So after years of using Ubutnu, Ubuntu’s latest release (11.04?)finally drove me nuts with computer freeze ups and lags and crashes (which up until this last release has never been a problem) I decided to give openSUSE a try. I wanted to give KDE a spin before trying it (i’m accustomed to gnome and unity)so I downloaded the KDE live cd and took it for a test drive. I found it to be different, but nothing too difficult. When I tried to connect to the internet I noticed the network manager right hand side of screen showed no connections, just a hidden network. Under the left hand screen where it showed interfaces it showed both my hardwire ethernet card (not enabled) and my wireless network card (also not enabled). I clicked on the wireless network card and it suddenly enabled and started giving me data about it and on the right hand side of my screen the normal wireless networks of my neighborhood (including my own) showed up. A click later and password later I was online and good to go.
I figured what the heck, if the live CD works this smoothly I’ll just install and go from there. This is where the problem came in. I installed SUSE 11.4 and upon bootup, my network manager no longer has the options that it showed from the live cd. Under connections it will show a hidden network, but under interfaces it shows absolutely nothing…it has two empty checkboxes (one for enable networking and one for enable wireless). Upon checking thse the connections side of the manger goes blank (removing the hidden network option). Upon unchecking these the hidden option doesn’t return. if I go into the network manager settings, the tab for wireless is greyed out and I can’t even select it to do any editing
What gives? Why would the live CD have no issue with my cards and connecting, but a brand new fresh install would? after doing some research through windows (it’s a dual boot and I obviously can’t connect to the internet in any fashion or way while in suse) I found that sometimes you need to go into Yast (which I have never used) to set stuff up. I went into yast and under hardwear it is definately finding my card. if I go into the networks section of yast it shows the card not setup though. I tried setting it up for dynamic protocol etc but it still wouldn’t work. I’ve even tried goign from the live cd again (which it works still) and reinstalling SUSE (which it still didn’t work). I’m not sure where to go from here. I can’t read this forum for command line ideas or post command line outputs since I can’t connect to the internet to read your instructions or post my results while in SUSE.
I’m hoping one of you geniuses that is more familiar with KDE and SUSE might know what is different (settings wise maybe?)about the 11.4 live cd vs. the real instal that the cd would work just fine for me but the actual install doesn’t, and where to go from here… I tried going into YAST from the live CD to get the network settings, but it wouldn’t let me saying that YAST couldn’t control it.
Any help would be appreciated as I’m about to go back to ubuntu or put a .40 cal bullet through my hard drive
On 11/03/2011 10:26 AM, shmoesmith wrote:
> So after years of using Ubutnu, Ubuntu’s latest release (11.04?)finally
> drove me nuts with computer freeze ups and lags and crashes
-=WELCOME=- new poster, but as far as i know Ubuntu is the easiest of
all the Linux distros to administer…and, it is rock solid with
administered correctly…so, i’m not sure why you think any other
distro will be less troublesome for you…
and, if you go the top of the wireless forum
<http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/wireless/>
you will see three stickies…please work your way though them as most
folks find all the answers needed to get their wireless working…and,
if not then one of those stickies tells you what info you need to post
to get help here…
–
DD
openSUSE®, the “German Automobiles” of operating systems
The Live CD does some things that cannot be allowed in an installed version. For
example, it stores the wireless secrets in an unencrypted file. Although this is
an option with the installed version, it is probably not what you want.
After you boot the installed version, click on the network applet and create the
connection using the Connection Manager. As you did not specify whether you use
Gnome or KDE, I cannot be more specific.
@denverD yeah, I looked through the stickies and they haven’t resolved my problem. Here is the data I have found through going through the stickies:
Device:
atheros AP5001X+ Wireless network adapter
Kernal driver ath5k
under yast > miscellaneous , there is no system logs selection to find a boot.msg in
dmesg | grep firmware doesn’t return any results, just a new command line
sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan
result: (the first time)
Lo interface doesn’t support scanning
wlan0 interface doesn’t support scanning: network is down
eth0 interface doesn’t support scanning
usr/sbin/iwlist scan
result: 9the 2nd time)
lo Interface doesn’t support scanning
wlan0 no scan results
eth0 interface doesn’t support scanning
I’m guessing something isn’t turned on somehwere or configured right, but i’m not sure where to go from here.
