[plug] Random crashes

[Michael]

> Hi, (sorry if I am hi-jacking this thread, but the information presented here 
> may be of some use)
>
> Please ignore everything I had mentioned above, as fate will have it, just 
> after that post I had my first crash again.
>
> I had found that the crash occurs every time I try and checkout some large 
> projects using subversion.
> I can get the crash to happen now when I want it. (tested a few checkout 
> attempts)
> Doing a checkout in console mode only:
>
> This allowed me to see the  kernel panic message:
>
> ieee80211_tx_status+0x12/0x120 [mac80211] SS:ESP 0068:f7c57e80
> Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt
>
> Who ha, network (wireless) related issue. Nothing close to my original 
> suspect of the GPU.
>
> Some more googling got me this bug report 
> (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-backports-modules-2.6.24/+bug/200142) 
> concerning debian hardy problems with rt61 wireless drivers.
>
> The solution (see the posts in the link above) is to either go to kernel 
> 2.6.25, or to use the linux-backports-modules.
> I installed (via aptitude) linux-backports-modules-hardy-rt, and I also had 
> to get the rt61 firmware from 
> http://ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Linux.html, and unzip it to 
> /lib/firmare/2.6.24-rt/
>
> I can now do the same subversion checkout without any crashes.
>
> Hopefully this can help someone else using the rt drivers in hardy.
>
> Lucas

In short, don't use them. The cards suck, and the drivers suck.

I tried a heap of cards going back a while under linux. Don't even bother 
looking at negear ones that require ndiswrapper drivers.. you'll end up 
with data corruption! (quite serious about that, the cards seem to do 
bad things to the PCI bus).

The best thing you can do (you'll thank yourself later) is to wack in an 
Atheros supported card like this one:

01:06.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212/AR5213 
Multiprotocol MAC/baseband processor (rev 01)
         Subsystem: Atheros Communications, Inc. EZ Connect g 802.11g 
108Mbps Wireless PCI Adapter
         Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 96, IRQ 16
         Memory at fdee0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
         Capabilities: <access denied>
         Kernel driver in use: ath_pci
         Kernel modules: ath_pci, ath5k


They're fully supported and rock solid.  You'll find them at any good PC 
retailer :) Just search for brands and models with Atheros chips here:

http://madwifi.org/wiki/Compatibility

Regards,

Michael