Cisco Aironet MPI350: dualboot

Duane Winner duanewinner at att.net
Fri Jan 30 20:19:51 PST 2004


Hello again,

My issue of the day is the Cisco aironet mini-pci wireless adapter
(mpi350) on my T30. I've known for some time from other folks (both in
FreeBSD and Linux) that you MUST downgrade the firmware to the earliest
version (5.003). This is true, and once I've done this, it has always
worked for me. On FreeBSD 4.9-release, it works like a champ.

But now, unfortunately, I'm in a situation where I need to configure
some laptops with dualboot (XP & FreeBSD). I think what I've discovered
is that while the old firmware must be used for FreeBSD/Linux, the cisco
adapter won't work under XP unless the firmware is upgraded, thus I
think I'm looking at a conflict of interests here. 
(summary: it seems that if I upgrade the firmware to the latest version,
wireless in xp will work, but when I activate 'an0' in freebsd and run
dhclient, my t30 seizes. Conversely, if i downgrade the firmware,
freebsd works, but then XP can't negotiate a dhcp address.)

I wouldn't dare ask anybody here an XP question. I'm just looking for
independent confirmation of what I've found.

Has anybody run into the same issue and found the same thing?
If so, then I'll know what I'm up against and can think about some
options. If you tell me that you've been able to get both XP and FreeBSD
to dual-boot and coexist with the same aironet firmware, then I'll
assume that I'm doing something stupid.

Thanks,
DW



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