Wow, seriously? That is very kind of you. I appreciate all your help. I’ve loaded Linux many times in the past, but kept going back to Windows because I couldn’t get things to work. Now I’ve decided to just stick with it, and figure out the issues.
Unfortunately, the lack of internet is bottle-necking other fixes, but they at least have temporary workarounds.
Well, building an rpm was easier than I thought and I should have it ready in a
couple of hours.
Your wireless is suffering from a transition in the driver. Now that the
development code is nearing what will be in kernel 3.4, things have stabilized.
If you have $15 to spend, check out http://tinyurl.com/7d5933q. Those RTL8187L
units only work at 802.11g speeds, but the driver is solid and it does not
require external firmware. That unit with the external antenna will pull in very
weak signals. I have one in a slightly different form that can connect to an AP
that cannot be seen with the internal antennas in my laptop.
On 03/02/2012 01:46 PM, niero wrote:
>
> lwfinger;2445161 Wrote:
>> Well, building an rpm was easier than I thought and I should have it
>> ready in a
>> couple of hours.
>>
>> Your wireless is suffering from a transition in the driver. Now that
>> the
>> development code is nearing what will be in kernel 3.4, things have
>> stabilized.
>> If you have $15 to spend, check out ‘1000mW Realtek RTL8187L Wi-Fi
>> 802.11g wireless USB Adapter card w/ 6dbi Antenna | eBay’
>> (http://tinyurl.com/7d5933q). Those RTL8187L
>> units only work at 802.11g speeds, but the driver is solid and it does
>> not
>> require external firmware. That unit with the external antenna will
>> pull in very
>> weak signals. I have one in a slightly different form that can connect
>> to an AP
>> that cannot be seen with the internal antennas in my laptop.
>
> So I would use this instead of my current wireless USB card, or in
> addition to, to boost the signal?
It would be in place of your existing one. The advantage is that it does not
require firmware. Bonding two interfaces together is quite difficult. In
addition, if they shared an AP, they would get in each other’s way.
> What exactly goes into building an rpm? Are rpm’s more like zip files
> or executables?
RPMs are the openSUSE equivalent of an msi file in Windows. Not only does it
have all the files, but also the instructions on how to install it on the system.
On 03/02/2012 04:46 PM, niero wrote:
>
> $15 is a good deal. It’s good to have a backup plan. The one I was
> looking at, if worse came to worst, was $50 from Think Penguin.com.
For my debugging, I have 10 different USB wireless devices of various makes and
models for testing purposes. Most were purchased through E-bay at $20 or less,
including shipping.
On 03/02/2012 08:40 PM, Larry Finger wrote:
> On 03/02/2012 04:46 PM, niero wrote:
>>
>> $15 is a good deal. It’s good to have a backup plan. The one I was
>> looking at, if worse came to worst, was $50 from Think Penguin.com.
>
> For my debugging, I have 10 different USB wireless devices of various makes and
> models for testing purposes. Most were purchased through E-bay at $20 or less,
> including shipping.
Installing the kernel rpm that I built goes just fine until the very last step.
To do that requires an edit of the GRUB menu, and I am still deciding the “best”
way to advise you on that. As I have some things to do, that will take a while.
In the meantime, running the commands below will get your wireless running:
Thank you for that command, lwfinger. I’m definitely much closer, and I may only be missing one small thing. That command got the wireless card to show up in iwconfig, as well as in YaST. And it can scan for AP’s. In YaST I put in my passphrase, and set everything to DHCP. But I still can’t get the browser to see the Net and I can’t ping the card.
I may not be entering correct command for pinging. I’m using ping wlan0 or ping 192.168.1.1 (maybe 192.168.1.254?)
Browser is currently Firefox, set to automatically detect connection settings.
I’m including my console output. I will also try to upload screen shots.
I know you have your own stuff to do, lwfinger, so I don’t expect you to take more time out of your days for this, though I appreciate everything. (I am SO sick of Windows and have decided to do whatever it takes to become proficient with Linux.)
If you don’t have time for more troubleshooting, can you, or anyone, point me in the right direction for research? I’ve read a ton of forum posts here and on Linux Forums.com. But I have yet to really “get it.”
Thanks again.
