How to enable wireless card?

rainer · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 9:55 pm Post subject: How to enable wireless card?

I have a beautiful new notebook (Belinea made by Compal) and want to free it from the network cable.

It has a built-in wireless card Intel 3945ABG Golan that I can see with lspci and iwconfig.
It is, however, not active, i.e. I don't see it with ifconfig, and "ifconfig wlan0 up" gives me error 132.
And unfortunately, the machine does not have a switch on the outside to enable it.
There is the usual <Fn+F2> combination but apparently it needs Windows to work.

Is there a way to switch the card on without installing Windows? I did google but probably my search keywords were too unspecific, I did not find anything useful.

Thanks for help,
Rainer

aCOSwt · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 10:11 pm Post subject:

Hello,

1/ The driver you need will be built with your kernel (from 2.6.24) if CONFIG_IWL3945 is activated.
2/ You should additionally need a firmware to download from http://intellinuxwireless.org/ and put it under /lib/firmware.

In order to activate the device, I would rather look behind /proc/acpi/... or /proc/net/...
then something like
echo 1 > /proc/....
should be able to activate your device.

rainer · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 10:36 pm Post subject:

aCOSwt, thanks a lot, but I don't think the driver is the problem. iwl3945 is built into the kernel and shows up when I ask with modprobe.
I have a very similar machine for my other daughter, which is dual boot with Windows, and here, switching the WLAN Card on under Ẃindows was the solution. The WLAN card itself works perfectly well, once it is on.

I think my question really is: Is there a bash command that replaces the physical switch or the <Fn+F2> key combination?
My second daughter doesn't need Windows, I'd love to avoid installing it just for the sake of switching the network card on...

Thanks for any hint,
Rainer

Edit: Sorry I should have mentioned that I did not find anything under /proc that looked like my WLAN card (I didn't see the Ethernet card either, maybe I'm not understanding enough what I should be looking for...). I'm not completely dumb but this as an area where I've never been before...

aCOSwt · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 10:53 pm Post subject:

Have you looked around /proc/acpi/manufacturer/wireless ?

rainer · Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 11:06 pm Post subject:

No manufacturer folder:

cach0rr0 · Posted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 8:16 am Post subject:

hiya

'manufacturer' should in your case be replaced with your actual manufacturer
in terms of echoing "1" onto /proc/net/wireless...you can't do that.

You can, however

rainer · Posted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 2:02 pm Post subject:

Thanks, followed your advice and emerged ucode etc:

rainer · Posted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 2:25 pm Post subject:

Here is what the networkmanager plasmoid shows:
http://godesberg.homelinux.net/wlan.png

zlomek · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Nov 2009 Posts: 123

Hi. you need in kernel

gcyoung · Posted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 5:17 pm Post subject: Enabling a wireless card

A related problem! Help!!

I have recently obtained a Toshiba “Equium” laptop into which I have installed
a pcmia wireless card which uses an Atheros Ethernet controller (AR5007G).
I did a quick Ubuntu setup to find out the hardware and it all works fine on that, so I know the hardware will function, but as a confirmed Gentoo user I want to set it up with a Gentoo system.

I have followed the various (and varied!) manuals and notes, manual pages etc. that are available on the internet, with the following results (xxxxxxxx to replace passwords and ssid's). I find this gives me a signal, but I am unable to
make any connections, although “ifconfig” will setup an IP address I cannot access anything on my network or the internet. (The failure is not due to a lack of nameserver, I have that set up.

I have also disabled and removed my “wired” connection to prevent that affecting anything. The madwifi I have installed is madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r4100-20090929
which I understand to be suitable for the wireless care I have installed.
The messages I receive are:
“Waiting for association
Backgroounding”

I am new to wireless networking and would be grateful if anyone knowledgeable could look at the setup below and advise where I am going wrong. I don't think the fault lies in my kernel, since I have set all the CONFIG options recommended by the various documents I have read.

“NET” FILE SETTINGS
…...............................................................................
modules=( "wpa_supplicant" )
wpa_supplicant_ath0="-Dmadwifi"
iwconfig_ath0="mode managed"

key_ESSID1="[1] s:xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [1] enc open"
key_ESSID2="[2] s:xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [1] enc restricted"
preferred_apps=( "ESSID1" "ESSID2" )

config_ESSID1=( "192.168.1.4 brd 192.168.1.255" )
routes_ESSID1=( "default via 192.168.1.1" )
#
config_ESSID2=( "dhcp" )
fallback_ESSID2=( "192.168.1.6/24" )
fallback_route_ESSID2=( "default via 192.168.1.1" )

