Newbie requests help re:Wireless networking in RC1

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

I don’t if these are bugs, problems with KDE 3.14159264, faults of my own making, or a mix of all of the above. Even though I’m just testing the RC before the gold release, if I can get these fixed early, that will make the installation of the final version so much smoother.

First, wireless networking. I’ve just got a new XP Pro box and a new Vista HP laptop. The desktop is wired, the laptop wireless. After a bit of playing around, installing LLT on the XP box etc., they now play nice together. Not so when the desktop is booted into RC1. Below is a text of an email I sent to the opensuse mailing list:

I am not only new to wireless, I’m new to having more than one PC, so I
hope you’ll bear with me. I copied this from the hardware info report:

25: PCI 07.0: 0200 Ethernet controller
[Created at pci.310]
UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_10de_3ef
Unique ID:
SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:07.0
SysFS BusID: 0000:00:07.0
Hardware Class: network
Model: “nVidia MCP61 Ethernet”
Vendor: pci 0x10de “nVidia Corporation”
Device: pci 0x03ef “MCP61 Ethernet”

and if that’s not the relevant information, I took a screenshot and posted it here:
http://maxqnzs.com/screenshots/network.png

I must confess that I don’t know if the PC is set as an access point, but I guess it is. The config page for my Belkin wireless router says that the router is not set as an access point, if that helps. I have a DSL modem connected to the wireless router, if the cabling is anything to go by. I apologise for my shocking ignorance, but as I have only one fully functioning hand, I tend to leave hardware configuration to paid tech providers. My local need a nerd came in, setup the wireless and helped me through getting my XP Pro desktop and Vista HP laptop talking to each other, and left.

Even though I am profoundly ignorant in this, I am a reasonably quick study, able to follow instructions and unafraid of the CLI. Just getting the Vista laptop to see the XP Pro desktop required a bit of CLI work in XP to enablle LLT, so I’m quite ready to tinker with my Suse setup to get it working, or at least broaden my knowledge in the process of trying.
.

#2

maxqnz, thanks for your post.

I’m not a wireless expert, but there are many on this forum, and one of them will surely chime in and help you. But in the interim, if I read your post correctly, you posted the details for your (Visa OS) Laptop’s eth0 wired connection, when booted to openSUSE-11.0. What we need is information on your wireless info (not your wired)!!

Please type:
hwinfo --wlan
and paste any output here.

Also, take a look at the wired forum stickie at this location:
Welcome - openSUSE Forums
and in particular, provide output from “lspci” (when run with root permissions) and if that doesn’t provide wireless info, also try “lsusb”, per that stickie!!

Thanks.

#3

there probably has a bug on the networkmanager. However I do not use networkmanager, so I could not confirm this with you.

you could search bugzilla to see if that is your problem.

#4

Network Manager is broken in 11.0.

I’m not sure why there was a need to change it from the way it was in
10.3. Network Manager in 10.3 is nearly perfect for me. Unless the way
it is broken is effecting what seems to be the way it works, NM in 11.0
is a horrible step backward from 10.3

-jt

On Sun, 08 Jun 2008 14:28:40 +0000, chinese ys wrote:

> there probably has a bug on the networkmanager. However I do not use
> networkmanager, so I could not confirm this with you.
>
> you could search bugzilla to see if that is your problem.

#5

I think they rewrote the code for network part to make it work more stable, especially for wireless card.

#6

I’d have to say they haven’t succeeded…in a big way.
-jt

On Sun, 08 Jun 2008 19:58:39 +0000, chinese ys wrote:

>
> I think they rewrote the code for network part to make it work more
> stable, especially for wireless card.

#7

Wireless is hopefully going to be the hardest part of 11 (I don’t mean its good that it’s bad ;))

If all goes well, it’ll be fixed in 11.1 :wink:

#8

some-guy wrote:
> Wireless is hopefully going to be the hardest part of 11 (I don’t mean
> its good that it’s bad ;))
>
> If all goes well, it’ll be fixed in 11.1 :wink:

I installed / for 11.0 RC1 in a separate partition from the one used by 10.3.
The partitions used for /home and /boot are common. After installation, I
copied the firmware for my BCM4312 from the directory on the 10.3 partition
to the new 11.0 partition. After I did that, NM came up quickly and even
retrieved my WPA passphrase from the KDE wallet.