Btw, lwfinger, if you’re having to spend a lot of time on all this, I’d be happy to pay you a couple bucks for your troubles. Just let me know.
thedude@linux-gpbe:~> su - /sbin/modprobe -v
su: invalid option -- 'v'
Try `su --help' for more information.
thedude@linux-gpbe:~> su /sbin/modprobe -v rt2800usb
su: invalid option -- 'v'
Try `su --help' for more information.
thedude@linux-gpbe:~> su -
Password:
linux-gpbe:~ # /sbin/modprobe rt2800usb
linux-gpbe:~ # /sbin/modprobe rt2800usb echo "13b1 002f" > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/rt2800usb/new_id
linux-gpbe:~ # exit
logout
thedude@linux-gpbe:~> iwlist scan
Absolute path to 'iwlist' is '/usr/sbin/iwlist', so running it may require superuser privileges (eg. root).
thedude@linux-gpbe:~> su
Password:
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1A:4D:70:74:88
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)
Interrupt:16
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:398 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:398 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:29973 (29.2 Kb) TX bytes:29973 (29.2 Kb)
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # /sbin/modprobe -v rt2800usb
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # echo "13b1 002f" > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/rt2800usb/new_id
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # lsusb
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 1058:1021 Western Digital Technologies, Inc. Elements 2TB
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 13b1:002f Linksys AE1000 v1 802.11n [Ralink RT3572]
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 05e3:0610 Genesys Logic, Inc.
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0d8c:0102 C-Media Electronics, Inc. CM106 Like Sound Device
Bus 007 Device 002: ID 046d:c068 Logitech, Inc. G500 Laser Mouse
Bus 007 Device 003: ID 045e:00db Microsoft Corp. Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 V1.0
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 05e3:0610 Genesys Logic, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 008: ID 1058:1100 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # ilconfig
If 'ilconfig' is not a typo you can use command-not-found to lookup the package that contains it, like this:
cnf ilconfig
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # lwconfig
If 'lwconfig' is not a typo you can use command-not-found to lookup the package that contains it, like this:
cnf lwconfig
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # /usr/sbin/lwconfig
bash: /usr/sbin/lwconfig: No such file or directory
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # cnf lwconfig
lwconfig: command not found
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # /usr/bin/lwconfig
bash: /usr/bin/lwconfig: No such file or directory
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
wlan0 IEEE 802.11abgn ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:on
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # wlan0 ifup
If 'wlan0' is not a typo you can use command-not-found to lookup the package that contains it, like this:
cnf wlan0
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # ifup wlan0
wlan0
No configuration found for wlan0
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # ls /etc | less
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # cat /etc/modprobe.d
cat: /etc/modprobe.d: Is a directory
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # ls /etc/modprobe.d | less
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # cat /etc/modprobe.d
cat: /etc/modprobe.d: Is a directory
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # ls /etc/modprobe.d
00-system.conf 50-nvidia.conf 50-yast.conf
10-unsupported-modules.conf 50-prism54.conf 50-yast.conf.YaST2save
50-blacklist.conf 50-sound.conf 99-local.conf
50-bluetooth.conf 50-sound.conf.YaST2save xen_loop.conf
50-ipw2200.conf 50-thinkpad_acpi.conf xen_pvdrivers.conf
50-iwl3945.conf 50-tv.conf
50-iwlagn.conf 50-vmnics.conf
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # ping 192.168.1.1
connect: Network is unreachable
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # ping eth0
ping: unknown host eth0
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # ping wlan0
ping: unknown host wlan0
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # netowkr
If 'netowkr' is not a typo you can use command-not-found to lookup the package that contains it, like this:
cnf netowkr
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # networkmanager
If 'networkmanager' is not a typo you can use command-not-found to lookup the package that contains it, like this:
cnf networkmanager
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1A:4D:70:74:88
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:1749 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:42 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:106776 (104.2 Kb) TX bytes:12780 (12.4 Kb)
Interrupt:16
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:1082 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1082 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:81685 (79.7 Kb) TX bytes:81685 (79.7 Kb)
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 68:7F:74:7D:1B:6C
inet addr:192.168.1.3 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::6a7f:74ff:fe7d:1b6c/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:11196 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:7012 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:16056604 (15.3 Mb) TX bytes:673989 (658.1 Kb)
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
wlan0 IEEE 802.11abgn ESSID:"thedude"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:90:4C:7E:00:6E
Bit Rate=48 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=70/70 Signal level=-39 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:29 Invalid misc:33 Missed beacon:0
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude # ping 00:90:4C:7E:00:6E
ping: unknown host 00:90:4C:7E:00:6E
linux-gpbe:/home/thedude #
The command sequence you posted showed that you have little familiarity with the
command line, and Linux in general. Using ifup for wireless can be challenging,
even for experts, thus I doubt that it is a good option for you.
