Sandisk Connect Plus Wi-fi + 128mb

[dvdrw]

I just ordered this card at my nearest computer store. It should be arriving any day now. But I haven't bought it yet and I have no obligation to buy. Please advise whether I should buy it or not. I'm using RC10 if that helps. Thanks.
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if you simply want wi-fi to work out of the box w/pdaXrom, you may want to consider getting a different CF wi-fi card.  with this card you'll have to piece a few things together to get it working.  it's not difficult, but given that the flash doesn't work in parallel with wi-fi, I'm not sure it's worth the effort when there are other cards that work out of the box.  (ideally if both could work in parallel, then it would be fantastic, but that is not the case today.)

[donquixote]

I'm not afraid of piecing a few things together (I might just learn something). If I can get wifi working then a little extra storage is ok too (even if they cannot be used simultaneosly). Given that note, can I just disable the wifi on the Zaurus and then mount the flash right after? 'Cause that's better than nothing. I guess my question is what do you mean by they don't work in parallel?

Of course, I'm assuming that eventually simultaneous mode will work eventually... or do you think that is an impossibility?

thanks.

dq

[dvdrw]

here's a really quick overview of how to get this card working under pdaXrom RC9/10.

I've attached the 0.3.7 hostap driver and prism2_srec util from the hostap utilities set to this post.  make backups of anything you change/replace so that you can recover if anything goes wrong, etc. etc. etc.

the hostap modules and srec util were built against the latest pdaXrom-builder package and kernel source that is on the pdaxrom website.  I used the stable hostap source straight from http://hostap.epitest.fi/ (no patches necessary), and the standard zaurus/embedix kernel toolchain for building.

hostap-0.3.7-arm-zaurus.tar.gz contains the three hostap kernel modules; prism2_srec-arm-zaurus.tar.gz contains the prism2_srec utility.

to install the modules, untar the three modules from the hostap-0.3.7 tar into /lib/modules/2.4.18-rmk7-pxa3-embedix/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/.  (this action will replace the existing older default pdaXrom version - so again, make backups...)

now untar the prism2_srec tar, and place the extracted binary somewhere in your PATH (e.g., /usr/sbin).

now you'll need to create a hostap.conf file for the PCMCIA cardmgr.  edit /etc/pcmcia/hostap.conf (create it if one doesn't exist), and add the following:

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device "hostap_cs"
   class "network" module "hostap_crypt_wep", "hostap", "hostap_cs"

card "SanDisk ConnectPlus 128M"
  version "SanDisk", "ConnectPlus"
  manfid 0xd601,0x0101
#  bind "ide_cs" to 1
  bind "hostap_cs" to 0after you create the file, force cardmgr to reload the config file:

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kill -HUP `cat /var/run/cardmgr.pid`or you can just reboot.

pull out the card, wait a moment, then plug the card back in.

you should now be able to download the firmware to the card.  (you may want to check the logs via dmesg or tail /var/log/messages to ensure that the card was properly detected.)

grab the desired prism firmware from http://www.red-bean.com/~proski/firmware/ and copy it over to the zaurus.  for example, if you want to use the latest firmware, extract pm010102.hex from primary.tar.gz, and rf010803.hex from 1.8.3.tar.gz.  place these files somewhere for the next operation (e.g., /usr/local/etc/firmware/).

to download the firmware to the card RAM, perform these steps:

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prism2_srec -gs wlan0 /usr/local/etc/firmware/pm010102.hex
prism2_srec -gp wlan0 /usr/local/etc/firmware/pm010102.hex   (this load will give an error, ignore it)
iwpriv wlan0 reset 1
prism2_srec -rp wlan0 /usr/local/etc/firmware/rf010803.hex
iwconfig wlan0 mode 2you should see messages about plugging PDRs, etc., and at the end it should say something to the effect of

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NIC: id=0x801d v1.0.0
 PRI: id=0x15 v1.1.2
 STA: id=0x1f v1.8.3at this point your card should be functional, and you can try to bring the interface up:

