Another wg111v2 question

English Network/Internet
#1

Hi Folks,

I recently installed OpenSuse 11.1 and have been facing tons of issues with my wg111v2 USB wireless adapter.

I have been reading that 11.1 supports the adpater out-of-the-box, what does it exactly mean? When I tried to connect it right after installation, I got the following error
Firmware isl3887usb_bare not found. I am still not sure how some of the posters here got that working :(.

I then went on to download the driver from Linux Wireless.

Before we get there here is some info about my setup


uname -r
2.6.27.7-9-pae



 lsusb
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0846:4240 NetGear, Inc. WG111v2 54 Mbps Wireless [RealTek RTL8187L]

So, I got the prism firmware from the above site (
USB 2nd generation (ISL3887) → isl3887usb_bare → Kernel older than 2.6.28)

In YAST, configured to use networkmanager, restarted the m/c and plugged-in the USB adapter. I finally was able to see my wireless network and was able to browse the net.
However, the fun didn’t last longer, intermittently the connection keeps dropping. The only way to get it to work again is unplug and replug the WG111.
When the connection is dropped, dmesg gives following error:


wlan0: no IPv6 routers present                                                                                                   
phy0: unknown frame RXed (0x1e)                                                                                                  
wlan0: No ProbeResp from current AP aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff - assume out of range                                                      
wlan0: authenticate with AP aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
wlan0: authenticate with AP aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
wlan0: authenticate with AP aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
wlan0: authentication with AP aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff timed out                                                                        
usb 2-4: USB disconnect, address 3

After the unplug/replug sequence, network again works for some time before disconnection.
The frustrating part is, I had somehow got it to work a few weeks back, but then when I tried to install the NVidia drivers, the kernel got updated and everything got screwed up. Today evening I finally reformatted and reinstalled 11.1 again to get a clean slate, however the same problem has started again.

Any suggestion what could be causing this frequent disconnects?
Also, can someone explain me what is really the out-of-box support if I have to get the right driver file?

TIA !!

#2

metalinjury wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> I recently installed OpenSuse 11.1 and have been facing tons of issues
> with my wg111v2 USB wireless adapter.
>
> I have been reading that 11.1 supports the adpater out-of-the-box,
> what does it exactly mean? When I tried to connect it right after
> installation, I got the following error
> Firmware isl3887usb_bare not found. I am still not sure how some of the
> posters here got that working :(.
>
> I then went on to download the driver from ‘Linux Wireless’
> (http://linuxwireless.org/).
>
> Before we get there here is some info about my setup
>
> Code:
> --------------------
>
> uname -r
> 2.6.27.7-9-pae
>
> --------------------
>
>
>
> Code:
> --------------------
>
> lsusb
> Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0846:4240 NetGear, Inc. WG111v2 54 Mbps Wireless [RealTek RTL8187L]
>
> --------------------
>
>
> So, I got the prism firmware from the above site (
> USB 2nd generation (ISL3887) → isl3887usb_bare → Kernel older than
> 2.6.28)
>
> In YAST, configured to use networkmanager, restarted the m/c and
> plugged-in the USB adapter. I finally was able to see my wireless
> network and was able to browse the net.
> However, the fun didn’t last longer, intermittently the connection
> keeps dropping. The only way to get it to work again is unplug and
> replug the WG111.
> When the connection is dropped, dmesg gives following error:
>
> Code:
> --------------------
>
> wlan0: no IPv6 routers present
> phy0: unknown frame RXed (0x1e)
> wlan0: No ProbeResp from current AP aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff - assume out of range
> wlan0: authenticate with AP aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
> wlan0: authenticate with AP aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
> wlan0: authenticate with AP aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
> wlan0: authentication with AP aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff timed out
> usb 2-4: USB disconnect, address 3
>
> --------------------
>
>
> After the unplug/replug sequence, network again works for some time
> before disconnection.
> The frustrating part is, I had somehow got it to work a few weeks back,
> but then when I tried to install the NVidia drivers, the kernel got
> updated and everything got screwed up. Today evening I finally
> reformatted and reinstalled 11.1 again to get a clean slate, however the
> same problem has started again.
>
> Any suggestion what could be causing this frequent disconnects?
> Also, can someone explain me what is really the out-of-box support if I
> have to get the right driver file?
>
>
> TIA !!
>
>

#3

Out of the box means that the driver works even though you need to
install firmware, which is not the fault of the driver writers.

If you obtain the compat-wireless package, you will get the latest
version of the driver. For me, the WG111V2 works fine. There have been
a lot of changes in the rtl8187 driver and the mac80211 support code
since kernel 2.6.27, which is more than a year old.

#4

lwfinger - you are awesome. The trick worked like a charm.
I installed the copat-wireless package and the wireless connection has been stable so far (a few hrs now). I will post the stability again after few days.

Btw, I no way meant to blame the driver developers. Just that some of the posts in this forum made me feel that the users got wg111 to work right after installation. I guess they missed to mention a step about copying the firmware :).

One side question - Network manager now shows the signal strength to be 50% (2 bars instead of 4), the router is just next to my comp in the same room. Before the compat package, the signal was close to 100% (4 bars). Any guess why that would be??

#5

metalinjury wrote:
> One side question - Network manager now shows the signal strength to be
> 50% (2 bars instead of 4), the router is just next to my comp in the
> same room. Before the compat package, the signal was close to 100% (4
> bars). Any guess why that would be??

That is a “feature” of NM. If you unload and reload the driver, it
will likely come in at full strength. Don’t worry about it.