Hermes USB devices (orinoco_usb)

This page describes how to enable support for WiFi devices based on the Hermes chipset - using a USB interface - on Debian systems.

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The Orinoco USB driver is a fork of the [:orinoco:Orinoco] driver, specificially supporting early-model (aka "variant 1", "old variant") ORiNOCO USB wireless LAN devices. [#supported Supported devices] are listed at the end of this page.

These devices are essentially adapters. Internally, they consist of a PCMCIA (PC Card) device with a Lucent/Agere Hermes chipset, connected by a PCMCIA-to-USB ("EZUSB") bridge to the host system.

Firmware for the EZUSB bridge is required to be installed, which can be extracted from the relevant Windows XP driver using a utility script.

Installation

The Orinoco USB driver is not included in the mainline Linux kernel. It is required to be acquired from the Orinoco driver's "usb" subversion branch and compiled on your system.

1. Install the build-essential, relevant linux-headers, subversion, unzip, wget and wireless-tools packages:

   $ su
   # aptitude update
   # aptitude install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r) subversion unzip wget wireless-tools
   # exit

2. Checkout the usb branch of the Orinoco driver:

   $ svn co https://orinoco.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/orinoco/branches/usb orinoco_usb

3. Compile the driver:

   $ cd orinoco_usb
   $ make

4. Manually install the kernel modules:

   $ su
   # mkdir -p /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/updates/orinoco/drivers/net/wireless
   # cp orinoco.ko orinoco_usb.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/updates/orinoco/drivers/net/wireless
   # depmod -a -F /boot/System.map-$(uname -r) $(uname -r)
   # exit

5. Acquire and install the EZUSB bridge firmware:

   $ cd firmware
   $ ./get_ezusb_fw
   $ su
   # mv orinoco_ezusb_fw /lib/firmware

6. Load the orinoco_usb module:

   $ su
   # modprobe orinoco_usb

   This module will be automatically loaded when your system is restarted and the device is connected. If not already performed, connect the device to your system.

7. Verify your device has an available interface:

   # iwconfig

8. Raise the interface to activate the radio, for example:

   # ifconfig eth1 up

9. [:WiFi/HowToUse:Configure] your interface as appropriate.

Troubleshooting

• Examine the kernel ring buffer (dmesg) to verify the EZUSB bridge firmware is being loaded by the driver. If this is not available, no wireless interface will be created.

  • Ensure the firmware is installed, then reinsert the kernel module: modprobe -r orinoco_usb && modprobe orinoco_usb

Known Issues

• This driver currently does not support ["WPA"] or Hermes II chipsets. Master mode operation is not available.
• Installation of this driver will conflict with symbols used by the kernel-supplied ["orinoco"] driver, preventing the use of devices it would normally support.

Other Notes

PC Card devices containing an Intersil Prism 2 or 2.5 chipset can alternatively be used in the EZUSB bridge. An exception to this is high-powered devices (100/200 mW) as the adapter's USB voltage is insufficient.

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Supported Devices

The page ["HowToIdentifyADevice/USB"] explains how to identify a USB device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of  orinoco_usb on Lenny.

• USB: 0411:0006 MelCo., Inc. WLI-USB-L11 Wireless LAN Adapter
  USB: 0411:000B MelCo., Inc. WLI-USB-L11G-WR Wireless LAN Adapter
  USB: 0411:000D MelCo., Inc. WLI-USB-L11G Wireless LAN Adapter
  USB: 047E:0300 Agere Systems, Inc. (Lucent) ORiNOCO Card
  USB: 049F:001F Compaq Computer Corp. WL215 Adapter
  USB: 049F:0076 Compaq Computer Corp. Wireless LAN MultiPort W200
  USB: 049F:0082 Compaq Computer Corp. (Device name unknown)
  USB: 04E8:5002 Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd YP-30
  USB: 04E8:5B11 Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd SEW-2001u Card
  USB: 04E8:7011 Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd SEW-2003U Card
  USB: 05CC:3100 ELSA AG AirLancer USB-11
  USB: 0681:0012 Siemens Information and Communication Products I-Gate 802.11b Adapter
  USB: 0BF8:1002 Fujitsu Siemens Computers (Device name unknown)
  USB: 0D4E:047A Agere Systems Netherland BV WLAN Card
  USB: 0D4E:1000 Agere Systems Netherland BV Wireless Card Model 0801
  USB: 0D4E:1001 Agere Systems Netherland BV Wireless Card Model 0802
  USB: 0D98:0300 Mars Semiconductor Corp. Avaya Wireless Card
  USB: 0D9E:0300 Avaya Wireless Card
  USB: 0E7C:0300 (Vendor name unknown) (Device name unknown)
  USB: 1630:FF81 (Vendor name unknown) (Device name unknown)

Unsupported