Can't Get Wireless To Work

English Install/Boot/Login
21

I tried to install ONLY the drivers that said they were for my 8000 series card it had 52 files. When I clicked on that 8000 series file it automatically selected a bunch of others it said it needed, about 220mb total. I did not select any for the other model cards.
But thats all a moot point as it dies before it can finish.

I originally downloaded and burned the 3.2 install DVD about 5 days ago now. But 2 days ago I re-downloaded it and burned a new DVD in case the first one was messed up somehow. The problem didn’t change at all.

Dave

22

I got not a clue unless they were the normal first updates only 4-5 packages get installed for the NVIDIA driver

I’m not sure what an 8000 series card is please give exact versions. NVIDIA has funky numbering If it is 9XX then it is cutting edge and you must manually select the GO4 driver the GO3 driver won’t work, the auto select stuff does not work for the cutting edge stuff. I have a GT630 which is actually higher then 8000 series it will use either G03 or G04

You defintly don’t want to install all things that have NVIDIA in its name

Not seeing over your shoulder makes it hard to gauge what is happening. But what ever it is it is NOT normal.

23

I gave the model number in this thread yesterday when the other person asked for it. ASUS 8400GS 512. Its an older card was just a run of the mill card.
I know not to download and install all the Nvidia drivers. I only chose the 8xxx driver and it AUTOMATICALLY checked a total of 52 files it said it needed.
And again its a MOOT POINT as the system will NOT stay running long enough to download and install it.
To save some time here I was a UNIX admin in the past and spent 29 years with Motorola Computer Services Group. So I am not a newbie to computers by any means.
Ubuntu installs and runs on this same hardware on the first try. I used Red Hat and Fedora in the past but its been years since I messed with Linux and am trying to get back into it again. I wasn’t impressed that much with Ubuntu because it seems to closed up and thats my interest in opensuse as it seems more configurable.

Dave

24

You do know there are different versions of the kernel as well as the software stack

Are you sure the fan is running I had a fan go out on my old 6800+ card and it wold run for about 5 min and crash

For a card that old I’d forget about the the NVIDIA driver go with the nouveau which is default That will do fine unless you plan on high end games

25

This computer runs 24/7 and I normally run Mavericks 10.9.5 on it off an SSD. Yes its not a MAC but someone made an AMD kernel. Its a system I built from scratch a few years ago and have been updating it as I go along but I don’t need a high end graphics card as I am not into games much anymore. I keep it up and use high quality ball bearing or magnetic fans. Before I started this trip back into Linux the system hadn’t been rebooted in 29 days running 10.9.5. And again I’ve also run Ubuntu on it last week until I decided I didn’t like it and it stayed running also. I also monitor the cpu and MB temps and nothing remotely out of range. So no dead fans. Opensuse is the only thing I am having trouble with.

Oh and by the way I am typing all this on the very same computer using 10.9.5…

I also still have a very modified Amiga 4000T with an overclocked CyberstormPPC module. I had the fan go out on that recently and it let me know pretty quick,

Dave

26

How much memory do you have KDE is pretty memory hungry any more

27

4gb, AMD Phenom II Quad core.

Dave

28

Since you system is basically a clean install, the 52 files that you get being installed are likely just other update requirements.

If the system is hard wired, I’d consider logging out of the UI and do a full update. Become su -
Then run this twice

zypper patch

Reboot

You can always go back to console mode if there is still a problem
You can actually start yast from there, again, become su -

yast

You use the keyboard to TAB around

29

Another update:

I did another clean install from dead scratch. Used a different hard drive. I deselected auto login. I put the Nvidia drivers and iw on a usb hard-drive. Booted it and installed iw and the Nvidia drivers and rebooted. Now the login screen shows the wrench. I tried KDE failsafe mode and it still crashed within a couple minutes just like before. I tried IceWM but couldn’t get wireless to work even though I set up my Network cards in Yast. It didn’t crash but I couldn’t do much either.

