wireless setup

vtscott · 2005-07-13 19:25:12

Thank you for the suggestions. I'll try them tonight if I get a chance, or at worst tomorrow. I've been doing a little experimenting with other distros recently, but since I'm fed up with them I think I'm just going to go back to Arch (pacman kicks apt-get's ass). However, with Debian I was able to get my wireless going very easily. It even detected the wireless card during installation... This leads me to believe that I can get it going with a native linux driver in Arch. It will also be nice to start with a clean slate (since I really got nowhere with the wireless thing last time, I lost nothing when I formatted my arch partition for Debian).

Thanks for your time and suggestions, hopefully they'll do the trick when I implement them tonight/tomorrow.
-Scott

phrakture · 2005-07-13 20:54:01

vtscott wrote:

Thank you for the suggestions. I'll try them tonight if I get a chance, or at worst tomorrow. I've been doing a little experimenting with other distros recently, but since I'm fed up with them I think I'm just going to go back to Arch (pacman kicks apt-get's ass). However, with Debian I was able to get my wireless going very easily. It even detected the wireless card during installation... This leads me to believe that I can get it going with a native linux driver in Arch. It will also be nice to start with a clean slate (since I really got nowhere with the wireless thing last time, I lost nothing when I formatted my arch partition for Debian).
Thanks for your time and suggestions, hopefully they'll do the trick when I implement them tonight/tomorrow.
-Scott

Well, if it works under debian, try and get all the settings they have...
lsmod output and all that jazz

vtscott · 2005-07-14 17:47:10

Try #2:

As suggested, I downloaded linux-wlan-ng-0.2.1pre25, extracted, configured, ran make, etc. All that went fine, and I also pacmanned wireless tools. However, when I try to run rc.wlan from the wlan-ng folder, i get the error:

[root@myhost etc]# ./rc.wlan start
Starting WLAN Devices: FATAL: Module wlan0 not found.

This makes sense, because when I call ifconfig -a, there is no mention of either a wlan0 or eth1 (my wireless connection was called eth1 in debian). Neither wlan0 or eth1 are mentioned when I call iwconfig as well.

Also, when I try to run wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable, I get the message:

[root@myhost linux-wlan-ng-0.2.1pre25]# wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable
wlanctl-ng: No such device

Seems to me the problem is that I need a wlan0 device to be created (I don't know how to go about creating it though, or if a driver should create it for me)... Here's my output from iwconfig in debian about eth1 (what my wireless lan device was called in debian):

eth1 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"VT_WLAN" Nickname:"HERMES I"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.417 GHz Access Point: 00:11:20:A4:37:40
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
Retry limit:4 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=42/92 Signal level=-62 dBm Noise level=-104 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:5
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

And here's the output of ifconfig about eth1 from debian:

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:2D:7D:98:B5
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:60 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:4516 (4.4 KiB) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x100

Here's the output from lsmod in debian:

