Setting up wireless network in Gentoo:

nelsonwcf · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Oct 2012 Posts: 112

Hi guys,

Today it has completed 4 weeks of me trying to correctly configure my wi-fi in recently installed gentoo.
I am absolutely frustrated and I need help. I simply can't do this by myself. The Gentoo Documentation for wireless networks (I mean, I read ALL gentoo network guides) is seriously lacking. I did a stage 3 installation following the guide step by step. I even finished installing KDE but I simply can't make my wi-fi work. And no, it's not a hardware problem because a Knoppix LiveCD works flawlessly (although sluggish slow; reason why I decided to compile gentoo).
Well, let's start. The first thing I did was to configure the kernel. My first problems happened there because the driver for my card is experimental. Doing a lspci -vnn, I got the following device number: [10ec:8176]. I configured the kernel to use the rtl8192ce driver that was supposed to be compatible.
After that everything was messed up because I tried everything. Networkmanager, wicd, wpa_supplicant. Neither one help me connect to my wireless card. Currently, my /etc/conf.d/net was overwritten by NeworkManager. Currently there is only:

wpa_supplicant_wlan0="-Dwext"
dns_domain_lo="holyland"
config_eth0="dhcp"

The /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf is empty.

I was having problem finding the wlan0 so I created a symbolic link from net.lo to it (ln -s net.lo net.wlan0). The command net.wlan0 start returns:

* Bringing up interface wlan0
* Starting wpa_supplicant on wlan0...
* Starting wpa_cli on wlan0...
* Backgrounding...
* Warning: net.wlan0 has started, but is inactive.

In the KDE network settings I can't see the wlan0 interface, although iwconfig shows it correctly.

Help.

Thanks,
Nelson

The Doctor · Moderator Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 2678

Did you install the firmware?

I haven't checked to see what your card requires, but most require some kind of firmware that is separate from the kernel driver. (Don't ask me how many months it took me to realize this)
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BillWho · Veteran Joined: 03 Mar 2012 Posts: 1600 Location: US

chithanh · Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2012 3:15 am Post subject:

For modern wireless drivers, -Dnl80211 is preferable to -Dwext.

To generate wpa_supplicant.conf run

nelsonwcf · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Oct 2012 Posts: 112

BillWho: I already unmerged everything and emerged only Networkmanagement (KDE widget for NetworkManager). WPA_Supplicant and NetworkManager are emerged again as dependencies. I already checked the lspci -n site below and everythings checks.
The Doctor: Basically, I didn't install the firmware but it is already working (looks like my drivers doesn't need a standalone firmware).
Another important information: Sometimes the Network Settings in KDE can get some wifi connections, but every time I try to set it up, it doesn't connect. When I try to connect though, my computer starts to show quick hangs (I can notice that because the mouse hangs at every about 5 seconds hangs for maybe 0,5 s in fact).

Edit: In fact, those hangs doesn't happen only inside KDE; they also happen in the console and I can notice because the keyboard hangs for 0,5s when I am typing. When I kill the processes wpa_supplicant and wpa_cli everything goes back to normal.

nelsonwcf · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Oct 2012 Posts: 112

chithanh: I already changed the -Dwext to -Dnl80211. Nothing changed.
After I emerged networkmanagement the wpa_supplicant.conf is being managed by networkmanager (the old file was completely ovewritten by one that has some comments from NetworkManager). Should I still run the wpa-passpharase ? Theoretically, shouldn't networkmanager manage everything ?

The Doctor · Moderator Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 2678

chithanh · Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2012 3:28 am Post subject:

When you use networkmanager, then the contents of wpa_supplicant.conf don't matter.

All wifi firmware you might need is included in the linux-firmware package.

nelsonwcf · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Oct 2012 Posts: 112

The Doctor · Moderator Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 2678

nelsonwcf · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Oct 2012 Posts: 112

chithanh · Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2012 3:56 am Post subject:

First of all, you need to decide between Gentoo net scripts and NetworkManager. Only if you use Gentoo net scripts you need to create/edit /etc/conf.d/net and /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf, and start /etc/init.d/net.*.

If you use NetworkManager, then you don't need any of the above. In fact mixing two wireless configuration methods will lead to them fighting each other so in the end nothing will work.

The Doctor · Moderator Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 2678

Well kind of. Its true for command line networking. If you use a GUI you should not have net.wlan0 in a runlevel. You should actually black list it or delete it. In the short term, try running /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 stop and then retry you GUI connection. You may also want to restart it via the command line.
_________________
First things first, but not necessarily in that order.

Apologies if I take a while to respond. I'm currently working on the dematerialization circuit for my blue box.

nelsonwcf · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Oct 2012 Posts: 112

The Doctor · Moderator Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 2678

No reason to keep it. It could start misbehaving as well.
_________________
First things first, but not necessarily in that order.

Apologies if I take a while to respond. I'm currently working on the dematerialization circuit for my blue box.

nelsonwcf · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 31 Oct 2012 Posts: 112

Thanks guys! Everything is fine now!