WPA_APPLICANT.CONF SETTINGS.
…..............................................................................
WPA-PSK/TKIP

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
update_config=1
ap_scan=1

network={
ssid="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
# scan_ssid=1
proto=WPA
pairwise=TKIP
group=TKIP
psk="s:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx”
priority=5
}

network={
ssid="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
proto=WPA
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=TKIP
group=TKIP
psk="xxxxxxxxxx"
priority=2
}

cach0rr0 · Posted: Fri Dec 25, 2009 3:44 am Post subject:

rainer,

check this real quick:

rainer · Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 8:10 am Post subject:

catch0rr0, thanks for the precise instruction - I did indeed find

aCOSwt · Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 10:24 am Post subject:

Would'nt your wireless system be (de)activable in the bios ?

gcyoung · Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 11:49 am Post subject:

Thanks CacheOrrO for your advice, but I had already been down that road. I don't have RFKILL set. The problem for me seems one of failure to "associate" .As indicated, I have Ubuntu set up on a separate partion on the same machine and the tail of dmesg there reads:

"wlan0: athenticated with AP xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
wlan0: athenticated
wlan0: associated with "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
wlan0: RX AssocRespc from "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
wlan0: associated"

I note that Gentoo initiates the device as wlan0 but changes to ath0 on reboot.
"/etc/init.d/net.ath0 start" (or restart) only gets as far as:
"waiting for association
backgrounding"

"iwconfig" shows up with the correct ESSID and if I use "ifconfig ath0 192.168.1.4 etc" from a bash teminal it takes the static address that I give but will not connect.
I tried the gentoo madwifi program originally but couldn't get that to work and assumed it didn't like my Atheros chip so I looked on the internet and found the one I am using which was stated as capable of working with my card.

My gentoo "dmesg" recognises the pci card and the modulles, but nothing about association, so it must be there that the problem lies.

I note that the wireless applet that comes with gnome shows a strong signal, so there must be some connection, but states that ath0 is "disconnected"
This is all very frustrating, as I'm sure it is a simple matter, if I just understood more about how wifi works! Cable seems so simple by comparison.

rainer · Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 5:09 pm Post subject:

aCOSwt, thanks for the hint, but I have checked this - no way to access the wireless card in the BIOS settings.
It'll take a few days to find out but I'm convinced that tit's a hardware problem, really!

gcyoung · Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 5:23 pm Post subject:

My problem might be solved. I have been making it too complicated. It seems I may not need wpa supplicant and madwifi to connect. A straightforward "modules=( "iwconfig" ) plus essid number and key in my /etc/conf.d/net file seems to do the trick.

The only problem now is that I still can't connect to any networks as; according to dmesg wlan0 (ath0 is not the required device with this setup) associates with an AP and then immediately disassociates, giving ( Reaon: 1) as the whyfor.

Can anyone explain Reason 1? Has it to do with passwords?

cach0rr0 · Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 6:57 pm Post subject:

cach0rr0 · Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 6:58 pm Post subject:

gcyoung · Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 11:33 pm Post subject:

Cacch0rr0

Followed your advice to the letter (Nb broadcast, netmask routes, resolv.conf, hosts,hosts.deny,hosts,allow etc, are all understood by me and setup :-- also eth0 deleted from setup).
You were correct about udev, so I corrected that, setup wpa_supplicant.conf with a minimal setup, and entered the command line you suggested.

The result, in brief, was that the IP was recognised, and association made, but then dissassociated and the following error message issued:
'WPA:4-way handshake failed -preshared key may be incorrect'

Which suggests the psk key I entered is is incorrect;--BUT I know that is not so.

Do you have any ideas on this? I have spent so much time on this that I am almost considering a peramanent Ubuntu setupt!!

cach0rr0 · Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2009 11:42 pm Post subject:

gotcha RE: your understanding of the routing bits

so for the wpa_supplicant stuff...what's your wpa_supplicant.conf look like?

I use a very simplistic one

gcyoung · Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:12 am Post subject:

The result is always the same. I have meticulously followed the Gentoo manual, and the Gentoo Wiki on setting up wifi, and I always get into a loop of association/disassociation. Looking around on other forums it would seem that this is not uncommon, and I have seen no reports of any solution other than a change of kernel version. It would seem, therefore, that the problem must lie in the kernel.

Since there seems little use for me in having a laptop that's tied to a cable connection, Ive decided to stick with what was my "testing" Ubuntu installation for the moment, since, although I don't like Ubuntu's tendency towards a "windows like" habit of reducing choice, at least it works! I shall look closely at it, and see if I can follow how it's wifi setup varies from my Gentoo setup, if I can.

Many thanks cach0rr0 for your attempts to help.