Ipw3945

The most recent revision of the Intel Centrino platform utilizes a new generation of wireless networking device connected to the system via PCI-E, and not PCI (like the ipw2200-line used to do). Therefore, a new driver must be used. A Sourceforge project supporting the new cards is available at http://ipw3945.sourceforge.net/. As of February 26, 2008, the project's code (Stable Release 1.2.0) depends on a binary-only, proprietary user-space-daemon communicating with the driver via sysfs. It is not possible to operate this device with Free Software exclusively at the moment. The license-terms the daemon is released under prohibit reverse-engineering of the communication-protocol; this will hopefully not hold developers outside the US, where clauses like this one are not enforceable, from re-implementing a free variant of some sort.

External Discussion

This issue already sparked discussions on the Linux Kernel Mailing List.

There is also a very revealing interview with the author of the OpenBSD driver for the 3945, in which it comes out that Intel has lied (at least by omission) about the purpose of the "regulatory daemon".

History

The ipw2200-drivers in kernel 2.6.15 (and possibly later) do not work with this adapter. There is the stable binary driver ipw3945 that attracted its fair share of critics from the open source community. Now however there is a "development" version of iwlwifi. As of 2.6.23, this is natively supported in the kernel. Make sure that MAC80211 and IWL3945 kernel config options are either compiled as modules or built into the kernel.

Comments

ipw3945 works with http://ipw3945.sourceforge.net/ drivers. A Spanish summary, but easy to understand about how to install: esDebian Forum, maxim_o message (longer)

Thinkpad topic: on ThinkPads like the Z60 that have one. remember to put the wireless switch in the on state! But you will not be able to enable the Wireless LED with Fn+F5, it is not a problem.

One more comment: if you want monitor mode (e.g for use with Kismet or other network sniffers), you need to uncomment CONFIG_IPW3945_MONITOR=y line from ipw3945-1.1.0 Makefile.

Packages

• Fedora
  • Packages: http://www.atrpms.net/dist/fc5/ipw3945
  • Helpful Thread: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=436357
  • ATrpms yum repo rpm: http://atrpms.net/dist/common/atrpms/atrpms-67-1.at.noarch.rpm.html
  • NOTE: The T60p uses the smp kernel which the ipw3945 yum install does not provide. You will need the smp kernel for your architecture found at http://www.atrpms.net/dist/fc5/ipw3945. Remove the non-smp kernel and replace it with the appropriate smp kernel. Wireless works great for me... --Herlo 18:06, 22 June 2006 (CEST)
• CentOS
  • Packages: ipw3945d (i386 [1] or x86_64 [2]), ipw3945-firmware.noarch, dkms-ipw3945.noarch
  • NOTE: Add to /etc/modprobe.conf: alias eth1 ipw3945
• Mandriva
  • Mandriva's kernel comes with the ipw3945 module (since at least 2006.0 Update One)
  • dkms package (dkms-ipw3945) can be found in contrib (currenlty cooker only, thus will probably be in 2007.0)
  • Additional Packages: ipw3945d and ipw3945-ucode, both either available in the commercial distribution (or club) or from http://plf.zarb.org/
• Gentoo
  • The net-wireless/ipw3945 package contains everything you need
• Debian
  • Debian Unstable (Sid) only needs the package "firmware-iwlwifi", as the new iwl3945 is integrated into Kernel 2.6.24
  • The ipw3945 microcode is available in the firmware-ipw3945 package (currently in testing and unstable (same versions)).
  • The ipw3945 regulatory daemon is available in the ipw3945d package (currently in testing and unstable (same versions)).
  • The ipw3945 module source is available in the ipw3945-source package (currently in testing and unstable (same versions)).
  • DEPRECIATED: Unofficial packages are available from Russell Stuart, Stefan Lippers-Hollmann, and Joachim Reichel.
• OpenBSD
  • Supported with the wpi driver in 4.0.
• Ubuntu
  • Works out of the box in Ubuntu 7.10 but requires Restricted repository.
• ArchLinux
  • Wireless Setup for ArchLinux

See also

• Iwlwifi provides a newer, Open driver