On 08/30/2011 01:16 PM, greenlove wrote:
>
> Ok so the wireless is working. Thanks so much.
>
> The KnetworkManager still fails to enable wireless, but I guess I can
> live with that so long as I can use the ifup method. If someone wants
> to help me debug the Knetworkmanager, I’m willing to look into it, but I
> am quite happy to be working as I am.
What did you need to do to make it work. I have been deferring answering your
previous comment due to lack of time.
As long as ifup is working AND your system is fully updated, then NM will work.
The usual place that people have trouble is not letting kwallet manage the
encryption secret. As I don’t want to retype my 28-character WPA secret and I
don’t remember my WEP key, I set up the wallet to be passwordless. It is not
secure, but at least I don’t have to enter a password everytime I bring the
network up.
Follow the checklist below. It should help.
This description describes the steps needed to get the first wireless
connection. It will be specific to the KDE desktop. The steps will be similar
for Gnome, but the details may be different.
Step 1:
Do you have a Network Manager applet in the system tray? If not, use YaST =>
Network Devices => Network Settings. Under the “Global Options” tab, click on
the “User Controlled with Network Manager” button. If it is already set, you
will get a warning box when “Network Settings” starts. If you had to switch from
ifup to NetworkManager, you should log off/on to make sure that NM is running.
Step 2:
Now you should see the NM applet. Click on it and check the popup. If the
“Enable Wireless” checkbox is inactive (gray), there are several possibilities:
(a) Your wireless device driver is not loaded,
(b) the necessary firmware is not available, or
(c) an rfkill switch/button is wrong.
For (2a), check “hwinfo --network” and check the “Driver” line. If it is blank,
then you need to run the command “/sbin/lspci -nn” if the device is connected to
a PCI bus, or “lsusb” if a USB device. Post the results on the Wireless forum.
For (2b), look at the output of “dmesg | grep firmware”, which will list the
name of the file(s) to be loaded. If the command returns nothing, then firmware
is not a prblem. For Broadcom devices that use either b43 or b43legacy, the
firmware is obtained by using the command
“sudo /usr/sbin/install_b43xx_firmware”.
You will need a wired connection to complete this step.
For (2c), you will also need a wired connection and install the “rfkill” package
using the command “sudo zypper in rfkill”. The interrogate the current settings
with “/usr/sbin/rfkill list”. If any device is “Hard blocked”, then wireless
will be disabled. For most devices, the “Hard” blocking is controlled by a
switch or button. If a button, control will likely be with a Windows Management
Interface (wmi) driver. These are beyond the scope of this article, and should
be addressed in a query on the Forum.
Step 3:
Once the “Enable Wireless” checkbox is active, check it and click on “Manage
Connections”. Choose the Wireless tab and click on Add. Enter the name for this
connection. You will probably want to check the “Connect Automatically” box.
Next click on the Scan button. If you do not see your Access Point (AP) in the
map, you will not be able to get a connection. Click on the AP you want, and
click OK. The (E)SSID should be in the SSID box. The other boxes on this screen
should be OK as is. If you have several APs with the same SSID, but you wish to
restrict the connection to only one of them, then you should enter its MAC
address in the BSSID box. This usage is rare. Next click on the “Wireless
Security” tab and enter any encryption secrets. The correct type should have
been selected. For WEP encryption, you will need to use the hex key, not a
passphrase. Once this is complete, click OK to close this screen, and the
configure screen. During this process, a popup should appear offering to use a
wallet to store the connection secret. If you use a password on this wallet, you
will need to enter that password each time you log in. If you set no password on
the wallet, the security level is lowered, but entering a password is avoided.
Step 4:
At this point, you will need to disconnect the wire. Whenever the computer can
make a hard-wired connection, it will supersede any wireless option. The
wireless connection should then occur automatically.
In some instances, it is necessary to log off/on to get NM to pick up the secret.