Dell Truemobile 1400 (it works with the ndis driver, somewhat)

[Amar Takhar]

Hi, i've been playing with Bill's ndis driver, and have had sucess using my Dell
TrueMobile 1400 (a bcm4309 chip)

It's very basic, it works quite well and is stable, in ad hoc mode, no auth and
no WEP.

For anyone who wants to try, here are some loose instructions:

Get the latest kernel source (i'm actually running one from two weeks ago but
you need what's in cvs for the latest ndis)

Extract the driver using unzip

compile ndiscvt and install it, cd to the TMSetup dir in the directory where you
extracted the driver, run:

ndiscvt -i bcmwl5.inf -s bcmwl5.sys -o /usr/src/sys/modules/if_ndis/ndis_driver_data.h

cd /usr/src/sys/modules/ndis/

make && make install

cd /usr/src/sys/modules/if_ndis/

make && make install

kldload ndis
kldload if_ndis

I made a tiny sh script which contains:

sysctl hw.ndis0.EnableAutoConnect=1
ifconfig ndis0 up
sleep 1
sysctl hw.ndis0.WEP=0
ifconfig ndis0 up
sleep 1
sysctl hw.ndis0.NetworkType=1 
ifconfig ndis0 up
sleep 1
sysctl hw.ndis0.AuthMode=0
ifconfig ndis0 up
sleep 1
sysctl hw.ndis0.SSID=my_net
ifconfig ndis0 192.168.0.3
sleep 1
route delete default
route add default 192.168.0.1


Obviously change the ip / default gateway to your corrosponding ip address's, as
well as the SSID.

Your AP need to be in ad hoc mode, no auth and no WEP.

I've been using this for the better part of the day, it's extremely stable and
quick!

You'll see:

Dec 14 22:44:57 peach kernel: ndis0: <Dell TrueMobile 1400 Dual Band WLAN
Mini-PCI Card> mem 0xfaff6000-0xfaff7fff irq 11 at device 3.0 on pci2
Dec 14 22:44:57 peach kernel: ndis0: failed to enable port mapping!
Dec 14 22:44:57 peach kernel: ndis0: failed to enable port mapping!
Dec 14 22:44:57 peach kernel: can't re-use a leaf (RadioState)!
Dec 14 22:44:57 peach kernel: can't re-use a leaf (PowerSaveMode)!
Dec 14 22:44:57 peach kernel: can't re-use a leaf (PLCPHeader)!
<snip>
Dec 14 22:44:57 peach kernel: status: 4001000c
Dec 14 22:44:57 peach kernel: status complete
Dec 14 22:44:57 peach kernel: ndis0: Ethernet address: 00:90:4b:1c:32:64

Ignore the 'can't re-use a leaf' messages.

Now, after running that script, you'll get:

Dec 14 22:46:22 peach kernel: status: 4001000c
Dec 14 22:46:22 peach kernel: status complete
<snip>
Dec 14 22:46:23 peach kernel: status: 4001000b
Dec 14 22:46:23 peach kernel: status complete

The 4001000b means we've got a link, checking with ifconfig:

ndis0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        inet6 fe80::290:4bff:fe1c:3264%ndis0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5 
        inet 192.168.0.3 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
        ether 00:90:4b:1c:32:64
        media: Ethernet autoselect
        status: active


root at peach# ping 192.168.0.1
PING 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=1.533 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=1.311 ms


bingo!, and live is grand all of the sudden.

Yes, it looks like a network card, no, the full support for wireless isn't
there, so don't bug Bill.

Other bcm cards MIGHT work, I don't know, my bcm44xx driver for the built-in LAN
works fine, as well.

Other cards might, too, not sure, either way, this is just a fun experiment for
those of us who want to play around :)



Good luck!

Amar.


P.S. for those of you who are interested, the bcm driver chipsets are as
follows:

bcm44xx (ethernet)
bcm43xx (wireless)