ACC SHELL

Installing firmware for wireless LAN cards
==========================================

Some cards need a software to be loaded into by the driver before they
can be used. This so called firmware is usually released under
restrictive licences so it can not be distributed with SUSE Linux.

Which cards are affected
------------------------

- Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 (11 MBit, 802.11b, aka Centrino)
- Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG (54 MBit, 802.11b/g, aka Centrino)
- Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG (54 MBit, 802.11a/b/g, aka Centrino)
- cards using PrismGT chip (54 MBit, 802.11g)
- cards using ACX100/111 chip (22/54 MBit, Texas Instruments)
- cards or USB adapters using Atmel chips (11 MBit, 802.11b)
- USB adapters using ZyDAS ZD1201 chip (11 Mbit, 802.11b)


Where to get the firmware
-------------------------

For some drivers we are allowed to ship the Firmware with SUSE Linux,
so you just need to install the apropriate package. That is the case
for Intel PRO/Wireless 2100/2200/2915 (Centrino), package
'ipw-firmware', for Atmel based adapters, package 'atmel-firmware', and
package 'zd1201-firmware' for Zydas ZD1201 based adapters.
These packages are part of the "Mobile Computing" selection, so if you
did install this selection, you will already have the firmware on
your system. If not, YaST should detect that and installs the firmware
for you, if available.

For other cards you can download the firmware files using YaST Online
Update. In case the YaST patches do not work (eg. because the
URL is not valid anymore), you can also download and install the
firmware binaries manually.

For PrismGT cards you can usually download the firmware from the web
page of the vendor of your card, it's most probably included in the
driver package. Download such a package or have a look at the vendor
supplied CD. The firmware image file usually has a '.arm' suffix. Copy
it to '/lib/firmware/isl3980'.

The approach for ACX100 based cards is similar to the PrismGT one.
You can download a vendor driver package or use the driver CD.
The needed firmware files are usually called 'WLANGEN.bin',
'RADIO0d.BIN', and 'RADIO11.BIN'. Copy them to
'/lib/firmware', and make sure to rename 'WLANGEN.bin' to
'WLANGEN.BIN'. For ACX111 the files are probably named 'FwRad16.bin'
and 'FwRad17.bin' or similar.