ATTENTION:  I'm not actively maintaining the patch or docs anymore for a
 various set of reasons (the cards are old, less common now, and trying to
 maintain a patch for every point-release and distro-modified kernel ceased to
 make sense.  The docs are left here as pointers for the curious.
 http://www.projectiwear.org/~plasmahh/orinoco.html
 is an alternate set of patches which may be more up to date.
 
 Linux Orinoco RFMon 2.6 Kernel HOWTO
 Mike Kershaw
 dragorn@kismetwireless.net
 August 17 2004

 1.  Introduction

 The 2.6.x kernel series includes the Orinoco 0.13 driver chain.  These drivers
 do not contain monitor mode internally, but fortunately they're the same code
 base as the 2.4.x 0.13e standlone driver package, which means the same diffs
 can be applied.

 2.  Who this is for

 This HOWTO is for users of the 2.6.x kernel tree who want to get Orinoco
 cards working with monitor mode.

 This is NOT for users of the 2.4.x kernel tree (use orinoco_cs 0.13e) or for
 users of other wireless cards.

 3.  Fetching what you need

 3.1 Getting the Kernel

 Firstly, you need the kernel source.  If you are running a distribution with
 strong packaging or custom kernels (such as Redhat, SuSE, etc) you will 
 probably want to get the source package for your distribution.

 Users who wish to roll their own kernel or who use vanilla kernel sources can
 download the source from kernel.org:
    ftp://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/

 3.2 Unpacking the source

 If you use a source package from your distribution, simply install it.  The
 kernel source should be in /usr/src/linux-<version>.

 If you are unpacking a vanilla kernel, simply untar it to /usr/src/.

 3.3 Getting the Patches

 There are several patches which could be applied, however (currently) the most
 up-to-date patches are on the Kismet download page:
    http://www.kismetwireless.net/download.shtml

 There are variants of these patches on the shmoo site, but the most up to date
 ones are on the Kismet download page.

 The 0.13-dragorn-rfmon patch includes all of the rfmon code from Snax of
 the Shmoo group, as well as important bugfixes:
    Fixed "Error -5 writing to BAP" message floods
    Fixed long spinlocks on firmware reset leading to corrupted serial data,
     sound stuttering, and high CPU loads
    Various other minor cleanups

 4.  Testing and applying the patch

 The 0.13 orinoco driver patches apply to the kernel network driver path
 directly.

 First, test the patch with a dry run:

 cd /usr/src/linux-<version>/drivers/net/wireless/
 patch -p1 --dry-run < /path/to/downloaded/orinoco-0.13e-dragorn-rfmon.diff

 The patch should apply with only warnings about fuzz offsets.  These are not
 errors, however, the 2.6 tree may change the code at some point, so be on the
 lookout for 'FAIL' errors.

 If the patch applies with --dry-run with no errors, apply it fully:

 patch -p1 < /path/to/downloaded/orinoco-0.13e-dragorn-rfmon.diff

 5.  Configuring your kernel

 To enable to drivers, configure your kernel with the configurator of your
 choice, and enable:

 Bus Options ->
    PCMCIA/Cardbus Support
 Device Drivers ->
    Networking Support ->
        Wireless LAN ->
            Hermes Chipset 802.11 support

 They can be either enabled as modules or integrated.

 6.  Compiling 

 Compile your kernel and modules.  If you have exactly the source for your 
 running kernel (ie, using only distribution kernels and matching source 
 packages) you can do simply:

 make modules
 make modules_install

 Otherwise you will need to compile your whole kernel and modules:
 make bzImage
 make modules
 make modules_install

 and then install your kernel into your bootloader via whatever methods your
 bootloader uses (Grub and LILO do this differently, see their man pages.)