wireless card stops working after installing pcmciautils on 2.6.12

More info:
After upgrading pcmciautils the first time, the service would fail to start. I don't remember seeing a related error message in /var/log/messages.

I was running linux-image-2.6.12-?-386, and pcmciautils version 012-1 (sorry, I've reinstalled since then so don't know the exact versions).

There is no need for such a dependency, and it would be actively harmful (not everyone uses a packaged kernel). pcmciautils silently does nothing on older kernels.

Could you please describe your problem in more detail, without specifying a solution in advance? :-) 'cardctl ident', 'lspci', and 'lspci -n' output would be useful. Thanks.

Output of cardctl command. `cardctl ident` didn't profivde much information, so I ran it with some other options too. The output is the same under linux 2.6.12 and 2.6.15.

lspci run with a few different options.

This varies slightly from the output under 2.6.15, although the wireless PCMCIA card is still listed. Only `lspci -vv` is included in this file.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound forceful - I just thought a suggestion would be useful. I intended to add those attachments with my last post but didn't have access to the laptop at the time.

My laptop is an old Sony Vaio (PCG-505TX). The wireless card is a Minitar MN54GCB-R with a Ralink chipset.

The network I'm connecting to uses WPA. I've installed wpasupplicant, but I don't think I'm using it - I'm specifying the extra settings for the card with iwpriv.

When running linux 2.6.15 and pcmciautils 012-1ubuntu4 it works fine. When running linux 2.6.12, pcmciautils fails to start, saying:
* Starting PCMCIA services... [fail]

lspci shows that the card is connected, though it differs slightly between 2.6.12 and 2.6.15. Attempts to bring up the interface fail:
$sudo ifup ra0
SIOCSIFADDR: No such device
ra0:ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
SIOCSIFNETMASK: No such device
ra0:ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
Failed to bring up ra0.

Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Cheers,
Alex

Seems to me you had given all the requested information and the bug was forgotten in 'Incomplete' state.
I will keep it as 'Incomplete' however, because I am asking you:
Does this problem still happens with a more recent version?
Ideally, should be tried with Gutsy Tribe-2, for which you can have more info at:
http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/tribe2

Hi, thanks for following this up. Sadly I don't have access to that laptop any more, so I'm unable to verify.

Is it possible to install a kernel << 2.6.15 on Gusty? I think this bug was pretty specific to the upgrade from Breezy.

Probably what you are suggesting can be done with:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebootstrapChroot (to 'simulate' an environment in an other)
but I am not personally much used with that.

Changing state from 'Incomplete to 'Confirmed', letting developers what to do.

Since I can't reproduce this any more, can we change the status to 'needs info' so the bug will auto expire if no one else has the same problem?

Thank you for your bug report. Kernel 2.6.12 is EOL in Ubuntu. Can you retry with a supported Ubuntu version?

Hi Thomas, Thanks for responding. I don't have access to that laptop any more, nor even one with a PCMCIA slot. Can we just let this bug expire?

Yes, thank you for your reply.

[Expired for pcmciautils (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]