[arachne] Re: Arachne and wifi

Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

Hi list, 

finally I am online with the Avaya PCMCIA Wi-Fi card.
After all, it seemed to by a hardware problem.

Having failed on my rather high-end Acer TM529 ATXV laptop (Intel
Pentium IIIE), I tried the same configuration on an older Ascentia J
laptop (Pentium I). I realized, that the PCMCIA enabler could
not load on that machine. Fortunately there is a software patch for
this problem available at the Intel website. The documentation says:

   The files 6729_3E0.SYS (written by Cirrus Logic) and IRQ11OFF.COM
   (from AST) allow the 16-bit Real Mode drivers for Xircom PCMCIA
   products to load on computers with the Cirrus Logic 6729 and 6730
   PCMCIA controller chip sets. 6729_3E0.SYS and/or IRQ11OFF.COM are
   required to free resources on the computer for the Xircom PCMCIA
   adapter to use.


So I changed the configuration from 

        config.sys: ------------------------------
        DEVICE=WVLANCAD.SYS /i=10 /b=300 /m=dF00

        autoexec.bat: ---------------------------
        WVLAN42 l

to: 

        config.sys: ------------------------------
        DEVICE=6729_3E0.SYS
        DEVICE=WVLANCAD.SYS /i=10 /b=300 /m=dF00

        autoexec.bat: ---------------------------
        IRQ11OFF.COM
        WVLAN42 l


Then, not only the packet drivers loaded, but also everything
else worked. Both settings Bootp or static IP in Arachne.cfg 
turned out to be possible. 

When I inserted BOOTP into arachne.cfg or wattp.cfg, it took Arachne
considerable time to get connected (similar to the time until I get a
feedback from DHCP server in Linux). And as Arachne seems to renew
the connection rather often this is quite annoying.

The alternative is to insert the IP address that I used to receive
from the DHCP server. In that case Arachne becomes quite fast. But
not as fast as the Linux browsers - I will do some tests with the
Links browser in DOS Links next. The problem is that I may not
always know my exact IP, the number varies if one of our neighbours
is connected to the wireless LAN before I log in. 

The configuration through IP address will probably work only after I
have at least once run dhcp (with Arachne or simply by pinging the
name server). A workaround for this could be similar to the dial-up
connection: after receiving a dynamic address from the dhcp server, 
wattcp.cfg could be overwritten with the IP number replacing 
bootp/dhcp. May be I can do this externally with the help of 
of tcpinfo.exe. 

Christof

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Prokopova 4/216, 130 00 Praha  3, Czech Republic
Tel. (+420) 222 78 06 73 / 222 78 20 02 / 603 18 87 53
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                  Arachne at FreeLists                  
-- Arachne, The Premier GPL Web Browser/Suite for DOS --

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