Planex(rtl8192CU) usb wifi dongle trouble

Adol · 05-16-2011, 05:17 AM

Hello,

I've had a few posts about usb issues. I'm almost sorted out with them.

The problem is I have a Planex(rtl8192CU) usb wifi dongle that I want to use as an access point on my Gentoo computer. I was able to get it working on OpenSuse. Noting that OpenSuse usually works out of the box for plug in devices I dont really understand the process of getting it to work.

What I've done so far:

1. Installed the driver from their website. Said that everything installed correctly but I dont know if the modual is loaded or what the module name would be. At the end of

Code:

make install

it said to reboot.

2. Got information from lspci:

Code:

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RD790 Northbridge only dual slot PCI-e_GFX and HT3 K8 part
00:02.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RD790 PCI to PCI bridge (external gfx0 port A)
00:07.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RD790 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port D)
00:0a.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RD790 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port F)
00:11.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 SATA Controller [IDE mode]
00:12.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:12.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700 USB OHCI1 Controller
00:12.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB EHCI Controller
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700 USB OHCI1 Controller
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB EHCI Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 3a)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 IDE Controller
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 LPC host controller
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
00:14.5 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI2 Controller
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] HyperTransport Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Miscellaneous Control
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Link Control
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV710 [Radeon HD 4350]
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV710/730
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 03)
03:00.0 SATA controller: JMicron Technology Corp. JMB362/JMB363 Serial ATA Controller (rev 02)
03:00.1 IDE interface: JMicron Technology Corp. JMB362/JMB363 Serial ATA Controller (rev 02)

Usb controller is found.

4. Got information from lsusb:

Code:

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 2019:ab2a PLANEX                                                                                              
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 093a:2510 Pixart Imaging, Inc. Optical Mouse                                                                  
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 04f3:0103 Elan Microelectronics Corp.

Planex is found so I know its detecting my wifi card.

5. When I modprobe rtl8192cu the terminal locks up.

Now the problem is: the on light is not turning on which makes me suspect its not activating it. Maybe the module is not loading(how do I check that?). I think this may be my problem but don't know how to fix it.

Can someone point me to the right direction? Is there a tutorial on setting up usb wifi access points?

Thank you for the help

i92guboj · 05-17-2011, 02:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adol

Hello,

I've had a few posts about usb issues. I'm almost sorted out with them.

The problem is I have a Planex(rtl8192CU) usb wifi dongle that I want to use as an access point on my Gentoo computer. I was able to get it working on OpenSuse. Noting that OpenSuse usually works out of the box for plug in devices I dont really understand the process of getting it to work.

What I've done so far:

1. Installed the driver from their website. Said that everything installed correctly but I dont know if the modual is loaded or what the module name would be. At the end of

Code:

make install

it said to reboot.

The kernel nowadays is usually good at finding and loading the correct driver, you can use "lsmod" to see the modules that have been loaded. By looking at the "make install" output you should be able to see where the module was installed and its name. It's a file ending in ".ko". In any case, in the lsmod output you should be able to find it (if it's been loaded).

Quote:

2. Got information from lspci:

Code:

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RD790 Northbridge only dual slot PCI-e_GFX and HT3 K8 part
00:02.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RD790 PCI to PCI bridge (external gfx0 port A)
00:07.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RD790 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port D)
00:0a.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RD790 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port F)
00:11.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 SATA Controller [IDE mode]
00:12.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:12.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700 USB OHCI1 Controller
00:12.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB EHCI Controller
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700 USB OHCI1 Controller
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB EHCI Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 3a)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 IDE Controller
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 LPC host controller
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
00:14.5 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI2 Controller
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] HyperTransport Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Miscellaneous Control
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Link Control
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV710 [Radeon HD 4350]
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV710/730
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 03)
03:00.0 SATA controller: JMicron Technology Corp. JMB362/JMB363 Serial ATA Controller (rev 02)
03:00.1 IDE interface: JMicron Technology Corp. JMB362/JMB363 Serial ATA Controller (rev 02)

Usb controller is found.

4. Got information from lsusb:

Code:

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 2019:ab2a PLANEX                                                                                              
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 093a:2510 Pixart Imaging, Inc. Optical Mouse                                                                  
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 04f3:0103 Elan Microelectronics Corp.

Planex is found so I know its detecting my wifi card.

These tools merely scan the buses and tell you what's connected to them, by comparing the found IDs to a database. That doesn't mean that the kernel has correctly loaded the driver, nor that the device is working.