The only difference that I noted between 10.3 and 11.0’s version of NM is
that you get separate icons for wired and wireless interfaces similar to what
happens in Windoze.

Due to vendors such as Broadcom that prohibit the distribution of firmware,
wireless will not work out of the box for many users; however, it has
improved a lot in the past few kernel and distro releases. In addition,
several distros provide a script that will automagically download and install
the firmware. Of course, you need a separate network connection.

The bcm43xx project, which has allowed most BCM43xx users to escape the usage
of ndiswrapper, is now working on developing open-source firmware, which will
take care of this problem for Broadcom devices.

All posters, newbies or not, should learn the following: When you report
problems with any wireless device, you need to provide the output from ‘lspci
-n’ that pertains to your wireless device. The information relating to your
wired ethernet controller, such as provided by the OP in this thread, is useless.

The second piece of information that is essential is the output from the
dmesg command that pertains to wireless. This will tell you if the driver is
having problems loading firmware, or if your device is too new for the driver
to support, etc.

Larry

#9

maxqnz, thanks again for your participation in our forum.

Please, I am a bit puzzled by your post, and I am worried the interesting (to me) reponses to date are not addressing your problem. Please correct me if I am wrong, … but is part of the problem the fact that you do not know where to start, to get wireless working on your laptop?

If so, per my original post, we need DIFFERENT information, than what you provided in your original post. (Larry touches on this above).

Please open an xterm/terminal/konsole (what ever you call it). On a PC equiped with KDE, you can do this by pressing <ALT><F2> and type “konsole”.

Then in that konsole, type “su” (no quotes) to get root permissions. Enter root password when prompted. Please keep that konsole open through out the following:

In that konsole, please type:
hwinfo --wlan
and paste any output here.

In that konsole, please also type:
lspci
Please also paste any output of that here.

And finally, in case this wireless is structured with a USB interface, please also type:
lsusb
Please also paste the output of that here.

Armed with that information, I think we will have a better idea as to the exact chipset/hardware your wireless has, and we may be able to better assist.

And my apologies to you, and the others on this thread, if I have totally missed the “gist” of the thread (it won’t be the first time for me! :rolleyes: ).

#10

Thanks for your help, oldcpu. Here’s the output you requested:
-----------------------------------------------------------
linux-x01o:/home/t # hwinfo --wlan
linux-x01o:/home/t # lspci
00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev a1)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 LPC Bridge (rev a2)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SMBus (rev a2)
00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP61 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP61 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI bridge (rev a1)
00:05.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP61 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 IDE (rev a2)
00:07.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Ethernet (rev a2)
00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SATA Controller (rev a2)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev a2)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev a2)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev a2)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAMController
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy LS
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Geforce 9600 GT 512mb (rev a1)
linux-x01o:/home/t # lsusb
bash: lsusb: command not found
-----------------------------------------------------------

As I said in a newsgroup, the problem could be summed up like this:

As to the problem understanding what the Linux install on the desktop
has to do with the wireless connection on my laptop, I don’t understand
that either. All I know is that when the desktop in in XP, the laptop
can connect, when the desktop is in Suse, it can’t.

Thus, any assistance getting some clarity on the problem will be treasured.

It was too long to post here, but I uploaded the output of “dmesg” to http://maxqnzs.com/backups/dmesg.txt in case there’s something useful in there.

#11

maxqnz wrote:
> Thanks for your help, oldcpu. Here’s the output you requested:
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> linux-x01o:/home/t # hwinfo --wlan
> linux-x01o:/home/t # lspci
> 00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev
> a1)
> 00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 LPC Bridge (rev a2)
> 00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SMBus (rev a2)
> 00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev
> a2)
> 00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP61 USB Controller (rev
> a3)
> 00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP61 USB Controller (rev
> a3)
> 00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI bridge (rev a1)
> 00:05.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP61 High Definition Audio
> (rev a2)
> 00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 IDE (rev a2)
> 00:07.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Ethernet (rev a2)
> 00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SATA Controller (rev
> a2)
> 00:09.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev
> a2)
> 00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev
> a2)
> 00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev
> a2)
> 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
> HyperTransport Technology Configuration
> 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
> Address Map
> 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
> DRAMController
> 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
> Miscellaneous Control
> 01:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy LS
> 02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Geforce 9600 GT
> 512mb (rev a1)
> linux-x01o:/home/t # lsusb
> bash: lsusb: command not found
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
> As I said in a newsgroup, the problem could be summed up like this:
>> As to the problem understanding what the Linux install on the desktop
>> has to do with the wireless connection on my laptop, I don’t understand
>>
>> that either. All I know is that when the desktop in in XP, the laptop
>> can connect, when the desktop is in Suse, it can’t.
>
> Thus, any assistance getting some clarity on the problem will be
> treasured.
>
>
> It was too long to post here, but I uploaded the output of “dmesg” to
> http://maxqnzs.com/backups/dmesg.txt in case there’s something useful
> in there.