Module Size Used by
orinoco_cs 9320 1
orinoco 44012 1 orinoco_cs
hermes 8640 2 orinoco_cs,orinoco
ds 18756 5 orinoco_cs
thermal 12656 0
fan 3980 0
button 6296 0
processor 17264 1 thermal
ac 4812 0
battery 9388 0
parport_pc 36900 0
parport 41800 1 parport_pc
rtc 12760 0
pcspkr 3592 0
8139cp 20672 0
snd_ali5451 25224 0
snd_ac97_codec 69988 1 snd_ali5451
snd_pcm_oss 55080 0
snd_mixer_oss 20096 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 98728 2 snd_ali5451,snd_pcm_oss
snd_page_alloc 11752 1 snd_pcm
snd_timer 25732 1 snd_pcm
snd 57156 6 snd_ali5451,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore 10336 1 snd
pci_hotplug 34640 0
ali_agp 7008 0
joydev 9984 0
agpgart 34664 1 ali_agp
usbhid 32224 0
ehci_hcd 32004 0
ohci_hcd 21764 0
usbcore 119012 5 usbhid,ehci_hcd,ohci_hcd
8139too 26112 0
mii 5120 2 8139cp,8139too
yenta_socket 21728 1
pcmcia_core 70868 3 orinoco_cs,ds,yenta_socket
nls_iso8859_1 4032 1
nls_cp437 5696 1
vfat 14656 1
fat 46784 1 vfat
tsdev 7392 0
mousedev 10476 0
evdev 9600 0
capability 4520 0
commoncap 7232 1 capability
toshiba_acpi 6012 0
psmouse 20360 0
ide_cd 42656 0
cdrom 40732 1 ide_cd
ext3 127240 1
jbd 62616 1 ext3
mbcache 9348 1 ext3
ide_generic 1408 0
ide_disk 19296 3
alim15x3 12492 1
ide_core 139940 4 ide_cd,ide_generic,ide_disk,alim15x3
sd_mod 21728 0
ata_piix 8132 0
libata 41700 1 ata_piix
scsi_mod 125228 2 sd_mod,libata
unix 28756 26
font 8320 0
vesafb 6656 0
cfbcopyarea 3872 1 vesafb
cfbimgblt 3040 1 vesafb
cfbfillrect 3776 1 vesafb

I don't know if this helps at all, I'm still lost... Again, any guidance would be appreciated.

Thank you,
-Scott

phrakture · 2005-07-14 19:33:32

ok, looking at the relevant module (and I tried to lay it out tree-based):

pcmcia_core -> yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic,orinoco_cs,pcmcia
  orinoco_cs
    orinoco -> orinoco_cs
      hermes -> orinoco_cs,orinoco
    pcmcia -> orinoco_cs
  yenta_socket
    rsrc_nonstatic -> yenta_socket

pcmcia_core -> orinoco_cs,ds,yenta_socket
  orinoco_cs
    orinoco -> orinoco_cs
      hermes -> orinoco_cs,orinoco
    ds -> orinoco_cs
  yenta_socket

But the modules don't look that different (at least the parts that matter) - can you find the /etc/net<whatever> setup for eth1 - no idea where the config is on debian, but it should be there somewhere... I seem to recall /etc/network/interfaces...

vtscott · 2005-07-14 20:20:24

Good point, phrakture. Unfortunately, debian is off my machine (probably for good after a fun little apt-get incident)... However, if it's crucial to get some of that information, I can always burn an Ubuntu live cd and run that (I've run ubuntu before and it detected my wireless card as well). I have limited hard drive space, so I was unable to keep my debian partition and create a new arch partition. There just has to be something that debian and ubuntu are doing automatically to create eth1 that arch is leaving to me, thinking that I'm smart enough to figure it out myself...

I've tried making an entry in rc.conf for wlan0, but the network daemon doesn't like that, and it doesn't help anything with rc.wlan that came with the wlan-ng that I downloaded. What exactly is responsible for creating wlan0? Is it a module that I can modprobe for? The reason I ask that is that I get errors like:

[root@myhost linux-wlan-ng]# /etc/rc.d/rc.wlan start
Starting WLAN Devices: FATAL: Module wlan0 not found.

Do I need to alias wlan0 with something in modprobe.conf? That seems to get rid of the Fatal module error, but still doesn't do anything constructive. I've tried aliasing it with prism2_cs and orinoco_cs on different occasions, but still nothing.

Oh, on another note, the only way I could get eth1 (wireless) to work in debian was to run dhclient on it. Don't know if that's related to anything, but just thought I'd throw that out there.

Thanks for your time,
-Scott

phrakture · 2005-07-14 21:40:29

Well, the wlan0 device is created by a module, yes - however it's behind the pcmcia stuff, which I have no direct experience with....

it may have to do with the order it's loaded in, but I'm not sure... I've been hoping someone else with pcmcia experience would join in on this thread, but that doesn't seem to happen....

i'll spout random ideas at you and we can see if anything works:

first off, add the alias into modprobe.conf like so:

alias wlan0 orinoco_cs

now:

/etc/rc.d/pcmcia restart
rmmod hermes
rmmod orinoco
rmmod orinoco_cs
/etc/rc.d/pcmcia restart
modprobe hermes
modprobe orinoco
modprobe orinoco_cs

after this, check ifconfig -a and iwconfig output... see if there is a wlan0 device listed...

