iwp2200 wireless firmware not loading

[kevinfish]

I have a Dell XPS m140 laptop that refuses to load the IWP2200 firmware for it's built in wireless.

my dmesg|grep 2200 returns:
ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.2.2kmprq
ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
ipw2200 0000:02:03.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
eth1 (ipw2200): not using net_device_ops yet
ipw2200 0000:02:03.0: firmware: requesting ipw2200-bss.fw
ipw2200: ipw2200-bss.fw request_firmware failed: Reason -2
ipw2200: Unable to load firmware: -2
ipw2200: failed to register network device
ipw2200 0000:02:03.0: PCI INT A disabled
ipw2200: probe of 0000:02:03.0 failed with error -5

After looking around on the net it said I was missing the files in /lib/firmware.  I could not find these files anywhere on my system even after installing every package that mentioned firmware so I downloaded them from http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/firmware.php and put them in myself.  Still no joy.

At another (ubuntu) thread I found that if one unloads the module (rmmod ipw2200) and reloads it (modprobe ipw2200) for some people it works.  Well, I did and then I could see my wireless interface with iwconfig and ifconfig but I could not actually get it working (which may be my own ignorance on how to configure it with tc.  I tried the netcard setup dialog on it but it never worked).  Anyway, it works fine with my gentoo minimal install cd and now on my gentoo hard disk install (after hand copying over the firmware files to it).

TC also errors out loading the firmware on every reboot and I have to unload and reload the module to see the interface.

I'd like to use tinycore on this notebook but it looks like I'll have to generate a minimal gentoo instead if I don't get this figured out soon!

-Kevin

[Jason W]

I also use ipw2200 and it works fine with my firmware. 

I have a gateway with centrino wireless myself. 

I made it into an extension named aaa_ipw2200.tcz so it would get loaded first before any other module extensions.  With it loaded as an extension at boot, and therefore modprobed, I then:

iwconfig eth1 essid "my_ess_id"
udhcpc -i eth1   


and all is well.

[kevinfish]

after unloading and reloading the ipw2200 module and doing your iwconfig, etc.. commands my wireless is now working!

I'm pretty much lost at how to create the tce tho.  Would I be putting the firmware in there (as it is still popping the error on boot) or would it be the ipw2200 module (or both)?  If it was the first part loaded of the tce's that means it would be loaded before the system tries to bring up the network and bringing up the network is before mydata.tgz is restored?

(btw, I put the rrmod, modprobe, and your commands it bootlocal.sh and it comes up with wifi working but I still get the boot error about the firmware)