Problem with wireless please help - problem scanning

[Arrowx7]

Hello,
I ran into a very annoying problem. I have a Sis900 wireless fast ethernet card. and when I run "iwlist scan" it says "Interface doesn't support scanning : Operation not supported". I know i am using iwlist scan on the right ethernet device, something is wrong.

Can anyone help?

Arrow

[Dolda2000]

It could be as simple as being that the driver that is used for your specific card doesn't support scanning. If that's the case, there's little to do other than wait for people to implement scanning in the driver, or look them up and nag them about it, or write it yourself, if you can.

[Arrowx7]

thanks bud,
Who would I talk to, who usually writes drivers?

[Dolda2000]

There's noone who "usually" writes drivers. More or less every driver has its own author. The authors are always noted in the kernel source code in the files that make up that driver.

What driver is it that you're using for your card? If you don't know, please post the output if the following command.

PATH=$PATH:/sbin lsmod

[Arrowx7]

Module                  Size  Used by
parport_pc             26629  0
lp                     12077  0
parport                37001  2 parport_pc,lp
autofs4                23493  0
sunrpc                156325  1
pcmcia                 20805  2
ipt_REJECT              6593  1
ipt_state               1857  5
ip_conntrack           40309  1 ipt_state
iptable_filter          3521  1
ip_tables              16321  3 ipt_REJECT,ipt_state,iptable_filter
dm_mod                 55637  0
video                  15813  0
button                  6609  0
battery                 9285  0
ac                      4805  0
sd_mod                 17216  0
md5                     4033  1
ipv6                  231681  8
usb_storage            61577  0
scsi_mod              121793  2 sd_mod,usb_storage
ohci1394               34777  0
ieee1394              300313  1 ohci1394
yenta_socket           19137  0
pcmcia_core            50945  2 pcmcia,yenta_socket
ohci_hcd               23765  0
ehci_hcd               32585  0
i2c_sis96x              5317  0
i2c_core               20801  1 i2c_sis96x
snd_intel8x0m          18309  2
snd_intel8x0           33249  2
snd_ac97_codec         67489  2 snd_intel8x0m,snd_intel8x0
snd_pcm_oss            47989  0
snd_mixer_oss          17089  3 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                93001  4 snd_intel8x0m,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              29125  1 snd_pcm
snd                    52645  11 snd_intel8x0m,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore              10017  3 snd
snd_page_alloc          9541  3 snd_intel8x0m,snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
orinoco_pci             7373  0
orinoco                45645  1 orinoco_pci
hermes                  7617  2 orinoco_pci,orinoco
sis900                 19013  0
ext3                  116297  2
jbd                    69977  1 ext3

Mod edit - added code tags

[Dolda2000]

I see you're using the "orinoco" driver for your card, which is strange, because orinoco normally supports scanning. It may still be that it doesn't support it for your specific card, of course.

There is a mailing list for the orinoco driver here. If you subscribe to it, you can ask the developers themselves. They probably know more about it than I do.

[Arrowx7]

Thanks a lot! You're great help!