Neither your lspci output nor your dmesg output mention anything about a
wireless device. The only network device is eth0. On my system, I see the
following line for my wireless:

04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11a/b/g (rev 01)

Your dmesg output shows a lot of “drops” and other refections from your
firewall. Try turning the firewall off to see if that helps your situation.
If it does, you will need to refine your firewall rules.

Larry

#12

Your wireless device is not showing up. My guess is this device is using a USB style interface. …

I do not think this is a firewall issue, … at least not yet.

If I am correct, you need to get “lsusb” working to give us the information we need. I’m not on a Linux PC right now, so I need to go by memory, but I think you need to install “usbutils”.

Please install “usbutils”. I think it is on your installation DVD, … but I’m not sure about the CD. If not, you need to download and install it from an openSUSE repository from another PC, and then copy it to your PC either via your Vista partition, or via another PC and a USB stick.

Once usbutils is successfully installed, try “lsusb” again. I think that could give us the information that we need.

#13

On my installation, I did a clean install of 11.0 RC1-64bit on an
HPdv2100 that had been happily running the BCM43 driver on 10.3.
I ran the install_bcm43xx_firmware script to configure the driver on the
new installation.

I had actually seen the separate icons when did a 32 bit install of beta
2, but I don’t get that with the 64bit install of RC1.

There is an active bug on this, #372878, in bugzilla.

-jt

On Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:45:19 +0000, Larry Finger wrote:

> some-guy wrote:
>> Wireless is hopefully going to be the hardest part of 11 (I don’t mean
>> its good that it’s bad ;))
>>
>> If all goes well, it’ll be fixed in 11.1 :wink:
>
> I installed / for 11.0 RC1 in a separate partition from the one used by
> 10.3. The partitions used for /home and /boot are common. After
> installation, I copied the firmware for my BCM4312 from the directory on
> the 10.3 partition to the new 11.0 partition. After I did that, NM came
> up quickly and even retrieved my WPA passphrase from the KDE wallet.
>
> The only difference that I noted between 10.3 and 11.0’s version of NM
> is that you get separate icons for wired and wireless interfaces similar
> to what happens in Windoze.
>
> Due to vendors such as Broadcom that prohibit the distribution of
> firmware, wireless will not work out of the box for many users; however,
> it has improved a lot in the past few kernel and distro releases. In
> addition, several distros provide a script that will automagically
> download and install the firmware. Of course, you need a separate
> network connection.
>
> The bcm43xx project, which has allowed most BCM43xx users to escape the
> usage of ndiswrapper, is now working on developing open-source firmware,
> which will take care of this problem for Broadcom devices.
>
> All posters, newbies or not, should learn the following: When you report
> problems with any wireless device, you need to provide the output from
> ‘lspci -n’ that pertains to your wireless device. The information
> relating to your wired ethernet controller, such as provided by the OP
> in this thread, is useless.
>
> The second piece of information that is essential is the output from the
> dmesg command that pertains to wireless. This will tell you if the
> driver is having problems loading firmware, or if your device is too new
> for the driver to support, etc.
>
> Larry

#14

In case usbutils is not on your installation CD, … and if you do not know how to find and then install it, … here is some advice.

Go to:
Index of /distribution/SL-OSS-factory/inst-source/suse
and download the rpm for usbutils that is applicable to your openSUSE-11.0RC1 architecture (ie either the i586 or x86_64 version, dependant on whether you have a 32-bit or 64-bit opensuse install. Most of us consider that rather intuitively obvious, but if you don’t know that, then please post and ask us how you can figure that out. Everyone has to learn sometime).