Quote:

5. When I modprobe rtl8192cu the terminal locks up.

Now the problem is: the on light is not turning on which makes me suspect its not activating it. Maybe the module is not loading(how do I check that?). I think this may be my problem but don't know how to fix it.

Well, the first thing you should do is to look carefully at the dmesg output, and see if the kernel is doing its work. If not, try modprobe and then look at dmesg again. If there's some problem or the machine freezes, then probably there's some problem or bug in the module or your hardware.

Adol · 05-17-2011, 06:41 AM

lsmod finds the module so its loaded.

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by
rtl8192cu              87582  1 
rtl8192c_common        45485  1 rtl8192cu
rtlwifi                69277  1 rtl8192cu
compat                  2095  0 
fglrx                2647577  193

When I modprobe and look at dmesg I get this:

Code:

[  210.955594] cfg80211: exports duplicate symbol wiphy_rfkill_set_hw_state (owned by kernel)
[  210.976797] mac80211: Unknown symbol cfg80211_send_unprot_deauth (err 0)
[  210.977140] mac80211: Unknown symbol cfg80211_send_unprot_disassoc (err 0)
[  210.977827] mac80211: Unknown symbol cfg80211_cqm_pktloss_notify (err 0)

So its trying to load but there is some kind of configuration problem.

i92guboj · 05-17-2011, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adol

lsmod finds the module so its loaded.

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by
rtl8192cu              87582  1 
rtl8192c_common        45485  1 rtl8192cu
rtlwifi                69277  1 rtl8192cu
compat                  2095  0 
fglrx                2647577  193

When I modprobe and look at dmesg I get this:

Code:

[  210.955594] cfg80211: exports duplicate symbol wiphy_rfkill_set_hw_state (owned by kernel)
[  210.976797] mac80211: Unknown symbol cfg80211_send_unprot_deauth (err 0)
[  210.977140] mac80211: Unknown symbol cfg80211_send_unprot_disassoc (err 0)
[  210.977827] mac80211: Unknown symbol cfg80211_cqm_pktloss_notify (err 0)

So its trying to load but there is some kind of configuration problem.

Mmm, I guess those symbols should be part of the mac80211.ko module, which should be part of your kernel. So, go to your kernel menuconfig, enter the networking section, then wireless, and make sure that cfg80211 AND mac80211 stuff is enabled. Then make clean, make, and make install your kernel, reboot using that kernel and confirm the compilation date with uname -a to make sure you booted the right one. Now recompile that driver, see the compilation and make sure it's picking the files from the right kernel directory (you might have sources for many different kernels installed).

If it doesn't work, you should probably contact with the creator of the driver, they probably will have a mailing list of something like that. If the problem is in the driver, or if there's an incompatibility with your kernel version, I can't really be of much help here.

Adol · 05-18-2011, 05:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by i92guboj

Mmm, I guess those symbols should be part of the mac80211.ko module, which should be part of your kernel. So, go to your kernel menuconfig, enter the networking section, then wireless, and make sure that cfg80211 AND mac80211 stuff is enabled. Then make clean, make, and make install your kernel, reboot using that kernel and confirm the compilation date with uname -a to make sure you booted the right one. Now recompile that driver, see the compilation and make sure it's picking the files from the right kernel directory (you might have sources for many different kernels installed).

If it doesn't work, you should probably contact with the creator of the driver, they probably will have a mailing list of something like that. If the problem is in the driver, or if there's an incompatibility with your kernel version, I can't really be of much help here.

Thank you for all your help.

I tried the above and still no success.

One thing I dont understand is that on OpenSuse, before I compile the drivers, I get a red light on the usb dongle. After I compile the drivers the light is green and the dongle works. When it had a red light it was unusable.(this is on the same pc)

On Gentoo I get no lights at all at any time. No red light before compiling the usb dongle(its like I don't even insert it). That's why I keep thinking that I'm missing some kind of kernel option to activate usb devices.

i92guboj · 05-19-2011, 05:09 AM

Assuming you are using the same port and that the port hasn't been affected lately by some electrical failure or something, what I'd do is to check for differences in the output of dmesg and lsmod in both distros. You can also try to use the suse kernel in Gentoo. Just copy it and don't forget to copy the matching /lib/modules/<whatever dir>, and add an entry for it in your grub configuration. You could also try to rescue the kernel config from suse, just boot suse and save /proc/config.gz, then use it to build your gentoo kernel and see what happens. This will have a better chance to suceed if you use similar kernel versions and update the config with "make oldconfig" in Gentoo, after copying the config to the relevant place.