[Wlug] Getting the Edimax ew-7108pcg working on Xubuntu 6.06 LTS

[John Stoffel]

Adam>   I found this card on newegg.com for cheap money and the
Adam> company claimed Linux support, so I got it.  So far, I have it
Adam> working on a WEP test network, but the driver package does come
Adam> with WPA-supplicant bits.  I assume that works as well.  Folks
Adam> online claim it works out of the box on Ubuntu 7.10, but my
Adam> laptop didn't do well with the newer Xubuntus, so I had to make
Adam> do.  

Can you give more details on the laptop?  And what kinds of issues you
had with Ubuntu 7.x as well?  I figure that might be the better
solution here....

Adam> Note, out-of-the-box, the rt61 driver provided by Xubuntu 6.06
Adam> LTS throws a stack trace and can wedge your system.  I found
Adam> that you need to build the company's rt61 driver.

Adam> Here was my procedure for 6.06 LTS:

Adam> 1) Install gcc and friends,if you haven't already.
Adam> 2) Update to the latest kernel packages.
Adam> 3) Install the linux-header packages for your platform (I used the 386
Adam> packages).
Adam> 4) Download the driver zip for the ew-7108pcg from the Edimax
Adam> website's support area, unpack it, and the unpack the tar ball inside.
Adam> 5) cd into the IS_Linux_STA_6x_D_1.1.1.0 directory
Adam> 6) run make
Adam> 7) Ignore all the compiler warnings ;)
Adam> 9) run sudo make install
Adam> 10) Add "alias ra0 rt61" to /etc/modules.conf or into your preferred
Adam> location in /etc/modules.d if it wasn't automatically added.
Adam> 11) Add correct bits to /etc/network/interfaces

Adam> So, that being said (I am typing this email via the card now):

Adam> 1) On boot, the card comes up, but does not go online.  Ifconfig has
Adam> configured the interface, but iwconfig shows no essid or key
Adam> configured.

Adam> 2) I opened the Applications->System->Networking tool.  The tool shows
Adam> the interface as active.  I can "activate/deactivate", but likewise
Adam> iwconfig shows no configuration.

Adam> I can only bring the interface up via running "sudo ifup ra0".  My
Adam> wife's probably not going to go for that ;).

Adam> Does anyone have any ideas about what plumbing I am missing to
Adam> get automatic configuration?

Sounds like you need to look in /etc/network/interfaces and make sure
you've got stuff setup properly in there.  But I'm guessing a bit
since I don't run wireless on my debian box.  

What's the output of 'cat /etc/network/run/ifstate' before and after
the 'ifup ra0 ' command?  

John