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ifconfig wlan0 upif you have configured wi-fi properly with the normal pdaXrom network.py config tool, then the card should light up and associate with the network.

if you want the card to automatically download the firmware when powered up, make a script out of the firmware download sequence above, and call it from /etc/pcmcia/network or /etc/pcmcia/wireless or wherever works best for you.  note also that you'll likely need to modify /usr/bin/apm to call the script as well (e.g., perhaps in post_suspend() in RC10).

to enable the flash part, edit your /etc/pcmcia/hostap.conf file (see above) and change the bind lines for the card:

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 bind "ide_cs" to 1
#  bind "hostap_cs" to 0after you do this, force cardmgr to reload the hostap config file (see the example "kill -HUP" line above), and pull the card, wait a moment, and plug in the card again (you could also do this programmatically/via script of course).  you can then access it and format it, use it, etc.  when it is formatted it will auto-mount as a normal flash CF card (/mnt/cf).

note that there are some other very helpful resources available regarding this card - e.g., see http://www.bentzon.net/acb/sandisk.html and the related forum posts at http://www.dsitri.de/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=21 .

hope this is somewhat useful/helpful!

[donquixote]

How is this card's wireless functionality (once it is enabled) compared to out-of-the-box wifi cards? Is it kinda flaky?

Sorry for all the questions. It's just that I've been considering this card for awhile. Thanks.

dq

[donquixote]

Well, I picked up the card. And I got it to work... once! I don't know what I did, but I was able to ping other machines on the network but I couldn't access the net. So, I added my dns addresses and tried to connect again and nothing worked! It hasn't worked since.

dmesg is reporting this error:

Could not read current WEP flags.
wlan0: could not  set interface UP - no PRI f/w
wlan0: cannot set RID fc00 (len=2) - no PRI f/w

That `len=' thing is lots of different numbers and not always 2. Anyway, I don't know what's going on, but it looks like I might have to return this card if I cannot get it running.

Any suggestions would be great!

thanks.

Joe

[TheWalt]

I just got a used SL-C860 and have started my journey into makeing it my very mobile workstaion.

I have partitioned the built in flash as one 121meg, installed pdaXrom rc10, and have formatted a 1gig SD card as exf2.  So far so good.

I unfortunatly bought a Sandisk Connect PLus Wi-FI+128 not knowing support was low and am trying to get it to work.

I followed these instructions (thanks) and now the card is recognized upon inserting... and after I run the script I made to upload firmware connects to my wireless router.

HOWEVER

The nic will not pull a dhcp lease at all.  AND when I hard code an IP I can ping fine and even bring up my local web server but DNS does not work at all.

Anyone else get this working or run into the same DNS issue?  I can deal with the hard coded IP but need DNS to function.... or if not then a suggestion of what wireless card to buy instead (was looking at linksys).

[TheWalt]

Answered half my problem, found this in an earlier post having the same problem only with USB.

 Do you have 192.168.129.1 as a route gateway? on the Z?

route add default gw 192.168.129.1 usbd0

Stu

Thanks Stu!  I just replaced usbd0 with wlan0 and viola... dns works fine.  Still no idea bout why no DHCP but at least I'm downloading ipks

Wierd

[ohmboy]

here's a really quick overview of how to get this card working under pdaXrom RC9/10.

I've attached the 0.3.7 hostap driver and prism2_srec util from the hostap utilities set to this post.  make backups of anything you change/replace so that you can recover if anything goes wrong, etc. etc. etc.

[snip]

After following these excellent directions, I got the Sandisk Connect Plus card working, (yes it works, and it works well!) but I ran into a few glitches that required some changes from the instructions already posted.  I actually reflashed my roms and reinstalled twice, so I can verify that the process works.  (You'll need the prism and hostap files linked from the above post.)  So, for the record, here's my synopsis of the steps with the changes included:

1. Copy hostap-0.3.7.tar.gz to / and tar -xzvf (this will replace the 3 existing modules in /lib/modules/2.4.18-rmk7-pxa3-embedix/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/).

