[lwlan-devel] prism2_usb for Compaq W200

[Stephan Krings]

Hello,

I've just got my hands on one of these card mentioned in the
subject. They're installed in the back of the lid of several Compaq
notebooks.

I thought these devices would be supported by the prism2_usb
module. The driver does in fact claim the device but initialization of
the device fails when enabling the card. Excerpt from my gentle
syslogd:

Jan 27 11:13:43 hotzenplotz kernel: hub.c: new USB device 02:0e.0-3, assigned address 4
Jan 27 11:13:43 hotzenplotz kernel: usb.c: USB device 4 (vend/prod 0x49f/0x76) is not claimed by any active driver.
Jan 27 11:13:46 hotzenplotz /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Setup prism2_usb for USB product 49f/76/0
Jan 27 11:13:46 hotzenplotz kernel: init_module: prism2_usb.o: 0.1.16-pre8 Loaded
Jan 27 11:13:46 hotzenplotz kernel: init_module: dev_info is: prism2_usb
Jan 27 11:13:46 hotzenplotz kernel: usb.c: registered new driver prism2_usb
Jan 27 11:13:46 hotzenplotz /etc/hotplug/usb.agent: Module setup prism2_usb for USB product 49f/76/0
Jan 27 11:13:46 hotzenplotz /etc/hotplug/net.agent: invoke ifup wlan0
Jan 27 11:13:48 hotzenplotz kernel: hfa384x_docmd: ctlx failure=RESP_TIMEOUT
Jan 27 11:13:48 hotzenplotz kernel: hfa384x_drvr_start: cmd_initialize() failed, result=-5
Jan 27 11:13:48 hotzenplotz kernel: prism2sta_ifstate: hfa384x_drvr_start() failed,result=-5
Jan 27 11:13:48 hotzenplotz kernel: hfa384x_usbin_callback: Fatal, failed to resubmit rx_urb. error=-12

While googling around I've found some hints, that this device is
actually not based on Intersil's prism chip but does in an Orinoco
chip with an USB interface. I had a look at the WinXP drivers for this
device and they seem to come from Agere.

So, some questions come up for me:

- Does anyone have reliable info on this device?

- If it's really Orinoco based, a driver must be written, because
  Linux support for Orinoco USB devices doesn't seem to exist.

- Is anyone working on such a driver? I'd like to help both by coding
  and testing. If this is not the case, could anyone give a rough
  sketch of what needs to be done to actually implement a driver for
  this device?

Kind regards,

Stephan