So here is what I did next. I have a second PC. Has a different MB (Gigabyte instead od ASUS), single core AMD CPU, newer Nvidia graphics.
Then I redownloaded 3.2 for the THIRD time and burned it to DVD for the THIRD time. I installed it on this PC. Guess what?
SAME FRIGGIN THING!!! Just like before it needs iw to get wireless to work. Just like before it freezes and goes black. Totally different PC, different download, different DVD, different DVD drive etc. I don’t for a second believe I am the only one having this problem. Someone must have figured out a fix for this by now. In the meantime I give up. I have way to much time invested in this so far only to get nowhere. Now that I know it behaves the same on another PC I know its not something I am doing and its not the hardware. Its not the wrong Nvidia drivers. That did fix the resolution problem but not the crashing problem. Might be KDE but thats the one of the reasons I wanted to use Opensuse to get away from Unity etc. I will try another distro that uses KDE and see if it works or not on my PC’s. If that wont work then there is no point in spending any more time on this.
Unless someone has a fix I am done with this,
Thanks for all the help so far.

Dave

30

Don’t know why you keep downloading the ISO if the DVD passes the test no point at all.

It is hard to know what you are doing wrong. I and others have had no serious problems installing/running.

The hardware sounds ok I guess you have run the checksums on the ISO and done the media check on the DVD. Recently I have started using USB sticks to install they are a bit more reliable but that should not matter if the DVD passes the media check.

With two machine different CPU memory and drives it is odd that you should have the same problems so it has to be some small thing you are doing or setting up that is not making the system happy

So let us do the basics assuming an MBR boot

taking the defaults will give you 3 partitions swap/root/home. Are you changing these other then size?

Are you dual booting what is the partition layout you use?

Oh wait Mavericks is Mac right is this Apple hardware?? Do we have Apple file system floating around??

In any case tell us the exact configuration and partitioning scheme

Also you said newer NVIDA but never told us what newer NVIDIA card

I swear we can not see over your shoulder you need to tell us.:open_mouth:

31

No dual boot on either computer. In fact in both cases I removed the MacOS hard drive and all other drives while installing 3.2 because I didn’t want to chance damaging data on them. The drive 3.2 is going on is always the only hard drive in the system during install and testing.
The DVD’s pass the media test. I re-downloaded it again because you mentioned they had a bad kernel up for a short time and wanted to make sure that wasn’t part of the problem.
The newer Nvidia board is a low end 200 series. And again installing the proper drivers fixed the resolution but not the crashes.
I don’t change anything in the partition set up. Only thing I change is not to use the BTRFS filesystem. Also remember Ubuntu works perfectly on the first system but haven’t tried it on the other one yet. And again both PC’s run 24/7 with no problems with MacOSX. The 2nd one is my music server. I maintain them very well.

Dave

32

The bad kernel was an update not on the Installer and the update was removed. I was concerned that maybe your update loaded that kernel which had some issues with the NVIDIA driver not the default driver.

Here is how it works a version is made it becomes gold and never changes updates are issued to fix thing the Installer never changes until the next version is realeased

So at the start up there are a ton and I mean a lot of updates because 13.2 has been out for some time now. 54 or so does not even do it so I’m confused at what you are doing. You did apply all the patche and fixes right you should have had a notification or you can go int yast and online update to get the patches. That should be the first thing done after an install. But over all I have to say 13.2 has been for most people pretty solid.

I did not think you could run Apple OS in a vanilla Intel machine without some serious patching.

Don’t know why it does not work for you . If you don’t like Ubuntu try Kbuntu the KDE version

33

Yes, there are (inofficial) patches available, or at least were. I had it running in VirtualBox once (on an AMD machine).

Don’t know why it does not work for you .

Me neither.
This really sound like hardware issues, but if Ubuntu works…

You might give 13.1 a try, or even Tumbleweed, the rolling openSUSE distribution (with the latest stable versions of everything including the kernel).
Btw, you can “burn” the installation ISO to an USB stick as well, no need to waste DVDs.
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Live_USB_stick
(this is oriented towards the LiveCDs, but it works the same with the installation DVD)

34

MacOSX doesn’t natively run on a AMD cpu. There are people that write modified kernels so it works with the AMD SSE3 instruction set. That and if your hardware isn’t the same as what real Mac’s use you need to find drivers which have also become available now. I’ve been running MacOSX on AMD cpu’s for several years now. I currently run Mavericks 10.9.5 (Mavericks). There are AMD kernels out for Yosemite now but I am not interested in that version because I think its becoming bloatware now. MacOSX for Intel basically runs on top of a streamlined version of Unix.
Its an insult to imply both my computers have hardware problems. First I am a very experienced computer engineer with 29 years alone at Motorola. Second both these systems run 24/7 and are rock solid with MacOSX. My music server is dual boot and also runs XP just fine.

