Linux driver for PLX9052 based PCMCIA bridges ============================================= This is a Linux driver for PLX9052 based PCMCIA-to-PCI bridges commonly used in "PCI wireless cards" that have a PCMCIA wireless card inside. If you remove the card, the rest is a PCMCIA bridge that this driver is meant to support. It is possible to use the adapter with other cards. However, there are significant limitations stemming both from hardware and software problems. PLX9052 based bridges don't support variable voltage. Only 5V cards are supported. A 3.3V card may be damaged if you insert it into the socket. You have been warned! CardBus cards are also unsupported for hardware reasons. You are likely to damage them if you try to use them with a PLX9052 based bridge. Memory cards without CIS are not supported. There is no way to detect them. IDE cards don't work either for unknown reason. Only wireless cards and Merlin G201 GPRS cards are known to be supported at this point. Three drivers for Prism based wireless card (Orinoco, linux-wlan-ng and HostAP) already have support for wireless cards connected through the PLX9052 bridge, and you probably want to use them for now. This driver gives you an option to use PCMCIA drivers from those projects. Also, it is expected that non-prism based wireless cards would work with this driver, as well as most network cards. Well, at least when we get the wait states right. This driver can be compiled for Linux PCMCIA in the recent 2.4.x and 2.5.x kernels, as well as for the drivers in the pcmcia-cs package. In any case, the driver should be copied to the source tree and the corresponding patches should be applied to the tree. Installation ------------ Standalone build: Run "make", become root and run "make install". You may need to specify PCMCIA_PATH and KERNEL_PATH on the "make" command line. For kernel PCMCIA: Rename plx9052-24.c (for 2.4 kernels) or plx9052-25.c (for 2.5 kernels) to plx9052.c and copy it to the drivers/pcmcia/ directory in the Linux kernel tree. Patch the kernel sources. Enable the driver during kernel configuration. Compile the kernel and install it. Reboot. For pcmcia-cs: Rename plx9052-24.c to plx9052.c and copy it to the modules/ directory in the pcmcia-cs source tree. Patch the pcmcia-cs sources. Recompile the sources. Run "make install". Reload all PCMCIA modules or reboot. If the driver was compiled as module, make sure that it's loaded before the "ds" module by adding following line to /etc/modules.conf: below ds plx9052 There are also other ways to load the module automatically. In Red Hat Linux you can set PCIC=plx9052 in /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia.