[SOLVED] iwl4965 + kernel 2.6.26 (+ compat-wireless ?)

Aitch · 2008-08-01 21:52:23

Ok guys I done heaps of reading of the forum posts and googling but the time has come to ask for help.

I am using a Lenovo T61 Thinkpad and running the x86_64 variety of this wonderful distribution. I enjoy trying out new things and giving something back so I use testing and try to keep my system as up to date as I can. I have been using compat-wireless to get my wireless chip working and was helping out with netcfg V2 testing. All working great. Last week pacman aborted because the compat-wireless package was not set up for 2.6.26 update. On the next boot my laptop stopped associating with my ap even though all the bits checked out as working.

Cable out, eth0 up, remove compat-wireless and -Syu working sweetly hundreds of MB with new kernel, KDE4, et al. but still not associating on the wireless chip. Tried everything including reinstalling the compat-wireless package from AUR, but that's still broken. Lots of reading tells me that support for the iwl4965 driver is now included in the 2.6.26 kernel so my questions are:

Do I still need compat-wireless?

If no what changes do I need to make to get the driver in the kernel working?

If yes do I modify the PKGBUILD or install from source?

Last edited by Aitch (2008-08-19 14:06:32)

.:B:. · 2008-08-01 23:08:45

Iwl4965 has been in the mainline kernel since 2.6.24...

Aitch · 2008-08-02 11:04:03

So you're saying I need to keep using compat-wireless. but can you help with my other questions?....

arew264 · 2008-08-02 20:07:46

If the driver has been in the main kernel, no, you don't need wireless-compat. Have you tried associating with wireless-compat uninstalled?
Have you tried associating outside of netcfg2? If so, what commands are you using? Are you using any encryption?

Last edited by arew264 (2008-08-02 20:08:27)

Aitch · 2008-08-03 20:21:23

I've tried every variation of ifconfig and iwconfig options. The driver appears to work as wlan0 is loaded but refuses to associate with my wireless router. I am using WEP encryption - all is exactly as before.

iwconfig wlan0
wlan0     IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"bakergata"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Tx-Power=15 dBm                                                   
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B             
          Encryption key:xxxx-xxxx-xx                                       
          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0                     
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0          
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0          

ifconfig wlan0
wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1D:E0:1B:66:8F
          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)

dhcpcd works fine with eth0 but here's what happens with wlan0

info, wlan0: dhcpcd 3.2.1 starting
info, wlan0: hardware address = 00:1d:e0:1b:66:8f
info, wlan0: broadcasting for a lease            
debug, wlan0: sending DHCP_DISCOVER with xid 0xea4f138
debug, wlan0: waiting on select for 20 seconds        
debug, wlan0: sending DHCP_DISCOVER with xid 0xea4f138
....................
err, wlan0: timed out
info, wlan0: trying to use old lease in `/var/lib/dhcpcd/dhcpcd-wlan0.info'
debug, wlan0: sending ARP probe #1
debug, wlan0: sending ARP probe #2
debug, wlan0: sending ARP probe #3
debug, wlan0: sending ARP claim #1
debug, wlan0: sending ARP claim #2
warn, wlan0: using IPV4LL address 169.254.54.37
info, wlan0: adding IP address 169.254.54.37/16
debug, wlan0: no dns information to write
debug, wlan0: forking to background

Here's a funny thing: iwlist wlan0 scan finds all my neighbours routers but not my one!!!

Last edited by Aitch (2008-08-03 20:23:55)

arew264 · 2008-08-03 23:33:14

Can you try disabling encryption on the router and see what happens?
It could just be a WEP problem, or the driver could be failing entirely.

Aitch · 2008-08-04 21:09:24

Thanks for taking an interest arew, you encouraged me to look elsewhere for the solution.

I tried switching off encryption but had exactly the same results, then while I was in my router set-up I tried some of the other settings. When I changed the WEP Authentication from "Open" to "Shared Key" things started working again.

I'm pretty sure this problem has been because of an Arch Linux change, due to the fact that I had to change the same settings on my wife's Windows machine to get it working again after I'd reset the router. Could some default have changed somewhere? I notice a lot of posts about similar failure of wireless cards to associate.

smartcat99s · 2008-08-07 01:06:09

I ended up using this in my .zshrc to rake care of the problem with my router (128bit WEP not liking my 4965). I've only had problems like this when it's a router that uses WEP, not when there is no encryption or WPA.

connect () { sudo netcfg2 wireless || connect }

Aitch · 2008-08-07 09:25:56

I am using 64bit WEP and netcfg 2.1 with the preessid quirk set. All works fine again after I set the router to use shared key.

I suppose I really should upgrade to WPA anyway though - I'll add it to the list.

Last edited by Aitch (2008-08-07 09:26:37)

Aitch · 2008-08-19 14:17:04

Update:

I was still having issues after the above fix and further investigation led me to see that my wireless router was set to channel 13. I remembered reading about issues with channels 12 & 13 on the iwl4965 driver so I tried changing this to a lower channel. Now "iwlist" shows my router and I can manually load and get an IP connection through "dhcpd wlan0".

Netcfg is not yet working as before, but I'm working on that one. (Correction it is working, I just didn't give it enough DHCP_TIMEOUT!)

Last edited by Aitch (2008-08-20 15:07:47)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-08-01 21:52:23

[SOLVED] iwl4965 + kernel 2.6.26 (+ compat-wireless ?)

#2 2008-08-01 23:08:45

Re: [SOLVED] iwl4965 + kernel 2.6.26 (+ compat-wireless ?)

#3 2008-08-02 11:04:03

Re: [SOLVED] iwl4965 + kernel 2.6.26 (+ compat-wireless ?)

#4 2008-08-02 20:07:46

Re: [SOLVED] iwl4965 + kernel 2.6.26 (+ compat-wireless ?)

#5 2008-08-03 20:21:23

Re: [SOLVED] iwl4965 + kernel 2.6.26 (+ compat-wireless ?)

#6 2008-08-03 23:33:14

Re: [SOLVED] iwl4965 + kernel 2.6.26 (+ compat-wireless ?)

#7 2008-08-04 21:09:24

Re: [SOLVED] iwl4965 + kernel 2.6.26 (+ compat-wireless ?)

#8 2008-08-07 01:06:09

Re: [SOLVED] iwl4965 + kernel 2.6.26 (+ compat-wireless ?)

#9 2008-08-07 09:25:56

Re: [SOLVED] iwl4965 + kernel 2.6.26 (+ compat-wireless ?)

#10 2008-08-19 14:17:04

Re: [SOLVED] iwl4965 + kernel 2.6.26 (+ compat-wireless ?)

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