Here is what I think - The only thing in common between these 2 PC’s is they are both AMD based and both use Nvidia graphics. Even the wireless network cards have different chipsets.
Ubuntu runs but its not using KDE.
3.2 uses KDE and causes the same behavior on both machines. To me that says its possible that KDE doesn’t like either AMD (possibly an SSE3 conflict?) or KDE has a problem with my Nvidia cards even with the correct drivers installed.

Installing the updates does not change the problem. If I set up the wireless network card in Yast during installation it WILL perform the updates (Several gb of stuff). but when it reboots from the install wireless doesn’t work even though its still set up in Yast. The only way to get wireless to work is to install iw from a USB stick and then switch from Wicked to Network Manager. I’ve never once gotten Wicked to work with wireless except during install. Same thing whether you do the updates during install or not. If you do NOT do the updates during install you can’t do them later even after getting wireless to work with iw and Network Manager because the system will freeze up and get the black screen after just minutes so you can never finish the updates.

Only things I can see to try would be:

Try one of the PC’s wired to the router and not use wireless - But my router is to far away and its to much trouble to move the PC or the router.

Try installing Gnome and see if it still has the same problems. - That I can try.

Try a non- Nvidia graphics board - I don’t have any and am not going to buy one just for this experiment.

Dave

35

Yes. I remember installing a patch to make it run on AMD, but I don’t remember all details (it’s been a few years ago).

Its an insult to imply both my computers have hardware problems.

???
Why is it an insult? Every hardware can fail, sometimes even suddenly.

And I didn’t imply that both your computers have hardware problems. I just said that it would sound like hardware problems, but if Ubuntu works we can rule that out obviously.

If you take that as an insult, I cannot help you, sorry.

3.2 uses KDE and causes the same behavior on both machines. To me that says its possible that KDE doesn’t like either AMD (possibly an SSE3 conflict?) or KDE has a problem with my Nvidia cards even with the correct drivers installed.

I doubt that.
KDE runs fine on AMD.
And if it doesn’t even work in recovery mode, it cannot be a problem of KDE with your nvidia card either, as just a generic vesa driver is used then, and software rendering.

Try one of the PC’s wired to the router and not use wireless - But my router is to far away and its to much trouble to move the PC or the router.

I doubt that the wireless would make a difference.
Although if the kernel driver crashes, it might of course break down the whole system.

That’s one reason why I suggested a different openSUSE version, as this has a different kernel too.
It doesn’t even necessarily have to be the wireless driver, it could be some other kernel module that has problems/bugs with your particular hardware in 13.2.

You could also install a different kernel in 13.2 too, the latest one is available from here:
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/stable/standard/

Try installing Gnome and see if it still has the same problems. - That I can try.

Yes, I wanted to suggest that too.
Or try IceWM as already suggested. As you are apparently not able to choose the session in KDM (the login screen), you can edit /etc/sysconfig/windowmanager with a text editor, and set DEFAULT_WM=“icewm” there.

You can also install GNOME in your existing installation (if it runs stable enough of course), not really necessary to reinstall.

Try a non- Nvidia graphics board - I don’t have any and am not going to buy one just for this experiment.

I also doubt there is a general problem with nvidia cards. Many people are using them successfully, with KDE and openSUSE 13.2.
There might be a problem with your particular card (rather a driver bug then), but again, recovery mode should workaround that.

36

PS: openSUSE’s KDE packages (or any other packages for that matter) are not even built with SSE3 support.
Otherwise it wouldn’t run on my system here, my AMD Athlon64 3000+ only supports SSE2.

Some things might detect and use SSE3 on runtime though, but I’d rule that out as reason for your problems too.
You’re definitely not the only one having an AMD machine with SSE3 support and running openSUSE on it.

Actually 13.2/KDE does run perfectly on my girlfriend’s AMD system (which does support SSE3) with an nvidia card… :wink:

37

I mentioned in my post from last night that I DID try IceWM and what happened. Once I installed the proper Nvidia driver and disabled auto login I was able to see the “wrench” and select it. It didn’t crash during the 10 or so minutes I tried it but I gave up as I could not get wireless to work using IceWM even though the Network card was setup in Yast. As I mentioned Wicked only seems to work with wireless during install. In IceWM when I tried to change it to “Network Manager” I got am error that said “Applet Missing” and that Networking was disabled. So I guess there is no Network Manager installed by default for IceWM. I didn’t want to spend any more time messing with it so I moved on. So I don’t really know if it would stay stable in IceWM with networking running and downloading updates etc. But it didn’t crash just sitting there like KDE does.
Oh, and also as I mentioned last night once I was able to use the login menu I also tried KDE Failsafe and it promptly crashed also.
At this point except for trying to install Gnome instead of KDE on my next install unless someone has an actual fix for this I am done with this. I don’t mind spending time on this stuff if I was making headway but now I have a full week invested in this and have gotten nowhere at all from when I started. Its just not worth it.

