Is madwifi working yet for openSUSE 11.0

English Network/Internet
1

I’ve got openSUSE 11.0 KDE3.5
My card is a D-Link DWL G520 PCI
Yast sees it as AR5215/5213 multiprotocol …

I was unable to install madwifi earlier because of dependency problems with the repo at opensuse.org.

I checked in my software management for the madwifi-kpm-pae and the madwifi rpm’s and installed them. The complaint I used to get about dependencies has gone away so I thought I was in for a chance.

I’ve configured the wireless card and it doesn’t work. My device is called in yast wlan0 instead of ath0 – strange??

I set it for a fixed IP address and it is active but doesn’t connect to the access point. The command iwconfig says I have an invalid access point.

here’s iwconfig:

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:“swerdna”
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Invalid
Tx-Power=27 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B
Encryption key:A8EE-AD6E-20
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Here’s ifconfig:

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:17:9A:75:CA:A6
inet addr:192.168.1.2 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-17-9A-75-CA-A6-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

Madwifi was problematic early on in openSUSE 11/0 – what’s the status now?

If madwifi status is OK, what should I check in my configuration?

Thanks
Swerdna

2

Are you trying (or inadvertently using) the completely open source drivers; i.e. module ath5k, instead of ath_pci?

IIRC, when I installed, openSUSE tried to use them, and I got a wlan0 device. It came up, and all looked good, but it would never connect–kinda like sending configuration instructions into a black hole.

I would like to move to the new ones; has anybody had any luck with them in the newest kernel? The ones from madwifi.org are still stuck on 2.6.25-5…

3

Thanks for the tip.
I was inadvertently using module ath5k. I have managed to switch the module in Yast’s Network Devices, from ath5k to ath_pci.
I use the app kwifi to look at surrounding wireless networks. Now, with ath_pci, I can see my neighbour’s wireless and my own network, good signal strength. And the card has an IP address. But I still cannot connect to my wireless network. I still have the error message “Access Point: Invalid” returned from iwconfig.

Any suggestions?

4

What happens if you do:
"iwlist scan’

5

suse110:/home/john # iwlist scan
lo Interface doesn’t support scanning.

wifi0 Interface doesn’t support scanning.

ath0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:0C:E3:61:CE:0C
ESSID:“Virgin Broadband”
Mode:Master
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality=254/70 Signal level=-97 dBm Noise level=-95 dBm
Encryption key:off
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100

      Cell 02 - Address: 00:14:6C:3D:81:8A
                ESSID:"swerdna"
                Mode:Master
                Frequency:2.452 GHz (Channel 9)
                Quality=27/70  Signal level=-68 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm
                Encryption key:on
                Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
                          12 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
                          48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                Extra:bcn_int=100
                Extra:wme_ie=dd180050f2020101000003a4000027a4000042435e0062322f00
                Extra:ath_ie=dd0900037f0101000e0000

      Cell 03 - Address: 00:1A:73:FD:05:DD
                ESSID:"Motorola"
                Mode:Master
                Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
                Quality=2/70  Signal level=-93 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm
                Encryption key:on
                Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
                          9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
                          48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                Extra:bcn_int=100
6

OK I’ve just joined the cast of “Dumb and Dumber”. I just realised when I saw the disconnected blue cable on the floor that I was typing to you through the wireless interface :eek: – honetsly, it wasn’t working earlier.

7

:D:D

Thats funny. … sort of the inverse of the sort of mistake I used to do years ago in the electrical engineering lab … I would spend hours setting up an experiment, with all the exact pin connections, and triple check the various cables, and quadruple check the oscilloscope was calibrated, and a dozen other checks, and then sit there and scratch my head why the experiment would not work. Finally after major head scratching, I would realize I forgot to switch the power on. :rolleyes:

8

My wife & I once returned from a holiday. The electric range wouldn’t work, the kids were cranky and hungry, call the emergency electrician. He fixed it by switching it on – true story.

9

I can’t count how many times I have done a similar thing. Yesterday, a Cox tech came to my house to fix the phone, and I had him swap out my modem at the same time (had been having issues with old one). To verify everything, I took my laptop down and ran a wire into the back. My laptop has a “disable wifi” physical switch on the side of the machine, to conserve power if not using it. I switched it off, disabled wireless in KNetworkManager, and brought up the ethernet interface.

Guess who forgot to switch wifi back on 30 minutes later, and spent 10 minutes trying to connect to his wifi…:o

10

oldcpu wrote:

>
> swerdna;1837231 Wrote:
>> OK I’ve just joined the cast of “Dumb and Dumber”. I just realised when
>> I saw the disconnected blue cable on the floor that I was typing to you
>> through the wireless interface :eek: – honetsly, it wasn’t working
>> earlier.
>
> :D:D
>
> Thats funny. … sort of the inverse of the sort of mistake I used
> to do years ago in the electrical engineering lab … I would spend
> hours setting up an experiment, with all the exact pin connections, and
> triple check the various cables, and quadruple check the oscilloscope
> was calibrated, and a dozen other checks, and then sit there and
> scratch my head why the experiment would not work. Finally after major
> head scratching, I would realize I forgot to switch the power on.
> :rolleyes:

You must have been one of my students <g>. Endless entertainment afforded
until they took my first two steps for debugging to heart: 1. plug it in
then 2. turn it on. So much for University education…

–
Will Honea