[Solved] How to get Prism wlan card working?

spacepenguin · posted: 2012-12-17 23:46

The internal wlan chip of my notebook is identified by inxi as"Card-1: Intersil ISL3886 [Prism Javelin/Prism Xbow] (rev 01)". How do I get it to work with antix Edelweißpiraten?

In ceni there is no wlan0, only eth0 (and that clearly has another mac address). Also /sbin/iwconfig says"no wireless extension". Wlan works with Kubuntu (p54pci)... but I want to use antix.

It is a fresh installation, not updated as I don't have any connection (the lan port is malfunctioning, only wlan is - theoretically - working).

So what do I have to do?

rokytnji · posted: 2012-12-18 06:59

Howdy and Welcome. Take a look at

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://wiki.debian.org/prism54"
linktext was:"http://wiki.debian.org/prism54"
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especially the part

Firmware is required for device operation.

in step 2 on down.

spacepenguin · posted: 2012-12-18 11:41

Thanks for your answer. i downloaded"2.13.25.0.arm" on the other machine and copied it to the notebook's /usr/local/lib/firmware/isl3886pci and done a modprobe. Still no wlan device in ceni/iwconfig. i rebooted, the notebook now hangs some time on"waiting for /dev to be fully populated" then proceeds - but still no wireless device. Wlan LED is on.

rokytnji · posted: 2012-12-18 14:12

What version of AntiX are you running? Base, Full, or Core? Post output of

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ifconfig -a

in next post I guess to see if a wireless interface is present.

anticapitalista · posted: 2012-12-18 21:14

It is like;y to be a kernel issue.
I'm in the process of building new kernels that iclude the Prism module.

Should be ready by tomorrow, maybe earlier

spacepenguin · posted: 2012-12-18 21:27

If I remember correct I've installed antix-12-486 - full, I guess.

"ifconfig -a" shows me lo and eth0 - and eth0 is the not working cable connection.

"lsmod" shows p54pci and p54common, same as in Kubuntu...

"dmesg" gives some clue:

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p54pci 0000:00:0e.0: Cannot find firmware (isl3886pci)
p54pci: probe of 0000:00:0e.0 failed with error -2

So I have to put the firmware somewhere else?

rokytnji · posted: 2012-12-18 21:54

Might wait for Anti to give you another kernel to try.

eth0 is the not working cable connection

If using full iso. Look into using Wicd instead of Ceni I guess.

Usually eth0 is default for all land lines in my experience.
Your firmware install should be OK but it sounds like Anti did not do the driver.ko for prism during the kernel build.
You could try installing a Liqourix or Debian kernel via smxi if not wanting to wait however for Anti's kernel and boot into it instead. You need a internet connection for smxi though and I am gathering that you don't have one?

Kinda a Catch-22 situation.

spacepenguin · posted: 2012-12-19 07:15

Why not ceni?? Usually setting up roaming with ceni and wpa_gui is very easy.

You got it, no internet connection on the notebook. I have to download the packages I want to install on another machine. eth0 is shown but as I said the port is not working anymore though recognized.

So I'll wait and try with another kernel when it is ready. Just need a download location for it and all dependencies (which?) because I cannot use apt in this case.

Hope that's the solution.

spacepenguin · posted: 2012-12-27 19:19

I hope you all had a nice christmas time! Can someone please tell me if the new kernel with prism suppoert is available and if so which kernel I have to download from
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.daveserver.info/antiX"
linktext was:"http://www.daveserver.info/antiX"
====================================
and what I have to download additionally?

EDIT: Ok, downloaded 3.7.1-antix and headers and now my wlan-chip is recognized as eth1. I configured it with ceni for roaming. But wpa_gui does not find it, so I looked at dmesg and found:

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prism54: request_firmware() failed for 'isl3886'
eth1: islpci_reset:failure

So where do I have to put the firmware? It is in /usr/local/lib/firmware/isl3886pci ... and in /lib/firmware/isl3886pci... and also tried /lib/firmware/<kernel-version>/isl3886pci...