Dave

38

Sorry, I missed that somehow.

It didn’t crash during the 10 or so minutes I tried it but I gave up as I could not get wireless to work using IceWM even though the Network card was setup in Yast. As I mentioned Wicked only seems to work with wireless during install. In IceWM when I tried to change it to “Network Manager” I got am error that said “Applet Missing” and that Networking was disabled.

This is no error. YaST just tells you that you need to configure the network using a NetworkManager frontend.

I never got Wicked to work with wireless during install myself (it’s also mentioned in the release notes that it doesn’t work).
There have been two updates for wicked, and wireless works fine now on two systems here with wicked.
But you’d have to have a network connection first to install those updates, and there is at least one other problem with 13.2’s wicked I know of which hasn’t been fixed by an update yet and might cause your network not to work (a simply ifdown/ifup should “fix” it).

So I guess there is no Network Manager installed by default for IceWM.

There is no “NetworkManager” for IceWM.
But you could install NetworkManager-gnome and run that via “nm-applet”.
Or run KDE’s plasmoid via “plasma-windowed org.kde.networkmanagement”.

If you configure your connection as “system connection” (enable the option “Allow other users to connect to this network” in the connection settings), it will be activated during boot already and you don’t need a NetworkManager client.

I didn’t want to spend any more time messing with it so I moved on. So I don’t really know if it would stay stable in IceWM with networking running and downloading updates etc. But it didn’t crash just sitting there like KDE does.

Well, of course IceWM doesn’t “tax” the graphics card like KDE does.
And you didn’t use wireless, so if that driver crashed your system, the crash didn’t get triggered now.

Oh, and also as I mentioned last night once I was able to use the login menu I also tried KDE Failsafe and it promptly crashed also.

Try disabling desktop effects via Shift+Alt+F12 (AFAIK KDE Failsafe does not disable them). Does it crash then too, or is it more stable?
But with a working nvidia driver there should not be a problem regarding this.

The only other thing I can think of that might point to the problem is the kernel log.
Try running “dmesg -w” in a terminal window, and have a look whether some messages appear when the system crashes.

At this point except for trying to install Gnome instead of KDE on my next install unless someone has an actual fix for this I am done with this. I don’t mind spending time on this stuff if I was making headway but now I have a full week invested in this and have gotten nowhere at all from when I started. Its just not worth it.

As you wish.

Still, the problems you are experiencing are not normal. And I do not see anything like this on several (openSUSE 13.2/KDE) systems here (with AMD and Intel CPUs, and ATI, NVidia and Intel graphics).

39

Ok, I didn’t want this thing to get the best of me so I finally figured it out and got it working on both PC’s! In fact I am typing this from it now.

First I wanted to figure out what was actually crashing it. I found that if I delete all the network devices in Yast and then switch to Wicked, then reboot it never crashes though you can’t of course get online. So then I found that if you set up either wireless card it will crash within minutes. Same thing if you switch from Wicked to Network Manager. So its the Network crashing things.

I don’t use the MB built in hard wire Ethernet on either PC. However it shows up in the Yast and KinfoCenter. You cant completely delete it from the Yast order list and it always puts it first even if its NOT configured. So I configured it and set it to work “Never”, That stopped it from crashing but still no wireless even if the next device is configured to start at “boot time”. So just for gits and shiggles I tried plugging a cat5 cable that goes nowhere on the other end into it and rebooted, Now it works with wireless even with Wicked. I haven’t tried it again with the Network Manager but I think I will leave well enough alone. For some reason the Network stuff needs to see the MB Ethernet configured AND hooked to something or it hangs or crashes the system.

Its been up for over an hour now and I have used the Software Manager repeatedly with no problems so far. Now to mess around with it and see if its a keeper.

Dave

40

Gratz on finding that. But I never have seen this problem before. I always use hardwired since this a desktop. I’ve always found that Wireless is not so great but then I have been a database programer and a flaky connection is a death warrant. But feel you pain about wicked ( an apply named app) Does not work here with MB chip set but Network Manager does.