@caf4926, I can’t run /sbin/lspci -nnk and post the whole feedback data since I can’t copy it and paste it on the net when I can’t access the net. everything I put in this thread is something I have to write down by hand and re-boot into windows (so I can get online) and then post here…I think what you were looking for is this though:
@lwfinger sorry if I wasn’t clear about the version, but I’m using KDE, but as per your recomendation to create teh connection through connection manager, this is impossible because when i click on manage conections, the ‘wireless’ tab is grayed out and the system will not let me click on it and add a conection.
I think that maybe the biggest hint is that the system sees the cards and assigns drivers under teh hardware profile in yast, but under the network applet it shows no interfaces (neither the wireless or ethernet cable one). Not sure why one part of the system would see them and the other wouldn’t.even when i click on the enable networking and enabled wireless boxes in teh applet it still doesn’t show an interface…this is probably why their repsective tabs are grayed out when I try and go into manage connections.
oh, and on the wired connection, basically the situation is the same…worked in windows and ubuntu, but isn’t working and the interface isn’t even showing up in connection manager in SUSE
After a little investigation, I found that the directory “/lib/firmware” on the live CD contains a lot more than was what I installed from the DVD.
If you do the install from the live CD, it will probably work. Alternatively, boot the live CD, and mount a usb drive.
cd /lib
tar cf "/path/to/the/mounted/usb/firmware.tar" firmware
Now boot your installed system, and mount the same usb drive.
cd /lib
mv firmware firmware.orig
tar xpf "/path/to/the/mounted/usb/firmware.tar"
That copies in the firmware from the live CD. Then reboot and see if wireless works.
I don’t know if that will solve your problem, but it is worth a try. Installing from the live CD is a sure fix (or an almost-sure fix), since it installs by just copying over what is installed on the live CD, then tweaking it so that it will boot.
On 11/03/2011 11:56 AM, shmoesmith wrote:
> @lwfinger sorry if I wasn’t clear about the version, but I’m using KDE,
> but as per your recomendation to create teh connection through
> connection manager, this is impossible because when i click on manage
> conections, the ‘wireless’ tab is grayed out and the system will not let
> me click on it and add a conection.
I do not recall you saying that in the first message. Your problem is most
likely firmware.
Well bad news and good news. The bad news is that this didn’t work. The good news is that I’m posting from my now working connection. I’m not sure what in the process I used caused it to work, but I will explain what I did in case it will help any other openSUSE users out.
I figured that based upon responses there was an obvious difference between what get loaded up between a liveCD run and an actual install from that CD. I had only used the 720mb KDE install, not the full 4.7 gb DVD install (which gives more software options such as GNOME)…I figured that if there was a difference in what the 720mb KDE cd installed and what was on the CD, there was a good chance that there was a difference in what the 4.7gb dvd install put on your computer vs the 720mb KDE live disk.
I proceeded to download the full 4.7gb installation DVD and installed the KDE environment from there. Upon installation completion the wireless was still not working…I didn’t even have a network manager in my system tray. The next step was to go into YaST and tell the wireless network card config (which hadn’t been config’d for whatever reason) to use network manager instead of ifup. Since network manager wasn’t already runnign for whatever reason (it was always auto-loaded from the live cd) I proceeded to do a run command of the knetworkmanager to get the applet going. Once I got it going and the wireless card configuration showed as using it as the manager, it STILL wouldn’t work. To finalize the process I had to manually go in an add a connection under my wireless section (which wasn’t showing before) which was a process of manually putting in my ssid and encryption data.
So bottom line, I have no clue what the hell the difference was between the 4.7gb install DVD vs the 720mb KDE only install, but something was different and it allowed me to go into yast and network manager and change settings that I wasn’t able to change previously. Time to see if the fix holds after a reboot.
Well the fix only quasi-held after a reboot. Apparently knetworkmanager still won’t autostart. I have even gone into personal settings > autostart and added program knetworkmanager as a program and have it checked off as ‘enabled’ For whatever reason upon re-boot it still doesn’t start up and I still need to manually start it up before I can connect to a wireless network.
well, it wasn’t in the hidden applet section. I ran a system update (now that i can access internet) and it updated and installed 200+ packages and now knetworkmanager auto-loads. I even removed it from the autostart list and under personal settings and tried a reboot and its working. Not sure what was going on, but somewhere in there the system update must have patched things up.
now to get playing with the system and see how I like it compared to Ubuntu