7. Troubleshooting

Here are some of the most common problems, and the things to check if you experience them.

7.1 Compilation of the driver fails

• check you have the kernel sources installed (see Important Issues and Requirements section)
• make sure you are root (run: whoami, and see Important Issues and Requirements section)
• have you got a different version of gcc than what comes with RH8.0? This may cause problems.
• check that /sbin is in your path. Run: echo $PATH, and if you don't see it listed, run: export PATH=$PATH:/sbin

7.2 The driver isn't loaded when you plug in the usb device

• is the driver installed? where there any errors when compiling or installing the driver? Check /lib/modules/<kernel version>/kernel/drivers/usb/ and see if the driver is in there.
• it might be that the driver doesn't know about your device's VID:PID. If you have an MA101 and its VID:PID isn't 0x864/0x4102 or 0x864/0x4100, post to the mailing list (see the Resources section).
• check you selected the correct radio type when compiling the driver (see 'The Different Revisions of the MA101' section).
• check src/includes/usb/config.h to see if your VID:PID is mentioned under the correct radio type
• if you have updated your kernel since compiling the driver, you will have to recompile the driver.

7.3 You get a kernel panic when the driver loads and detects your device

• make sure you're not running an SMP kernel (see Important Issues and Requirements section)
• if you're using usb-uhci.o, try uhci.o instead (see Important Issues and Requirements section)
• check that you don't have the old binary driver installed as well, because that could be loading instead of the GPL one. To check for and remove it: rm /lib/modules/<kernel version>/kernel/drivers/usb/vnetusb* ; depmod -a
• check that your device does in fact have an atmel chip in it
• Try upgrading to kernel 2.4.20, as some people have reported this as fixing some issues

7.4 The driver freezes or stops responding when it loads and detects your device

• check that your device does have an atmel chip in it (**todo: add something actually helpful)
• Try upgrading to kernel 2.4.20, as some people have reported this as fixing some issues

7.5 When the computer boots, the wireless device steals the eth0 alias from my ethernet card

• In your modules.conf you can specify: alias <interface alias> <module name>, e.g.:

  # ethernet card
  alias eth0 natsemi
  # wireless usb device
  alias eth1 usbvnet
  

  This alone may not solve your problem. The /tmp/.vnetrc file allows you to specify the interface alias too. You could rearrange your interfaces so that the wireless device is eth0, and your other interfaces ones take higher numbers. (**todo: add more)
• Alex Stewart has submitted a patch for the patches-07-12-2002 branch (the one with Intersil support left in it). This patch changes the interface naming convention for the wireless devices from ethX to wlanX.

(**todo: more common problems)

7.6 If you still have problems

• see the buglist/patchlist at the atmelwlandriver sourceforge project
• search the mailing list (although there is no online search - you'll need to download and grep the archive)
• post to the mailing list
• please don't contact me directly for help - if this HOWTO wasn't any help then I won't be either because this document contains everything I know about getting the Atmel driver working.

Next Previous Contents