I bought a used Fujitsu-Siemens PCMCIA wireless card that i found very cheap 150 DH (about 15 euro) , After a googling I learn it use PrismGT a good Linux supported chipset .

but, i spent a lot of time to install it on my Debian sid/lenny x86_64 box :s

the problem is when i plug the card the ‘iwconfig’ give to me a ‘NOT READY’ :

root@PinGoo:[~]# iwconfig

eth4 NOT READY! ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=31 dBm Sensitivity=0/200
Retry short limit:0 RTS thr=0 B Fragment thr=0 B
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

the lspci give to me :

zskdan@PinGoo:[~]$ lspci

….blah….

08:00.0 Network controller: Intersil Corporation ISL3890 [Prism GT/Prism Duette]/ISL3886 [Prism Javelin/Prism Xbow] (rev 01)

and the lsmod revelead that debian had loaded the prism54 driver:

root@PinGoo:[~]# lsmod | grep prism
prism54 61064 0
firmware_class 15360 2 prism54,pcmcia

After a lot of googling i found that is was a firmware related problem.

cause the kernel could not load the firmware.

so i downloaded the prism54 from http://prism54.org/firmware/1.0.4.3.arm