Atmel AT76C502A/AT76C503A Driver for Linux USB and PCMCIA Wireless Devices
The Berlios and Sourceforge drivers linked to below are both actively
maintained but are totally independant of each other. They work with 2.6.x
kernels. I am simply pointing to them so please email the respective
authors of the projects if you have any queries. The Old Binary Driver at
the bottom is redundant and is left (for now) for historical purposes.
Berlios Open Source Driver - Linux AT76C503 USB Driver
For alternative open source driver, see http://at76c503a.berlios.de . It is
distinct from the Sourceforge hosted driver listed below as it still supports Intersil
Prism
radios (3861/3863).
This driver has been written from scratch and is actively maintained.
Original Sourceforge Atmel Open Source Driver
Atmel have GPLed their Linux drivers for
the Atmel range of wireless MACs, including their USB, PCMCIA and PCI
chipsets. Have a look at: http://atmelwlandriver.sourceforge.net
Current Sourceforge driver releases only support RFMD
radios.
Intersil Prism radio support was removed at the end of 2002. Recent
additions have the new fangled WPA encrytion support.
See http://mckinney.co.nz/wireless/gpl-driver.html
for an example of installing and building the GPLed drivers.
Device Compatibility Table
This concise table has been developed to help clarify
device compatibility. I am no longer mantaining it... rather Joerg Albert
(one of the Alternative driver writers) is. Please email him about updates.
Mailing List
Join the Linux Atmel Wireless mailing list here.
FCC ID's
If your device has an FCC ID on it's label (it must do if the model is sold
in the USA) then you can look up some detailed information on it here. Enter the leading 3 letter
code only (eg MXF or PKW) and then match your device to the one in the table. To see
details and internal photos of the device click on the appropriate icon in
the "Display Exhibits" column.
Old Binary Driver
See the open sourced drivers above for the latest version. This
section is kept for historical reasons.
If you have an 802.11b USB device that won't work in Linux with the
Linux-Wlan Intersil Prism drivers, chances are you have a device with the
AT76C503A MAC or the AT76C502A MAC if you are using PCMCIA. See here for some details
about these chips.
Atmel kindly sent me their latest closed source driver for Linux to drive
the increasingly common AT76C503A based 802.11b USB wireless devices. They
suggest it supports the RFMD based radio best, it will work with Prism radios as well.
Please state the name, make and model of the USB device, USB ID, what radio you
selected (RFMD, Intersil 3861 or 3863), what Linux package you are using, kernel version, chipset (VIA,
Intel, SiS, AMD), UHCI or OHCI driver, CPU and any other information that might be helpful. I'll
tabulate here successful and unsuccessful reports.
If you are having troubles with your card or need to ask specific questions,
join the mailing list below. There are a few people there who have managed
to get USB and PCMCIA adapter to work now and the list will be the best
place to have your problems solved.
Atmel are letting me host the driver but in no way will they or I
provide any sort of support for the driver. It's been given to me with no
underwritten support, as I am not an OEM manufacturer. I am doing this a
service for the Linux community. I shall endeavour to keep the driver up to
date.
Download
Driver: USB & PCMCIA Driver Version 2.1.2.1 Dated 17 June 2002 ; x86
binary only. ~1.2MB
It seems some have had to modify the source to get the transmit queue to
work reliably. See the mailing list archive for these patches.
Reported Working
DLink DWL-120: vB2, FCCID MXF-WL280,
USB ID 03eB:7603, RedHat7.3, kernel 2.4.19-rc1,
module uhci.o, Gigabyte GA-7VTXE (Via KT266A), Athlon 1600+. User tried
this with kernel 2.4.18-3 and kernel paniced when installing vnetusba with
insmod. Succesfully connecting to an AP 5Km away with three 5m active USB
extender cables in between the adapter and PC. See here for details.
DLink DWL-120-A: USB ID 03eb:7603,
RFMD radio, Slackware 8.1 patched to 2.4.19-rc1, Dual PII-266 440bx
chipset(Asus P2l97-DS), modprobed uhci and then vnetusba. "Kernel paniced with 2.4.18 and will panic on 2.4.19rc1 if insmod
vnetusba too soon after uhci. Haven't tried with uhci built into kernel,
but works fine as module. Running with a second nic and dhcpd, named,
iptables no problems. Overall, extremely happy to wipe windows from a
perfectly good box. :-)"
Dynalink/Askey WLL013:
USB ID 069a:0321, RFMD radio, PIII-700 (in a notebook), SiS chipset, Debian (Woody), kernel 2.4.18, UHCI
and OHCI, USB firmware 0.90.1.46.
SMC 2632W V2: This AT76C502A based PCMCIA card works. See the thread
from the mailing list here
for details.
Linksys WUSB11 V2.6: FCC ID
PKW-WUSB11, USB ID 066b:2211. SUSE 8.0. More details soon.
Zyxel Zyair 200: USB ID 0cde:0001, 3861 radio, RH7.3 kernel 2.4.18-3
with UHCI, Slackware 8.1 kernel custom 2.4.18 with UHCI and USB-UHCI.
Compex WLU11A: USB ID 03eb:7603, 3861 radio, tested so
far in ad-hoc only - no WEP, Debian unstable kernel 2.4.18-686 (-5), Intel
PII on 440LX chipset mobo Supermicro P6SLS, UHCI (USB-UHCI fails), modified
the source to get tx queue started unconditionally, make sure adapter is
plugged in before loading vnetusba.
SMC 2632W V.2 Wireless PCMCIA Card on GNU/Linux
Here's a HOWTO on
getting these drivers working in a PCMCIA SMC2632W V2. Note that version 1
of this card uses the Linux-WLAN drivers.
Wireless Extensions
Ron Smits has been hacking away to get better Wireless Extensions support in the
driver. Grab the replacement vnetusba.c at his site. Read some other
remarks about it here.
Email: 
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Updated: 1 Dec 2003