Onboard Wireless Not Detected

I have a fairly new Gateway model MT6017. Suse 10.3 was successfully installed after using WipeDrive to remove any traces of Vista. It is proving to be an excellent Linux distro for this notebook computer. All of the hardware has been detected and properly configured, including the onboard ethernet, except that the onboard wireless is not detected. My output from iwconfig shows "no wireless extensions." Likewise, lspci does not display the onboardwireless. Any suggestions?

I have a fairly new Gateway model MT6017. Suse 10.3 was successfully installed .... Likewise, lspci does not display the onboardwireless.[/b]

Its unusual that lspci will not show the wireless device. Can you check and confirm this? lspci needs to be run with root permissions.

What opensuse-10.3 kernel do you have ? The latest is 2.6.22.17 for 10.3 (although other 3rd party kernels can be found for 10.3).

In the off chance the wireless is recognized as a USB device (rare - but it happens) could you also try: lsusb

Did you check the laptop's bios to see if it is mistakenly disabled in the bios? Is there a bios upgrade for this laptop (on the Gateway site)? Is there a physical wireless on/off switch somewhere on the laptop's physical structure? ... (does the "Function F2" for cycling the wireless ON/OFF work under Linux ?? ).

Did you try booting to fail safe, and then repeat the lspci and lsusb?

Finally, you could look at the dmesg output to see if there are any error messages that give a clue.

If all else fails, you could download a live CD such as sidux, or kanotix, either/both of which have a reputation for the best hardware detection in Linux, and see what either of those tell you about your wireless hardware.

Its unusual that lspci will not show the wireless device. Can you check and confirm this? lspci needs to be run with root permissions.

What opensuse-10.3 kernel do you have ? The latest is 2.6.22.17 for 10.3 (although other 3rd party kernels can be found for 10.3).

In the off chance the wireless is recognized as a USB device (rare - but it happens) could you also try: lsusb

Did you check the laptop's bios to see if it is mistakenly disabled in the bios? Is there a bios upgrade for this laptop (on the Gateway site)? Is there a physical wireless on/off switch somewhere on the laptop's physical structure? ... (does the "Function F2" for cycling the wireless ON/OFF work under Linux ?? ).

Did you try booting to fail safe, and then repeat the lspci and lsusb?

Finally, you could look at the dmesg output to see if there are any error messages that give a clue.

If all else fails, you could download a live CD such as sidux, or kanotix, either/both of which have a reputation for the best hardware detection in Linux, and see what either of those tell you about your wireless hardware.
[/b]

oldcpu--Thanks for the reply. Here is some more information:

gateway:/ # dmesg | grep 4-1
usb 4-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 2
usb 4-1: new device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=8189
usb 4-1: new device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
usb 4-1: Product: RTL8187B_WLAN_Adapter
usb 4-1: Manufacturer: Manufacturer_Realtek
usb 4-1: SerialNumber: 00e04c000001
usb 4-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

gateway:/ # lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 01)

gateway:/ # lsusb
Bus 005 Device 003: ID 0bda:0158 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 045e:00a4 Microsoft Corp.
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0bda:8189 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

gateway:/ # ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:E0:B8:72:1C:3F
inet addr:192.168.1.99 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::2e0:b8ff:fe72:1c3f/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:6502 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:3400 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:7074851 (6.7 Mb) TX bytes:305768 (298.6 Kb)
Interrupt:16 Base address:0xe000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:40 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:40 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:2536 (2.4 Kb) TX bytes:2536 (2.4 Kb)

gateway:/ # iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

gateway:/ #

I am not aware of any switch for the onboard WLAN. (The wireless device was functional with Vista.)
What do you recommend?

This information is relevant:

Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0bda:8189 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. (from lsusb)

usb 4-1: Product: RTL8187B_WLAN_Adapter (from dmesg)

I believe there is a rtl8187 driver that may work with this hardware.

One question: Is this 32-bit or 64-bit suse install? (The latter can be more troublesome to configure as with this user).

Anyway, try configuring with

YaST -> Network Devices -> Network Card. If the device is not present, you will need to add a new wireless device via 'Add' button.

If all else fails, give ndiswrapper + windows drivers a go. Similar hardware Ubuntu install thread, with ndiswrapper.

BTW no use running iwconfig to look for wireless extensions until you get a working driver.

I am not aware of any switch for the onboard WLAN. (The wireless device was functional with Vista.)[/b]

I'll pass this thread over to others, as I confess I know next to nothing about wireless. ... Many thanks to the other's for chiming in.

But refernce your comment "not aware of any switch for the onboard WLAN" ... as part of my research for my previous post, I downloaded the User Manual for your Gateway model MT6017, and I skimmed through it looking for BIOS and/or information on a switch to Enable/Disable WLAN. That user manual for your Laptop specifically stated that "Function F2" was used for cycling the wireless ON/OFF under Windows. And it specifically recommended users press Function F2, when not using the wireless, to switch it OFF and conserve battery time.

However often Laptop Function keys do not work under Linux, without provision of special software, ... and I simply do not know if this is applicable to your Laptop.

Based upon your comment (not being aware of any switch for the onboard WLAN), when your laptop was running Vista, I assume the wireless was enabled by default upon boot ? ... and that you never disabled it by using Function F2 (to conserve battery)?

This Ubuntu thread may be of interest as well. It refers to this site where the rtl8187b driver can be downloaded from.

This Ubuntu thread may be of interest as well. It refers to this site where the rtl8187b driver can be downloaded from.
[/b]

Dean's recommendation may be your best approach. .... It does appear other's on the Mailing List have had difficulty with this RTL8187B, and it does not appear even 11.0 will offer a user friendly solution:
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory...5/msg00095.html

Others on SuSE forums have tried and failed with this:
http://suseforums.net/index.php?showtopic=47117
http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?showto...mp;#entry247728

I notice one user here, trying to use NDIS-Wrapper with the Win98 driver !!
http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?showto...52&hl=8187B

To answer a couple of earlier questions:

gateway:~ # uname -a
Linux gateway 2.6.22.17-0.1-default #1 SMP 2008/02/10 20:01:04 UTC i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

The motherboard BIOS is set to enable WLAN on boot.

The wireless F2 hot button does not function with Linux.

The wireless LED is on.

I tried YaST by selecting wlan-bus-usb and using the same static ip setup as my Ethernet interface (except for changing the device ip address by one digit), and my output is still the following:

gateway:~ # lsusb
Bus 005 Device 003: ID 0bda:0158 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 045e:00a4 Microsoft Corp.
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0bda:8189 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
gateway:~ # iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

gateway:~ #

Should I be concerned with the output of iwconfig? Does the program even recognize onboard usb devices?)
Perhaps I can use YaST with a different approach?
What next?

BTW no use running iwconfig to look for wireless extensions until you get a working driver.
[/b]