2. Copy prism2_srec.tar.gz into /usr/sbin/ and untar (make sure /usr/sbin is in your PATH).

3. Add the following lines to the end of both /etc/pcmcia/hermes.conf and /etc/pcmcia/spectrum.conf (I'm not sure if BOTH are necessary).*

   card "SanDisk ConnectPlus 128M"
      version "SanDisk", "ConnectPlus"
      manfid 0xd601,0x0101
      #  bind "ide_cs" to 1
      bind "hostap_cs" to 0

3a. (You can ignore this step) It doesn't seem to be necessary to use the following at the top of the same 2 files in place of the existing silmilar lines, but it doesn't seem to hurt either:

     device "hostap_cs"
        class "network" module "hostap_crypt_wep", "hostap", "hostap_cs"

4. Reboot.

5. Get the prism firmware (primary.tar.gz, and 1.8.4.tar.gz) from http://www.red-bean.com/~proski/firmware/.  Mkdir /etc/pcmcia/firmware/ and extract pm010102.hex from primary.tar.gz and rf010804.hex from 1.8.4.tar.gz into that directory.

6. Using the Wireless Settings tool (Lan and Wifi), create a second profile (in addition to 'default')called 'sandisk' with the appropriate settings (e.g. wireless, enter ESSID, operation mode = Master, channel = 0, crypting = hex, authorization = restricted, enter KEY) and save the settings.

7. Create a shell script in /usr/sbin/ called 'sanwifiup.sh' (for example), containing the following code:

   #! /bin/sh

   cardctl scheme deault

   prism2_srec -gs wlan0 /etc/pcmcia/firmware/pm010102.hex
   prism2_srec -gp wlan0 /etc/pcmcia/firmware/pm010102.hex
   iwpriv wlan0 reset 1
   prism2_srec -rp wlan0 /etc/pcmcia/firmware/rf010804.hex
   iwconfig wlan0 mode 2

   cardctl scheme sandisk

(I'm not sure why changing schemes is necessary, but it's the only way I could get it to work -- simply calling 'ifconfig wlan0 up' doesn't work.)

8. Eject the card, reinsert it, and using a terminal execute 'sanwifiup.sh' -- the lights should blink twice and then remain on.  Ignore any errors unless it doesn't work.

FYI:  if the Z goes to standby, the wifi quits.  You have to run the connect script each time you want to connect.

* (To enable the flash memory (the wifi will not work at the same time), edit the /etc/pcmcia/*.conf files (see above) by changing the bind lines -- uncomment one line and comment the other -- as follows:

    bind "ide_cs" to 1
    # bind "hostap_cs" to 0

[WJMoore]

dvdrw, I was hoping you could help me out. I'm trying to get hostap working on an SL-C3100 with Sharp ROM (no alternatives have been released yet). I successfully built the driver and utils but all io is failing with the card, despite it being detected and the modules loaded when it it inserted. I was wondering how you built the drivers (ie. did you specify PCMCIA_PATH or anything like that) and are you aware of any options that need to be enabled in the kernel? I checked the default kernel config provided by Sharp and from what I can tell all the required things are enabled in the standard kernel - I could be wrong though. Any help greatly appreciated. I posted some info in another thread but no one has responded.

[dvdrw]

I was wondering how you built the drivers (ie. did you specify PCMCIA_PATH or anything like that) and are you aware of any options that need to be enabled in the kernel? I checked the default kernel config provided by Sharp and from what I can tell all the required things are enabled in the standard kernel - I could be wrong though. Any help greatly appreciated.

no changes are needed to the default pdaXrom kernel config to get the card to work; of course pdaXrom includes a relatively old version of hostap by default so that helps ensure the default kernel config patch will be correct.  perhaps try comparing the two kernel configs between the ROMs (Sharp and pdaXrom) to verify that nothing is missing/different from the Sharp config?

