Wireless working in LiveCD, not full install.

English Network/Internet
#1

I started out using a liveCd, to get the feel for OpenSuse. Everything worked like a charm, so I decided to go for the full install.

When it was done, I could not connect to my wireless, even though it was working fine in the live CD.

I am newbie, so I’m not sure what info you need from my system to help you understand what is going on, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

#2

Tell us if you are gnome or kde

Is there a networkmanager in your tray? Right click add new wlan0

In a terminal as su
do

hwinfo

near the bottom should be wlan info, paste here if you can get it working via networkmanager

#3

I am using KDE. Knetworkmanager is enabled.

Here is some more, hopefully relevent, info. When I rebooted for the first time, Knetworkmanager was able to see all the various wireless networks around, including mine. It just refused to connect. I rebooted recently, and now it won’t recognize any wireless networks at all, it comes up blank. When I manually enter in my networks SSID, nothing comes up.

Here is the hwinfo, wlan part:
61: None 00.0: 1070a WLAN
[Created at net.124]
Unique ID: AYEt.QXn1l67RSa1
Parent ID: y9sn.eYBzW3bmQnB
SysFS ID: /class/net/wlan0
SysFS Device Link: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.0/0000:01:00.0
Hardware Class: network interface
Model: “WLAN network interface”
Driver: “ath5k_pci”
Driver Modules: “ath5k”
Device File: wlan0
HW Address: 00:1f:e2:b3:67:e7
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
Attached to: #26 (WLAN controller)

Thanks again for the help!

#4

Madwifi’s been saying they have the solution for ath5k. You might have a look at that site. The link to that and swerdna’s site, which has a very helpful how-to, is in the sticky.

I am noticing many posters with just a couple of posts. This is a good thing since people are being drawn to opensuse. Problems with wireless are just the type of thing to drive them away. NetworkManager has been a weak spot for a long while now. I only hope the devs put a strong focus on it, soon.

#5

Here is how mine looks:

67: None 00.0: 10780 Network Interface
  [Created at net.124]                
  Unique ID: agy+.GSopYcFr9cF         
  Parent ID: y9sn.mAONicWAIr5         
  SysFS ID: /class/net/wmaster0       
  SysFS Device Link: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.1/0000:03:00.0
  Hardware Class: network interface                               
  Model: "Network Interface"                                      
  Driver: "iwl3945"                                               
  Driver Modules: "iwl3945"                                       
  Device File: wmaster0                                           
  HW Address: 00:1f:3c:9c:bc:3a                                   
  Link detected: yes                                              
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown      
  Attached to: #30 (WLAN controller)                              

68: None 00.0: 1070a WLAN
  [Created at net.124]   
  Unique ID: AYEt.QXn1l67RSa1
  Parent ID: y9sn.mAONicWAIr5
  SysFS ID: /class/net/wlan0
  SysFS Device Link: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.1/0000:03:00.0
  Hardware Class: network interface
  Model: "WLAN network interface"
  Driver: "iwl3945"
  Driver Modules: "iwl3945"
  Device File: wlan0
  HW Address: 00:1f:3c:9c:bc:3a
  Link detected: yes
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #30 (WLAN controller)

do this:
lspci

mine shows: 03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] NetwConnection (rev 02)

Can you now identify you device?

If you go here: Hardware - openSUSE
Go to Wireless

You may have to use Madwifi or Ndiswrapper
Madwifi or Ndiswrapper Wireless Network Drivers - Suse/openSUSE 10, 11 - LAN & Internet access

#6

Thank you guys for your help. After doing a bit more research, it seems the Atheros AR242x wireless that my laptop uses won’t work with madwifi or ndiswrapper on opensuse. It looks like it will work with madwifi in ubuntu, so I will probably throw that on the lappy, which is a shame, because I really liked the look of opensuse, but I can always put that on the desktop.

Thanks again for all the help pointing me in the right direction guys.

Also, can anyone say what would cause the wireless to work in Live CD if it won’t work in the full install? I’m just more curious than anything.

#7

ryanson wrote:
> Thank you guys for your help. After doing a bit more research, it seems
> the Atheros AR242x wireless that my laptop uses won’t work with madwifi
> or ndiswrapper on opensuse. It looks like it will work with madwifi in
> ubuntu, so I will probably throw that on the lappy, which is a shame,
> because I really liked the look of opensuse, but I can always put that
> on the desktop.
>
> Thanks again for all the help pointing me in the right direction guys.
>
> Also, can anyone say what would cause the wireless to work in Live CD
> if it won’t work in the full install? I’m just more curious than
> anything.

To answer your question, on the installed system, issue the command ‘lsmod >
temp’ and print file “temp”. Now boot the live CD, open a terminal and enter the
command ‘lsmod’ to see what modules are being used. Look for items in the second
list that are not in the first. In particular, check for items that might have
to do with wireless - ndiswrapper, athXXX, and mac80211 come to mind.

Madwifi was built around the closed-source version of the HAL. Now that Atheros
has released the source, work on madwifi has been abandoned in favor of the
built-in athXXX drivers, and may not work on 2.6.27, even though it did on
earlier kernels.

BTW, wireless questions get more attention when posted in the wireless forum.

Larry