Intel 2100 wireless network card and latest Linux kernel

Contrary to what I had feared in my previous post where I was afraid that my wireless driver would stop working if I upgrade my kernel to 2.6.20 release as the driver I was using was not compatible with the kernel version. Gearing up my mind for the worst (recompiling the network card driver with a newer supported code) I decided that I have to upgrade the kernel because of the vulnerabilities and issues with the older kernel.

I shouldn't have worried. I upgraded the kernel fully expecting the wireless to stop working. However, wireless did not stop working and continued to hum on without any hiccups. I was as much surprised as I was happy to see that. I guess once the kernel is compiled, the wireless card driver adjusts itself to the new kernel. The reason why it was not working earlier was because I was trying to compile the driver in the newer kernel and that is why it was not working. So to get the wireless to work I had to roll back the kernel and then rebuild the driver binary.

There is a mismatch in the number of parameters that are initialized in the ipw2100.c file with that required by the new kernel. I checked the code in the newer version and they have corrected this mismatch. So if you try to compile the driver under the new kernel it does not generate any errors works perfectly.