No WIFI on Dell Latitude d505

[iwan]

Hello,

I just installed OpenWrt (18.06.5) on an old Dell Latitude d505.
When booting the Latest Linux Mint Distro(19.2 XFCE 32bits), the WIFI adapter is directly activated and running.
a lspci shows:
01:03.0 Network Controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter (rev 04)

iwconfig displays:

_wlp1s3    IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"MyAP" Nickname:"ipw2100"
Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Mac Address
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s Tx-Power:16 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:on
Link Quality=922/100 Signal level=-66 dBm_

On OpenWRT, here are the latest lines of dmesg:

[    6.209552] kmodloader: loading kernel modules from /etc/modules.d/*
[    6.213396] natsemi dp8381x driver, version 2.1, Sept 11, 2006
[    6.213396]   originally by Donald Becker <becker@scyld.com>
[    6.213396]   2.4.x kernel port by Jeff Garzik, Tjeerd Mulder
[    6.222541] e1000: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - version 7.3.21-k8-NAPI
[    6.225212] e1000: Copyright (c) 1999-2006 Intel Corporation.
[    6.229421] ip6_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
[    6.233725] 8139too: 8139too Fast Ethernet driver 0.9.28
[    6.241569] Loading modules backported from Linux version wt-2017-11-01-0-gfe248fc2c180
[    6.244221] Backport generated by backports.git v4.14-rc2-1-31-g86cf0e5d
[    6.247306] e100: Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Driver, 3.5.24-k2-NAPI
[    6.249903] e100: Copyright(c) 1999-2006 Intel Corporation
[    6.252875] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] enabled at IRQ 11
[    6.278079] e100 0000:01:08.0 eth0: addr 0xfcffd000, irq 11, MAC addr 00:12:3f:05:88:8b
[    6.281927] ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
[    6.287099] ne2k-pci.c:v1.03 9/22/2003 D. Becker/P. Gortmaker
[    6.291112] nf_conntrack version 0.5.0 (16384 buckets, 65536 max)
[    6.300870] pcnet32: pcnet32.c:v1.35 21.Apr.2008 tsbogend@alpha.franken.de
[    6.305123] sis900.c: v1.08.10 Apr. 2 2006
[    6.308260] via_rhine: v1.10-LK1.5.1 2010-10-09 Written by Donald Becker
[    6.317652] xt_time: kernel timezone is -0000
[    6.336869] PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
[    6.340421] NET: Registered protocol family 24
[    6.344381] usbcore: registered new interface driver rtl8xxxu
[    6.347669] kmodloader: done loading kernel modules from /etc/modules.d/*
[    7.301609] br-lan: port 1(eth0) entered blocking state
[    7.304139] br-lan: port 1(eth0) entered disabled state
[    7.306708] device eth0 entered promiscuous mode
[    7.310169] e100 0000:01:08.0 eth0: NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full Duplex
[    7.314478] br-lan: port 1(eth0) entered blocking state
[    7.316907] br-lan: port 1(eth0) entered forwarding state
[    7.319319] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): br-lan: link is not ready
[    8.320261] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): br-lan: link becomes ready
[   35.680679] random: crng init done
[   35.686540] random: 1 urandom warning(s) missed due to ratelimiting

How can I use activate, enable, use this WIFI device on OpenWRT ?

Thank you for your help

[slh]

You need to install kmod-ipw2100, but be aware that this chipset doesn't support AP mode.

[iwan]

Thank you for your quick reply...

@slh

You need to install kmod-ipw2100 , but be aware that this chipset doesn't support AP mode.

I tried:

root@OpenWrt:~# opkg install kmod-ipw2100
Unknown package 'kmod-ipw2100'.
Collected errors:
 * opkg_install_cmd: **Cannot install package kmod-ipw2100.**

How can I install this package ?

[slh]

You probably haven't updated the repo index before:

opkg update && opkg install kmod-ipw2100

[iwan]

Indeed, you are right. I thought I made the update...

Package installed. Thank you.

[    6.374520] ipw2100: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Driver, git-1.2.2
[    6.377051] ipw2100: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
[    6.379974] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] enabled at IRQ 7
[    6.382526] PCI: setting IRQ 7 as level-triggered
[    6.382750] ipw2100: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Connection
[    6.761544] kmodloader: done loading kernel modules from /etc/modules.d/*
[    7.681521] br-lan: port 1(eth0) entered blocking state
[    7.684023] br-lan: port 1(eth0) entered disabled state
[    7.686594] device eth0 entered promiscuous mode
[    7.690165] e100 0000:01:08.0 eth0: NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full Duplex
[    7.696014] br-lan: port 1(eth0) entered blocking state
[    7.698566] br-lan: port 1(eth0) entered forwarding state
[    7.701130] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): br-lan: link is not ready
[    8.720161] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): br-lan: link becomes ready
[   41.320180] random: crng init done
[   41.326387] random: 1 urandom warning(s) missed due to ratelimiting
[  208.746825] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1: link is not ready

What smart usage of this device can I consider ?

[slh]

I don't think it'll be overly useful with OpenWrt, as it only comes with a single ethernet card and (non-AP capable) 11 MBit/s wlan[0] - imho it's still more useful as an ordinary notebook, perhaps running a slimmed down desktop (linux-) distribution.

--
[0] the existence of a 802.11b station in range already has bad consequences for the throughput of your whole network, so running it longer term isn't really sensible; this isn't much of a problem for a 'notebook'/ client you're only running while you need that particular device, but worse for an always-on networking device.

[mk24]

Single 10/100 ethernet port and b wireless that only works in client mode, there really isn't much networking potential there.

[iwan]

@slh @mk24
Thank you for your feedback.

Indeed, that hardware won't be such a wonderful Access Point.

I'm not sure I'll be able to easily find a usage for this old laptop.