Need drivers for Gigafast USB Wireless G - ZD1211 (Solved)

[SirDuncan]

I am stuck at more or less the same point that I was with the rw driver. It brings up the interface but can't communicate with the router. It occasionally will detect the router, but I cannot get an IP from it and when I assign a static IP I cannot ping it. I will try it on a clean system later.
I'm hoping that Rarsa will get the driver that came with it compiled so that I can try it.
Thanks for your help so far.

[rarsa]

Oh, the driver that came with it was buggy (I actually submited the fix to the developers)

So the options are to use the latest version from the zydas web site or to use the open source version. I don't remember which one I'm using with 2.02. I will compile and post it although I'm sure It is one of the ones Tempestuous is providing.

[rarsa]

I've just confirmed that the drivers that come with 2.13 work perfectly with this addapter.

The driver is the zd1211 and I am using it right now.

I don't have my 2.12 CD to try it there.

Would you consider upgrading your puppy?

[tempestuous]

SirDuncan, you have tried the old opensource driver, and the new "rw" opensource driver, the last chance is the proprietary driver from
http://www.atheros.com/RD/ZyDAS/web_dri ... USB/Linux/

I just attached this driver back in the other thread http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 8377#88377

... but before you try it, rarsa has a point. It sounds like you have specifically been trying the Zydas "B" versions, but there's a fair chance that your adaptor will work with the "A" version (zd1211).

[hushpuppy]

SirDuncan, can you explain what you are doing to assign the device a static IP ?, then can you post the result of "ifconfig <device>", and "iwconfig <device>". Different drivers may give it different interfaces, eg wlan0, eth1, etc.

Have you tried the following commands

ifconfig <interface> up
iwconfig <interface> essid any
dhcpcd <interface>

Works reliably for me, if it doesnt work, can you post dmesg result please.

[SirDuncan]

The driver in 2.13 does not work with my adapter. I tried it the day 2.13 came out. I can't even get an interface to show up with that driver. Perhaps we do not, in fact, have the same adapter. The model name on mine is: WF748-CUI. The other possibility is that there is something else I need to do to make it work. With the built in driver I simply loaded it with the network wizard and assumed that it would do everything required. Am I mistaken?

I have been assigning the IP with the network wizard. I'm not very familiar with the Linux command line (although I am working on it) and didn't really know what all the necessary commands are. I did try dhcpcd because I knew that one, but for a static IP I used the wizard.

I am going to load my system from scratch and try all of the drivers one-by-one on a clean system just to make certain there isn't some conflict.

I'm starting to wonder if my adapter is defective in some way even though it works in Windows.

[rarsa]

The model shown on the box of my addapter is exactly the same WF748-CUI.
The addapter is rectangular with rounded corners. Very small and has a green led on one of the sides.
The box is almost the size of a thick CD box, a shade of violet with purple at the bottom

I didn't have to do anything special. Actually I tested from the LiveCD booting to RAM to ensure that nothing else affected my experiment.

1. Connect the addapter to an USB port
2. Boot from the LiveCD
3. At the first prompt enter "puppy pfix=ram"
4. Follow the standard puppy options to select keyboard and display
5. Start the wizard and select to load a module
6. Select zd1211
7. Save the module
8. Configure your addapter.

I mean, it is one of the easiest addapters to use.

Oh, but you have to make sure you are connecting it to an USB2 port, not to one of the older ones. I know because I also tried it on a computer with USB1.

[SirDuncan]

I have good news. I was sitting in a rather boring statistics class today when it occurred to me that I had never tried connecting to any other network besides the one in my house. I couldn't think of any reason why it would make a difference, but I plugged in my adapter and loaded puppy. I tried the built in driver first (in 2.12, I haven't upgraded my laptop yet), but it did not work. I then loaded the zd1211b driver and got an interface. I then told the wizard to use dhcp and I had an address in seconds. I am now posting with the adapter.
The router I have at home is a Netgear. I don't know the model number, but I'll look when I get home. Are there any known issues with any Netgear wireless routers? Next year I will be moving to the main campus and won't have to worry about connecting to the router here at home, so I'm not too worried about it.

I thank all of you for the help that you have given (especially Tempestuous, who spent the time to compile multiple drivers for me). I must say that I would be hard pressed to get much better tech support, even if I were paying for it. I do feel a little stupid for not having tried it on another router sooner.

[hushpuppy]

Are you sure your netgear router is running the dhcp server ?. If so a reboot of the server might help. Another posibility is that you may not have enough IP's free, For example your router may only be configured to give out three addresses but you might already have three machines assigned by the dhcp server. (Unlikeley i know, but worth checking). You might also want to check that your router does not have "Mac Address Filtering" enabled.

I'd like to know WHEN you get your system connected, and what was wrong.

Good luck.

[SirDuncan]

I had configured the router myself, so I knew it was set to give up to 20 IPs (there are 3 laptops and 7 desktops connecting in my house, but I leave more open for when we have LAN parties). Nevertheless, I logged on to the router (with a wired connection) and checked every single setting. It turns out that the router was set to hold IPs for one week. Meaning, each adapter was given an address and no other adapter could be assigned that address for one week. When I count the adapters being used in my house now that we got the new wireless cards, I came up with at least 15 (3 on my laptop alone; ethernet, old card, new card). One I told it to release IPs automatically, I was able to get a connection with no problem. We have only had this router for about a month, so I hadn't run into any problem with IP addresses not releasing until now.