So, lets say you downloaded the 32-bit version of usbutils (ie usbutils-0.73-12.i586.rpm) to /home/your-username

Then open an xterm/terminal/konsole, and it will by default be in /home/your-username. Type “su” (no quotes - enter root password when prompted) to get your root password.

Then type:
zypper install usbutils-0.73-12.i586.rpm
to install the rpm off your hard drive. Note openSUSE–11.0RC1 is unique in the capability to do it precisely this way from a hard drive, without the hard drive directory being setup as a repos.

If that does not work for you, you can try the basic rpm command:
rpm -ivh usbutils-0.73-12.i586.rpm
to install usbutils.

My examples are for the 32-bit opensuse. The rpm file (and hence the command) will be different for the 64-bit.

After usbutils is installed, if you wish to confirm the installation was done, simply type:
rpm -q usbutils

Again, once usbutils is successfully installed, try “lsusb” and post the output of “lsusb” here. I am hoping that will show your wireless device.

#15

James Taylor wrote:
> On my installation, I did a clean install of 11.0 RC1-64bit on an
> HPdv2100 that had been happily running the BCM43 driver on 10.3.
> I ran the install_bcm43xx_firmware script to configure the driver on the
> new installation.
>
> I had actually seen the separate icons when did a 32 bit install of beta
> 2, but I don’t get that with the 64bit install of RC1.
>
> There is an active bug on this, #372878, in bugzilla.

I get two on 64-bit 11.0 RC1. I wasn’t sure it was a bug - I’ll watch that
one to see what develops.

Larry

#16

Thanks, oldcpu. I really appreciate your helpful, non-condescending style of advice. In case it makes your job easier, I am a newbie to networking and wireless, but not to Linux. I’ve been installing linux and running my PCs as dualboot systems since Mandrake 6.2. That hopefully means that I will be able to keep up with the suggestions given. :slight_smile:

#17

Well, thanks to Yast, the whole thing was painless. I simply searched for usbutils, made sure it had selected the 64-bit version, and let it take care of everything. Here’s the output:
---------------------------------------------------
linux-x01o:/home/t # lsusb
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 067b:2506 Prolific Technology, Inc.
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 046d:c313 Logitech, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 046d:c040 Logitech, Inc. Corded Tilt-Wheel Mouse
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
---------------------------------------------------

#18

This is somewhat disappointing. Your wireless is not indicated here either. I only see your webcam, mouse, usb-hub, and some sort of usb-storage device.

A question, is there a hardware switch on your Laptop for enabling/disabling your wireless? If so, was it in the enable position when you ran “lsusb” and “lspci” ?

Just in case I missed (or misinterpretted your wireless device with “lspci”), could you run:
lspci -v > pastefile.txt
and then copy pastefile.txt to general pastebin - simplified internet collaboration. This is to provide more detail, in the slight chance I may have misread the “lspci” command before.

Can you provide the exact model#/manufacturer-name of your laptop? I simply do not see your wireless device with any commands, and if you post your laptop model, maybe we can search on this to see if someone else has encountered and solved this problem.

You could also try booting with the boot code “acpi=off” and then run “lsusb” and “lspci” to see if that reveals your wireless card. But I’m not too optimistic there.

I have to confess, this doesn’t look good for me being able to help.

#19

Do you know what your wireless device is on your PC. excuse me if you already stated it, I’m skimming this at work :slight_smile:

#20

Here’s the info from my Belkin wireless router info page:

Version Info
Firmware Version
F5D7230-4_AU_8.01.22
Boot Version
v1.01
Hardware
F5D7230-4 6000
Serial No.
BEL715bbe6

LAN Settings
LAN/WLAN MAC
XXXXX
IP address
192.168.2.1
Subnet mask
255.255.255.0
DHCP Server
Enabled
Internet Settings
WAN MAC address
XXXXX
Connection Type
Dynamic
Subnet mask
255.0.0.0
Wan IP
10.1.1.3
Default gateway
10.1.1.1
DNS Address
10.1.1.1

Features
NAT
Enabled
Firewall Settings
Enabled
SSID
XXXXX
Security
Enabled