PS don't touch the rc.wlan script... that's for later... but right now we need the device to appear properly...

According to http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tou … inoco.html :

From experience, 95% of the problem are not due to the driver but a generic Pcmcia configuration issues. Make sure that your Pcmcia socket and setup is functional, and try another Pcmcia card before blaming the driver.

So it's probably pcmcia... check your /etc/pcmcia/* files for something like:

card "Some Card Name"
  manfid 0xXXXX, 0xXXXX
  bind "orinoco_cs"

if your manfid isn't in there (you can get it from cardctl) then you need to add it with the 'bind' line...

EDIT:
the pcmcia stuff should also contain something like

 device "orinoco_cs"
class "network" module "orinoco_cs"

also try

 device "orinoco_cs"
class "network" module "hermes", "orinoco", "orinoco_cs"

vtscott · 2005-07-14 22:36:59

Thank you phrakture, I think you're onto something... I pacmanned pcmcia-cs and ran /etc/rc.d/pcmcia start, and got this output:

[root@myhost rc.d]# ./pcmcia start
:: Starting PCMCIA Services [BUSY]
FATAL: Error inserting i82365 (/lib/modules/2.6.12.2-ARCH/kernel/drivers/pcmcia/i82365.ko): No such device
cardmgr[3716]: watching 2 sockets

However, despte the fatal error, after that wlan0 is listed both in iwconfig and ifconfig (unfortunately with a hardware address of all 0's).

Here's what ifconfig -a has to say about wlan0:

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:00:00:00:00
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:11 Base address:0x100

And iwconfig says that it has no wireless extensions. I've been trying to rmmod and modprobe as you suggested, and have run into something interesting. I'm unable to rmmod prism2_cs... When I try to do that, it says:

[root@myhost rc.d]# rmmod prism2_cs
ERROR: Module prism2_cs is in use

However, I can modprobe and rmmod orinoco_cs all that I want. It's apparent from my debian lsmod that prism2_cs wasn't even loaded... However, orinoco_cs was, leading me to believe that for some reason, pcmcia is trying to use prism2_cs for my wireless card, rather than orinoco_cs. I went into /etc/pcmcia/config and checked to make sure the wireless card with my manfid was bound to orinoco_cs, and it was. I just don't know what's up with the prism2 thing, because it doesn't even appear in the lsmod from debian.

I tried going into modprobe.conf and aliasing prism2_cs with orinoco_cs to see if I could get whatever was calling prism2 to call orinoco instead. It kept prism2 from coming up when I ran pcmcia start, but still didnt' solve the problem. After unaliasing it, I restarted pcmcia and sure enough, prism2 popped up all over my lsmod list. So, for some reason pcmcia or whatever pcmcia runs thinks that prism2 should be in charge of my wireless card rather than orinoco... I'm sure I'll spend a lot more time tonight on it, but I'm getting ready to drive home and cook some dinner, so I figured I'd throw this info out there in case anyone just happens to know that answer.

Thanks again for all the help,
-Scott

shadowhand · 2005-07-15 00:00:00

I'm coming into this very late in the game, but I got wireless working by following the how-to in the wiki. I just use the regular network boot script and /etc/conf.d/wireless to configure it. Works beautifully for me (hostap_pci driver).

vtscott · 2005-07-15 03:02:54

I've tried the boot script before actually, and have read through that wiki. Thanks for the though.