I posted some info in another thread but no one has responded.

there is definitely something amiss with your Sharp ROM configuration/operation - during the card init sequence, hostap is receiving suspend and reset events (!??):

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...
wifi0: registered netdevice wlan0
wlan0: could not set interface UP - no PRI f/w
hostap_cs: CS_EVENT_PM_SUSPEND
hostap_cs: CS_EVENT_RESET_PHYSICAL
wifi0: hfa384x_cmd: entry still in list? (entry=c39dfda0, type=0, res=0)
wifi0: hfa384x_cmd: command was not completed (res=0, entry=c39dfda0, type=0, cmd=0x0002, param0=0x0000, EVSTAT=0000 INTEN=0010)
hostap_cs: Shutdown failed
pxa_pcmcia_suspend(0)
...the subsequent card init code fails likely because the state of the driver is really confused (result of the pcmcia_suspend that is coming from somewhere).

one possibility, does the default Sharp ROM support hotplug events handling (i.e., /etc/hotplug/net.agent)?  if it does, then perhaps a case needs to be added to this script for handling wifi0 and wlan0 device registration?  perhaps the default is to try to suspend pcmcia if an unhandled registration event occurs?  (this just a guess, but might be worth exploring.)

here's an excerpt from my (successul) card init:

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...
kernel: Readback test succeeded, HCR 0x0f
kernel: wifi0: registered netdevice wlan0
kernel: prism2_download: dl_cmd=4 start_addr=0x003f0000 num_areas=3
kernel: wifi0: test Genesis mode with HCR 0x0f
kernel: prism2_pccard_cor_sreset: original COR 4f
kernel: Readback test succeeded, HCR 0x0f
kernel: prism2_hw_init: initialized in 70 ms
kernel: wifi0: NIC: id=0x8000 v0.0.1
kernel: wifi0: PRI: id=0x15 v1.1.2
kernel: Could not get RID for component STA
kernel: wifi0: Failed to read STA f/w version - only Primary f/w present
cardmgr[130]: executing: './network start wlan0 2>&1'
cardmgr[130]: + srec summary for pm010102.hex
cardmgr[130]: + Included file name: PM010102.HEX
...note also that this card works under OZ, so it might be worth poking around those forums or checking that ROM config out as well for some hints.

hope this is somewhat helpful in tracking down the problem!

[TheWalt]

I'm very dissapointed that RC11 didn't at least detect this card.  OZ not only detects it but even loads the rom needed to make it work, plug n play.

(Edited for koen, next time try a PM)

[koen]

I'm very dissapointed that RC11 didn't at least detect this card.  OE not only detects it but even loads the rom needed to make it work, plug n play.
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That's not true, OE doesn't detect the card. Why? Because it's a buildsystem you moron! How freaking hard is is to remember 'OpenZaurus is a distro, OpenEmbedded isn't'?

[Chero]

I'm very dissapointed that RC11 didn't at least detect this card.  OE not only detects it but even loads the rom needed to make it work, plug n play.
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That's not true, OE doesn't detect the card. Why? Because it's a buildsystem you moron! How freaking hard is is to remember 'OpenZaurus is a distro, OpenEmbedded isn't'?
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The original post was a positive note about OE (sorry, OZ). In order to prevent flaming threads (which I hate), please ignore our ignorance (or typos), or reply in a polite way.

Chero.

[koen]

I'm very dissapointed that RC11 didn't at least detect this card.  OE not only detects it but even loads the rom needed to make it work, plug n play.
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That's not true, OE doesn't detect the card. Why? Because it's a buildsystem you moron! How freaking hard is is to remember 'OpenZaurus is a distro, OpenEmbedded isn't'?
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The original post was a positive note about OE (sorry, OZ). In order to prevent flaming threads (which I hate), please ignore our ignorance (or typos), or reply in a polite way.

Chero.
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Sorry about that. If you want to have it working on pdaX make sure you have hostap 0.3.9 (or newer), hostap-utils and the pcmcia/hotplug scripts. I think the scripts should work out of the box in pdaX. The ipk names are prism3-support and prism3-firmware (available at [a href=\"http://ewi546.ewi.utwente.nl/sfeed/]http://ewi546.ewi.utwente.nl/sfeed/[/url] ). I expect it to be pretty straightforward to adapt the packages for pdaX

[Chero]

Thanks !
Dankuwel !