As your device can scan after you got the new-id inserted, you should be able to
get a connection once you switch to NetworkManager. You do that with YaST =>
Network Devices => Network Settings.
Yes that’s very true, I am a newbie. I have used it a little now and again but not heavily. I had some he’d problems so am reinstalling. I will try this stuff again when she’s up and running again. I will try knetworkmanager
I have a question about the ae1000 network adapter. For some reason if I plug it into my Fedora 16 laptop I see both the 5ghz and 2ghz bands on my router, in OpenSuse I only see my 2ghz signal. I cannot see or connect to the 5ghz side of my router. A scan in the yast networking tool only shows the 2ghz ssid. I have a separate ssid for both bands. Is there something I need to do differently to get it to use the 5ghz band? I am trying to leave it managed in yast. Would I be better off using the kde network manager?
> I have a question about the ae1000 network adapter. For some reason if
> I plug it into my Fedora 16 laptop I see both the 5ghz and 2ghz bands on
> my router, in OpenSuse I only see my 2ghz signal. I cannot see or
> connect to the 5ghz side of my router. A scan in the yast networking
> tool only shows the 2ghz ssid. I have a separate ssid for both bands. Is
> there something I need to do differently to get it to use the 5ghz band?
> I am trying to leave it managed in yast. Would I be better off using the
> kde network manager?
>
> Thanks in advance for any advice you might have.
The device has dual bands, but I have no idea what it takes to use the 5G band.
These kinds of differences are usually due to the kernel version. What are the
outputs of ‘uname -r’ for the two installations? Is the firmware the same?
In Opensue 12.1 I get the kernel version 3.1.9-1.4-desktop. Unfortunately, my Fedora install had an untimely departure and I do not know the version that was on there. Interestingly enough after my Fedora install went dead I decided to replace it with a Debian install on that machine, I wanted to see what Debian would do with the device. I followed the wiki on the Debian site and the device setup and worked. Again I was only able to see the 2.4ghz band. After much pulling my hair out I finally figured out that compat-wireless was setting the wrong country code. So I did this “iw reg set US” and the ssid on the 5ghz channel appeared and worked. Now I am back to my openSuse 12.1 machine and was hoping for the same simple solution, but most of the commands I used in Debian do not work in openSuse. For instance if I tried iw reg set US and openSuse it just throws this error “nl80211 not found”.
Also on Debian I was able to catch that the country did not seem correct because if I checked over dmesg and the compat-wireless module shows the country code it was setting. On openSuse there appears to be no entries at all in dmesg for that. I also do not see any message in dmesg that refers to the device module loading. I know it is loaded as it connects at the 2.4ghz band. I guess I will just have to keep digging.
On 04/01/2012 08:26 AM, devguy wrote:
>
> In Opensue 12.1 I get the kernel version 3.1.9-1.4-desktop.
> Unfortunately, my Fedora install had an untimely departure and I do not
> know the version that was on there. Interestingly enough after my Fedora
> install went dead I decided to replace it with a Debian install on that
> machine, I wanted to see what Debian would do with the device. I
> followed the wiki on the Debian site and the device setup and worked.
> Again I was only able to see the 2.4ghz band. After much pulling my hair
> out I finally figured out that compat-wireless was setting the wrong
> country code. So I did this “iw reg set US” and the ssid on the 5ghz
> channel appeared and worked. Now I am back to my openSuse 12.1 machine
> and was hoping for the same simple solution, but most of the commands I
> used in Debian do not work in openSuse. For instance if I tried iw reg
> set US and openSuse it just throws this error “nl80211 not found”.
>
> Also on Debian I was able to catch that the country did not seem
> correct because if I checked over dmesg and the compat-wireless module
> shows the country code it was setting. On openSuse there appears to be
> no entries at all in dmesg for that. I also do not see any message in
> dmesg that refers to the device module loading. I know it is loaded as
> it connects at the 2.4ghz band. I guess I will just have to keep
> digging.
Using ‘kdesu kwrite’, create a file named ‘/etc/modprobe.d/50-cfg80211.conf’
containing the single line “options cfg80211 ieee80211_regdom=US”. After you do
that, any driver that uses mac80211 will have the correct country code.