ sudo su
- /etc/init.d/mydsl-install ipw2200-k2.4.31.dsl
- /home/dsl/depmodscript.sh
- depmod
- modprobe ipw2200
- exit
$ sudo iwlist eth1 scan
This will bring up the device and scan for wireless networks in range.
2) Use DSL 4.0alpha1 or 4.0alpha2. ^thehatsrule^ has posted extensions that work for the 2.4.34.1 kernel in the forum, and the procedure is similar to the one above. There is almost no reason whatsoever to pursue this method, unless for some reason you absolutely need the 2.4.34.1 kernel.
Getting WPA working
WPA support does exist in the 1.0.1 version of ipw2200 present in the MyDSL repository. However, it is very sketchy--I get about 66% packet loss when tested with ping. To get WPA working, make sure to ignore the directions on the wpa_supplicant website. Invoke wpa_supplicant with the tag "-Dipw" not "-Dwext" to allow WPA to function.