Or do I have to do something else with the firmware than just copying it there?

iwconfig says:

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lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
eth1 NOT READY! ESSID:off/any
Mode: Managed Channel:0 Access Pont: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=31dBm Sensitivitiy:0/200
[...]

rokytnji · posted: 2012-12-28 20:16

All I can think of is poke around

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/red-hat-fedora-linux/144351-cannot-connect-wifi.html"
linktext was:"http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/red-ha ... -wifi.html"
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========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://boardreader.com/thread/Wireless_PCI_card_PRISM54_with_isl3886_f_1hsjXbpk.html"
linktext was:"http://boardreader.com/thread/Wireless_ ... jXbpk.html"
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========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://search.debian.org/"
linktext was:"http://search.debian.org/"
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For the above link. Use search terms for whatever error messages show up is all I can think of.
At least eth1 is now showing besides just eth0 (which eth0 should be the land line connection)

spacepenguin · posted: 2012-12-29 13:38

Thanks for the links. I guess I've done one more step into the right direction. I moved/renamed the downloaded firmware file from /usr/local/lib/firmware/isl3886pci/2.13.25.0.arm to /usr/local/lib/firmware/isl3880 (alas not mentioned in the debian wiki) and the firmware finally gets loaded.

Alas I still get errors on booting:

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eth1: timeout waiting for mgmt response
eth1: mgt_commit_list: failure. oid=12000001 err=-12
eth1: mgmt tx quere is still full
(repeats several times with different oid, err -12 and -110)
eth1: mgt_update_addr: failure
eth1: mgt_commit: failure
eth1: interface reset failure
prism54: Your card/socket may be faulty, or IRQ line too busy :(

The card is not faulty, it runs fine within kubuntu...

And running ceni I get"Faild to connect to wpa_supplicant - wpa_ctrl_open: No such file or directory"

Edit: I wonder why the card is recognized as eth1 - in Kubuntu it is recognized as wlan0 (and only as eth1 when the old prism54 driver is used instead of p54pci)...

How can I blacklist"prism54" - in case it is the troublemaker?

Eino · posted: 2012-12-29 16:42

If eth0 is not working, this could be a hardware conflict. You should try a clean install of the drivers.
1. Remove

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" /usr/local/lib/firmware/isl3886pci"

If the file is different or not present, this could be part of the problem.
2.(Skip the next 2 steps If it is built into or you don't have access to it in a laptop) Next remove the WLAN card form the machine, and start the computer, You should have eth0 back.
3 Next shut down the machine, and reinstall your WLAN card. When you start back up you should sill have eth0.
4. Next use a eth0 to connect to the internet.
5. Open Synapyic package manager and reinstall wireless-tools
6. Next open the root terminal add the following if you don't already have it.

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mkdir /usr/local/lib/firmware

7 Next install the firmware.

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wget -O /usr/local/lib/firmware/isl3886pci http://daemonizer.de/prism54/prism54-fw/fw-softmac/2.13.25.0.arm

8.Next load the firmware.

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modprobe -r p54pci ; modprobe p54pci

9. Verify your device has an available interface

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 iwconfig

10. If you have the available interface open Wicd network manager click preferences and add the wireless as shown with iwconfig. then click refresh.
I'm going on the assumption that you have a Intersil ISL3886 card, and it's a pci card.
I think I have covered almost every possibility in the ten steps. I hope It works for you.

spacepenguin · posted: 2012-12-29 19:08

Thanks, but that's what's proposed in the debian wiki (and what's missing the necessary step to rename the firmware) and what I've done.

I cannot connect to the internet without wlan with that machine. And I cannot remove the card because it is a chip on the mainboard. I can only start Kubuntu which is on the same machine (but much slower) to download things.

anticapitalista · posted: 2012-12-29 19:24

You could try using the firmware from Kubuntu on antiX. A long shot but it might work. Which kernel does kubuntu use?

spacepenguin · posted: 2012-12-29 19:28

Ok - here we go:

According to
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://wiki.debian.org/KernelModuleBlacklisting"
linktext was:"http://wiki.debian.org/KernelModuleBlacklisting"
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I blacklisted"prism54", ran 'depmod -ae', ran 'update-initramfs -u' and rebooted. Got error message that firmware"isl3886pci" cannot be found.

Renamed firmware file to"isl3886pci" and executed 'modprobe -r ; modprobe p54pci'.

Now"iwconfig" shows me................."wlan0" instead of"eth1" and everything's fine.

The problem was 1. the kernel which was solved thanks to anticapitalista and 2. the not renamed firmware and 3. the prism54 module which came in the way.

Solved! Thanks to all for trying to help.