Slackware 8.1 – Hermes Configuration

By Russ Rogers – July 25th, 2002

Instructions for getting the Orinoco drivers updated under SlackWare 8.1 for monitor mode. There is NO warranty or implied reliability statement with this HOWTO. You use this at your own risk. I’m simply documenting a process that has worked for me several times.

1) First off you’ll need to recompile the kernel to ensure that module version checking is turned off.
      a. cd /usr/src/linux
      b. make config
      c. make bzImage
      d. cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz--
2) Now we’ll need to edit the lilo.conf file to include the new kernel. We will NOT be replacing the old kernel, just in case there are problems booting off the new kernel.
      a. vi /etc/lilo.conf
      b. Add the following lines under the END comment for your current kernel:
            i. image = /boot/vmlinuz--
            ii. root=/dev/hdaX (ours is /dev/hda3)
            iii. label=Linux2
            iv. read-only
      c. lilo
      d. reboot
3) For Slackware 8.1, you need AT LEAST pcmcia card services version 3.1.33 or higher. We’ll use 3.1.34 for this process.
      a. Download the pcmcia-3.1.34.tar.gz from airsnort.shmoo.com
      b. Download the pcmcia-3.1.34.diff file from airsnort.shmoo.com
      c. tar –xzvf pcmcia-3.1.34.tar.gz
      d. cd pcmcia-3.1.34/
      e. make config
      f. make all
      g. make install
      h. cd ..
      i. patch –p0 < pcmcia-3.1.34.diff
      j. cd /pcmcia-3.1.34/
      k. cd wireless
      l. make all
4) Now you’ve installed the new version of PCMCIA card services. When you do that, it DOES NOT automatically MAKE or INSTALL the drivers in the $wireless/ directory. That’s why we patched the drivers then manually did a MAKE in that directory. Now we need to copy the new driver files to their proper locations. If you miss one of these two locations, this installation WILL NOT work.
      a. Make sure you’re in the pcmcia-3.1.34/wireless/ directory
      b. cp ./*.o /lib/modules/2.4.18/pcmcia/
      c. cp ./*.o /lib/modules/2.4.18/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/
      d. reboot
5) At this point you should be able to plug your Orinoco card into the pcmcia slot as Linux is coming up. Occasionally, the boot up process stalls out when trying to configure PCI. Not sure why. Just hard power off and boot back in.
6) Verify that the installation worked and then install Kismet and Airsnort