problem setting up wireless

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justwantin
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Joined: 21. Jul 2010, 11:12

problem setting up wireless

Post by justwantin »

I have no experience at all with wireless and am at a loss to get wireless working on my acer aspire one netbook. I am using a tplink usb wireless dongle that has worked for a day on an install on slack 13 as an experiment.

I have not edited /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf but using a wicd setup I see my network but cannot connect. I am using a fixed IP and as far as I can tell my settings in wicd are correct including my preshared key, however on trying to connect I am told the connection failed because of a bad password. The password is correct and works on two other machines running xp.

Can anyone give me some hints as to where I should be looking for the problem
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4-stroke
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Re: problem setting up wireless

Post by 4-stroke »

I think you have the same chipset as i do.
Try opening a terminal and as root run this command:

Code: Select all

iwconfig wlan0 power off
Then try to connect with wicd again, and see what happens.
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justwantin
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Joined: 21. Jul 2010, 11:12

Re: problem setting up wireless

Post by justwantin »

My chipset is a railink rt2501/rt2573.

After turning power off and trying to connect again with wicd I still cannot connect.

I am sure this is a configuration problem. For one thing I do not have wpa supplicant set up but I had not seen it mentioned in my readings on wicd.

I'm now going to try to set this up using iwconfig which I understand will require me to have wpa supplicant set up.

My concern now is that I will now have some previous configuration interfering with getting this set up, for example wicd.
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Re: problem setting up wireless

Post by 4-stroke »

justwantin wrote: I'm now going to try to set this up using iwconfig which I understand will require me to have wpa supplicant set up.
You shouldn't have to do that, wicd works great.
Doesn't the Aspire One have built-in wireless, why do you use a dongle?

What does

Code: Select all

ifconfig -a
tell you?
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justwantin
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Re: problem setting up wireless

Post by justwantin »

It is a very recent broadcom chipset which I had to blacklist in order to boot either salix or slack, I have to do the install using noudev.

It is possible to compile a new driver for this chipset but I know this dongle works because I had it connected to this router/modem with a slack 13 install off a mobo screwed up on the wall in my shop.

I need to install kernel source to compile that driver and rather than set up eth0 and download through a wire I figured I'd us the dongle and learn a bit about wireless set up in the process.
wicd works great
Maybe so but it hasn't for me and I haven't been able to google up a reason why. I'm not in a rush.
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4-stroke
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Re: problem setting up wireless

Post by 4-stroke »

I use the rt2x00 driver too and it worked fine with 13.0. When I changed to 13.1 it stopped
working and the only thing i had to do was to add the power off line to rc.local and connect
as usual with WPA2 using wicd.

I'm far from an expert myself. :ugeek: I hope you get it solved.
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pwatk
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Re: problem setting up wireless

Post by pwatk »

Quick test...

Try blacklisting the railink rt2501/rt2573 kernel module(s) (if they exist) and install the Windows XP driver via ndiswrapper.

There are plenty guides on how to do this so I wont repeat it here [google] and there is even a frontend included with the default install of Salix.

Image

Finally, you might want to read this [link] to acquaint your self with some of the Slackware networking scripts if your considering abandoning wicd.

Good luck ;)
Image
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justwantin
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Joined: 21. Jul 2010, 11:12

Re: problem setting up wireless

Post by justwantin »

Try blacklisting the railink rt2501/rt2573 kernel module(s) (if they exist) and install the Windows XP driver via ndiswrapper.
The railink rt2501/rt2573 is just a dongle that I know has worked in slack 13 I don't need to blacklist it, just pull it out of the port.

This netbook came with a broadcom bcm4312 802.11b/g (rev 01) There is a new driver source released for linux by broadcom which searches indicate is successfully compliled by some not by others. I can't try myself until I d'load salix kernel source. Hence my try to get the railink dongle connected.

I have loaded the broadcom driver, bcmwl5.inf, into ndiswrapper using the gtk tool that came with salix and the command ndiswapper -l tells me it has been installed.

However, modprobe ndiswrapper tells me that ndiswrapper is not found.

It is in /lib/modules/misc so when I do an insmod -f /lib/modules/misc ndiswrapper I am given an Invalid format message.

I haven't googled up a solution to anything yet but there are enough posts out there concerning this chipset to make me feel that the railink dongle might be the softer easier way to go.
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pwatk
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Re: problem setting up wireless

Post by pwatk »

The railink rt2501/rt2573 is just a dongle that I know has worked in slack 13 I don't need to blacklist it, just pull it out of the port.
You need to blacklist the module so as to stop ndiswrapper conflicting with it! That said I think you might have bigger problems.

If I'm honest I'd probably just buy an Atheros Mini-PCIE wifi card from Ebay (I did this recently at a cost of £5) then replace that Broadcom card and be done with it.

Ralink kit generally works but I've ran across a few USB dongles that I've given up on.
Broadcom kit is generally bad news but you'll eventually get it working if you download the kernel-source, cut the firmware etc etc etc... and lost time off you life in the process.
Atheros kit just works and I've only ever had to use ndiswrapper once for a very new model, even then it was supported by the kernel a month later.

Sorry this might not be very helpful but I'm not sure where else to point you!
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justwantin
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Re: problem setting up wireless

Post by justwantin »

Well I never did care much for positive rants :^{

Maybe broadcom will work maybe it won't, maybe ndiswrapper ain't right, railink won't work with this kernel it did with the last, dunno, but before I go out and by an atheros whatever I'd make sure It wasn't anything else other than a bad config. Worse comes to worse I can tame the beast with the wired nic.

Wireless would be nice so I could watch dtv off the server in bed or read a book.
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