[wplug] How does Debian connect devices to modules?

[Rick Reynolds]

Rick Reynolds wrote:

> My laptop has a wireless and a wired interface.  I think I'm using 
> eth1394 as the module for the wired interface (eth0) and I know I'm 
> using prism54 for the wireless (eth1).
>
> Where or how does Debian map the device to the module?  How does it 
> know to connect eth0 to eth1394 and eth1 to prism54?
>
> I ask because I've just upgraded to Etch and also took the opportunity 
> to try a few things that involved a recompile of the kernel.  Now for 
> some reason, wireless doesn't work unless I'm in the port replicator 
> (docked).  When undocked, I do an lsmod and I see the prism54 module 
> loaded, but when I run iwconfig it reports no wireless extensions for 
> eth1.  I have no idea why it is working when docked.


Ok, here's an update of some weirdness.  I have my laptop out of the 
dock (using a physical wire to connect to the network on eth0), and I 
run iwconfig:

gish Sat 8:30pm [~] (1) /sbin/iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

eth2      no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.


I run software suspend (the reason I had been tinkering with the kernel 
in the first place), let the laptop come back after the suspend and the 
wireless interface is working again:

gish Sat 8:33pm [~] (3) /sbin/iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11b/g  ESSID:"Reynolds"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
          Bit Rate:24 Mb/s   Tx-Power=31 dBm   Sensitivity=20/200
          Retry min limit:8   RTS thr:2347 B   Fragment thr:2346 B
          Link Quality=8/0  Signal level=-70 dBm  Noise level=-149 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

eth2      no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.


Again, no idea how to understand this.  I feel like I need to understand 
the relationship between kernel modules and actual devices to better 
know how to debug these kinds of situations.

<time passes a bit>

Ugh.  The wireless seems to have gone out again.  I haven't done 
anything that I know of having to do with networking.

gish Sat 8:43pm [~] (5) /sbin/iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

eth2      no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.


Thanks for any help.
Rick Reynolds
-- 
 Proper treatment will cure a cold in seven days, but left to itself, a 
cold will hang on for a week. -- Darrell Huff