[SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

dark808bb · 2013-05-02 01:02:46

I'm having difficulty here. Im attempting to dual boot arch and windows on my aspire s3. The Atheros ar9485 kernel driver is loaded when I run lspci -v but the kernel module is not listed... I've stopped and started dhcpcd and i've ran ip link set wlan0 up. The beginners guide says to run netcfg's wifi-menu the beginners guide must be out of date because thats not even a valid command.

Idk what else to do. Can somebody give me some direction? thanks.

[SOLUTION]
using the wiki. reading more carefully.

i ran the following commands

rfkill list all

since my wireless card was softbocked I then ran

rfkill unblock 0

I used "unblock 0" in my situation it might be different for somebody else idk
next

ip link set wlan0 up

iwlist wlan0 scanning | less

then

wpa_passphrase NETGEAR33 "mypass" >> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

then

iwconfig wlan0 essid "NETGEAR33"

wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

the above command said something about "succesful association"
since I did not receive my command prompt back i 'CTRL+c' out and ran

iwconfig wlan0

Seeing that my card was FINALLY associated with my network
I ran this line again

wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

which gave this output (and i'll triple check this for typo's)

Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant
wlan0: Trying to associate with 4c:60:de:3a:cb:68 (SSID='NETGEAR33' freq=2442 MHz)
ioctl[SIOCSIWFREQ]: Device or resource busy
wlan0: Association request to the driver failed
wlan0: Associated with 4c:60:de:3a:cb:68
wlan0: WPA: Key negotiation completed with 4c:60:de:3a:cb:68 [PTK=CCMP GTK=CCMP]
wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 4c:60:de:3a:cb:68 completed [id=0 id_str=]

The command prompt did not return once again so I switched to a new tty with 'Alt+F2'
I ran

iwconfig wlan0

in order to check if it was still associated and switching terminals didn't effect anything
then I ran

ping -c 3 www.google.com

which was successful and hopefully when I go to install the base operating system on my HDD w/ pacman everything will go smoothly.

Last edited by dark808bb (2013-05-03 02:51:29)

Trilby · 2013-05-02 01:06:39

The new isos may come with netctl instead. But in either case, I'd suggest using the manual connection steps on the wireless wiki page. Knowing those steps can be very helpful in troubleshooting.

Without wifi-menu, and with only setting the interface up and running dhcpcd I wouldn't expect a connection - there is *at least* one step in between that would be required. You do have to connect to a network.

dark808bb · 2013-05-02 01:09:30

thanks for being pedagogical. i'll check it out some more after my win7 finishes installing these 98 updates

but i know off the top of my head that netctl is not a command.

dark808bb · 2013-05-02 03:34:17

So I read the Wireless Setup guide more thoroughly and decided I needed to try and associate my computer with my router. This led me to wpa_cli... Apparently it uses a configuration file such as /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf. I read through the sample configuration file and ran into a hell of a lot of three letter acronyms that I wasn't familiar with. But I got the idea of the format for a simple configuration file.

After reading the WPA supplicant wiki page I created something like this

ctrl_interface=DIR=/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=wheel
ap_scan=1
network={
ssid="myssid"
#psk="mypass"
psk=23r9qwsdn80n09wefn87f <----- hashed pass from wpa_passphrase
proto=WPA
pairwise=CCMP
group=CCMP
}
I then issued

# wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

in order to tell wpa to use my config file with the wlan0 hardware <-------(is this right?)

I then ran into something that mentioned my wifi card being soft-blocked so i found out how to undo the soft block with rfkill. All this produced nothing. I guess I dont really understand the mechanics of it deep down on the CLI level.

Trilby · 2013-05-02 10:05:13

Those steps all sound right. But I'd make two changes, first I'd not use wpa_cli just yet. Going with the most basic steps will help pinpoint exactly where any problems are.

Starting from here, you'll want to do the following (as root or with sudo):

ip link set wlan0 up
iwlist wlan0 scanning | less

You should see information about any network in range. Is your network there? Does your network use encryption (WEP/WPA/WPA2)? Did either of these commands give errors?

Next, if it is an open network (no security) you could use `iwconfig wlan0 essid ESSID` where ESSID is the name of your network, quoted if it has spaces. If it is WEP encrypted, it shouldn't be, but we can deal with that as needed. If it is WPA, learning about wpa_supplicant.conf is good, but also frustrating; I've written a wireless netoworking tool and all those settings in wpa_supplicant still confuse me. For a vast majority of cases wpa_passphrase will generate a working config for you:

wpa_passphrase ESSID "password" > /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

ESSID again would be your networks name, password would be your password. Note in my example, in contrast to the wiki, there is only one ">" rather than two. This will overwrite anything you've put in wpa_supplicant.conf. You may want to back up that file if you feel you've made progress, but I'd suggest a fresh start. Then run the wpa_supplicant command as you have in your previous post.

Before running dhcpcd, check the output from `iwconfig` to make sure you're connected. Then if *everything* worked, run `dhcpcd wlan0`.

