Re: orinoco vs hostap

["Brian Millett" <bmillett gmail com>]

On 2/17/06, Mitch Smith <mitch rzootoo com> wrote:

I'm still experimenting with NetworkManager (it has been a rather spotty
effort as I am moving this month) and have noticed a curiosity that
doesn't seem to have drawn any other comments when I search the list
archives.

I've got an IBM T-21 laptop with a Netgear MA401RA card.
2.6.15-1.1831_FC4 is used. While this card works with the orinoco
drivers, I've found I get much better results with the hostap drivers.

However, I've noticed that NetworkManager seems to use the orinoco
modules. NM seems to ignore any settings that I've configured in the
system-config-network. Is there a way to force NM to use the hostap
modules? I'm not sure I understand where NM picks up the network
configuration it uses. Any comments or help?

Well, what I did to keep the orinoco module from getting loaded is to add the modules to the
/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

blacklist    hermes
blacklist    orinoco
blacklist    orinoco_pci
blacklist    orinoco_cs
blacklist    orinoco_plx

Then in the /etc/modprobe.conf I have

alias wlan0 hostap_pci

Now I'm not sure if this is the best, but I was getting conflict using the hostap drivers because the orinoco kept
being loaded.  The blacklist file I guess is a brute force slap to the kernel to not load it.