-Scott

phrakture · 2005-07-15 04:01:50

vtscott: remove wlan-ng... thats for the prism stuff and you don't need it... after that it shouldn't load prism2 anymore

vtscott · 2005-07-15 19:57:09

IT WORKS!!! Put a [solved] in the title of this thread, because there are no wires connected to my laptop right now (except for my usb mouse and the power cord), but there is no ethernet cord connected to it, yet I'm posting on this forum!!

Thank you all for your suggestions, especially phrakture, without whom I'm sure I would have given up and gone back to windows after my first painful experience with linux wireless. I still need to get wireless to work on startup, but that should be much easier than actually getting it to work (hopefully).

Now, as for how it was done... Basically, I got rid of the pcmcia-cs stuff I got from pacman, and compiled pcmcia-cs myself. Of course, this involved multiple kernel recompiles, but after all was said and done, I ran cardmgr from the pcmcia-cs stuff I compiled, and suddenly eth1 popped up in iwconfig and ifconfig. I then just had to put eth1 in rc.conf and restart the network.

While this was a very specific setup problem, I'd be happy to write up a more thorough set of instructions if someone in charge thinks that it would be useful... Just let me know either in this thread, or e-mail me at vtscott@gmail.com (I don't check that e-mail address as often as I should, but I should respond within a week of something being sent to it).

Thanks again for all the help. Now I just have to hope that I don't break something as I try to make wireless work more automatically.

-Scott

phrakture · 2005-07-15 21:52:06

wahoo!

I'd be interested to know what you modified in the pcmcia-cs and kernel to get it all working...

on another note, pcmcia has it's own unique network stuff (/etc/pcmcia/wireless or /etc/pcmcia/network or something), so you can set that up in place of the arch setup, so that wireless will connect and disconnect when cardmgr tells it too (a nice feature of pcmcia)

vtscott · 2005-07-15 22:01:14

Thanks for the tip on the pcmcia network stuff. I'll have to try getting it going through that and figure out a way to make rc.d/network not fail when I don't have a wired ethernet connection. Haha, my solution now is kind of a hack, but I just wanted it to work right when I logged in rather than

As for what I changed... For one, I had been compiling the orinoco and hermes drivers directly into the kernel, but now they're modules. I made sure pcmcia/cardbus was compiled directly into the kernel (I believe it was, but some of the support things were modules, so I compiled them directly in as well -- stuff like yenta-compatible bridge support, 32 bit CardBus support, etc.). I also think compiling it myself was helpful, because it ensured I had the modules it needed. I love pacman, but I think in this case I needed to be in charge more... Anyways, hopefully this will help others who are in my position... I'll answer any other questions about what I did to the best of my ability. Heck, I could even post my .config file from my kernel compile.

-Scott

phrakture · 2005-07-15 22:09:11

vtscott wrote:

Thanks for the tip on the pcmcia network stuff. I'll have to try getting it going through that and figure out a way to make rc.d/network not fail when I don't have a wired ethernet connection. Haha, my solution now is kind of a hack, but I just wanted it to work right when I logged in rather than

I used to use "ifplugd" for this... disable eth0 in rc.conf and have ifplugd run on eth0 (it periodically polls to see if it's wired... if so, then it fires up the network script)

Arch Linux

#26 2005-07-13 19:25:12

Re: wireless setup

#27 2005-07-13 20:54:01

Re: wireless setup

#28 2005-07-14 17:47:10

Re: wireless setup

#29 2005-07-14 19:33:32

Re: wireless setup

#30 2005-07-14 20:20:24

Re: wireless setup

#31 2005-07-14 21:40:29

Re: wireless setup

#32 2005-07-14 22:36:59

Re: wireless setup

#33 2005-07-15 00:00:00

Re: wireless setup

#34 2005-07-15 03:02:54

Re: wireless setup

#35 2005-07-15 04:01:50

Re: wireless setup

#36 2005-07-15 19:57:09

Re: wireless setup

#37 2005-07-15 21:52:06

Re: wireless setup

#38 2005-07-15 22:01:14

Re: wireless setup

#39 2005-07-15 22:09:11

Re: wireless setup

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