-----

Now, most of this you have probably already done correctly, but it is hard to troubleshoot without knowing exactly what has happened. So verify for each step that the step works as expected and doesn't give any error messages. I suspect you'll end up at the same softblock issue, in which case the actual output and/or messages would be useful.

dark808bb · 2013-05-02 11:11:32

ok sure. Yeah I'll run through it all again after I get off work tonight. Thanks for keeping the thread alive atleast

dark808bb · 2013-05-03 00:10:49

I booted into arch today and ran the commands you suggested.

ip link set wlan0 up

which gave no output and worked correctly (i guess lol)

then i ran

iw list wlan0 scanning | less

which output my netgear router and its settings

then i ran

wpa_passphrase essid "mypass" >> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

which was seamless

I ran iwconfig to check my connection and it said i was not associated

next i ran

run dhcpcd

which output

dhcpcd[403]: dhcpcd already running on pid 224 (/run/dhcpcd.pid)

next i ran

dhcpcd wlan0

which output

dhcpcd[407]: sending commands to master dhcpcd process

I then ran a ping on google

ping -c 3 www.google.com

which returned the unknown host error

in this past few days i've also ran into commands related to wireless outputting "No Carrier" which idk what that means but ive seen screenshots of working outputs and that wasnt in there.
help

Last edited by dark808bb (2013-05-03 00:16:46)

Trilby · 2013-05-03 00:19:13

There were several steps in what you posted which were neither what I recommended nor what is in the wiki.

dark808bb · 2013-05-03 00:26:58

did i mention i'm on a live usb trying to install arch still?

i ran ip link set wlan0 up

i ran iw list wlan0 scanning | less

my network was there: neither gave errors: i'm using WPA

i ran wpa_passphrase essid "mypass" >> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
no error
i ran iwconfig, although it said i was not associated i proceeded for the sake of hope
then i ran dhcpcd wlan0 (output is as stated in previous post)

i ran

run dhcpcd

which you didnt specify but it did nothing because it was already running so it doesnt matter.

Last edited by dark808bb (2013-05-03 00:27:30)

dark808bb · 2013-05-03 00:30:16

ive also followed all the commands under manual setup before except for changing my wireless cards operating type

dark808bb · 2013-05-03 00:30:54

i did not proceed into the getting an ip address section due to the fact everything above that failed for me

Trilby · 2013-05-03 00:33:49

First. if dhcpcd is already running, you'll need to stop it with `kill dhcpcd`. You'll also still need to run wpa_supplicant with the command that you had originally used after you run wpa_passphrase with only one ">".

`run dhcpcd` should not do nothing, it should give an error as there is no program/command called "run".

What steps you've followed before isn't really relevant. I've been trying to understand what could be going wrong now and I am unable to as I can't make heads or tails of what you are currently doing.

Best of luck, but I'm done.

dark808bb · 2013-05-03 00:38:28

whats the difference between ">" and ">>" ive checked the configuration file with nano and it outputs psk.
and when you mentioned anything about ">" you did mention it was specific to your systems configuration.
lol you didnt say i needed to run both. you only said you had to run the other one because the first one did not work for you.

I followed everything you said to a T. although you said nothing about stopping dhcpcd until now...

I showed you what ~~run~~ dhcpcd output.... I'm not your run of the mill idiot who doesn't know what commands he entered or what those commands output. apologies apparently i am the idiot who doesnt know what commands i entered. i entered

dhcpcd

alone not

run dhcpcd

your right.

i made two posts about things that i did in the past. Use your common sense to determine what i'm doing now and what i've done its not that hard.

Last edited by dark808bb (2013-05-03 02:51:00)

dark808bb · 2013-05-03 00:44:19

Trilby wrote:

Note in my example, in contrast to the wiki, there is only one ">" rather than two. This will overwrite anything you've put in wpa_supplicant.conf. You may want to back up that file if you feel you've made progress, but I'd suggest a fresh start.

i'm running a live usb so nothing i do is saved everytime i reboot

Hopefully since your "done" somebody else could step up an help me out.

Its kinda frustrating. id really like to get arch up and running.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-05-02 01:02:46

[SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

#2 2013-05-02 01:06:39

Re: [SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

#3 2013-05-02 01:09:30

Re: [SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

#4 2013-05-02 03:34:17

Re: [SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

#5 2013-05-02 10:05:13

Re: [SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

#6 2013-05-02 11:11:32

Re: [SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

#7 2013-05-03 00:10:49

Re: [SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

#8 2013-05-03 00:19:13

Re: [SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

#9 2013-05-03 00:26:58

Re: [SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

#10 2013-05-03 00:30:16

Re: [SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

#11 2013-05-03 00:30:54

Re: [SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

#12 2013-05-03 00:33:49

Re: [SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

#13 2013-05-03 00:38:28

Re: [SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

#14 2013-05-03 00:44:19

Re: [SOLVED]Acer Aspire S3 wifi issues before instillation

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