I have a new install of Gentoo on an Averatec 3250 laptop. This machine has been running various Debian based Linux distributions for 8 years. I've been fighting wireless in Gentoo for several days with no success. The built-in wireless card has been hard blocked by RF-KILL since that "feature" was added to the kernel and continues to be hard blocked in Gentoo. Since the introduction of RF-KILL into the kernel, I have used a PCMCIA card, Linksys WPC54G, successfully but am unable to do so in Gentoo, so far. The card is properly identified by Gentoo as is shown in this last few lines of dmesg:
Code:
[ 16.300139] pcmcia_socket pcmcia_socket0: pccard: CardBus card inserted into slot 0
[ 16.300173] pci 0000:02:00.0: [14e4:4320] type 00 class 0x028000
[ 16.300206] pci 0000:02:00.0: reg 10: [mem 0x00000000-0x00001fff]
[ 16.300319] pci 0000:02:00.0: supports D1 D2
[ 16.300323] pci 0000:02:00.0: PME# supported from D0 D1 D2 D3hot D3cold
[ 16.300519] pci 0000:02:00.0: BAR 0: assigned [mem 0x28000000-0x28001fff]
[ 16.300538] pci 0000:02:00.0: cache line size of 32 is not supported
[ 16.598210] systemd-udevd[11247]: renamed network interface eth0 to enp0s18
[ 16.685486] systemd-udevd[11244]: renamed network interface lan0 to wlp0s9
[ 16.743188] b43-pci-bridge 0000:02:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[ 16.743328] b43-pci-bridge 0000:02:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[ 16.743376] ssb: Found chip with id 0x4306, rev 0x03 and package 0x00
[ 16.743385] ssb: Core 0 found: ChipCommon (cc 0x800, rev 0x04, vendor 0x4243)
[ 16.743393] ssb: Core 1 found: IEEE 802.11 (cc 0x812, rev 0x05, vendor 0x4243)
[ 16.743400] ssb: Core 2 found: PCMCIA (cc 0x80D, rev 0x02, vendor 0x4243)
[ 16.743407] ssb: Core 3 found: V90 (cc 0x807, rev 0x02, vendor 0x4243)
[ 16.743414] ssb: Core 4 found: PCI (cc 0x804, rev 0x09, vendor 0x4243)
[ 16.747084] ssb: Sonics Silicon Backplane found on PCI device 0000:02:00.0
[ 16.867425] b43-phy1: Broadcom 4306 WLAN found (core revision 5)
[ 16.920049] b43-phy1: Found PHY: Analog 2, Type 2 (G), Revision 2
[ 16.980637] Broadcom 43xx driver loaded [ Features: PML ]
[ 17.099583] ieee80211 phy1: Selected rate control algorithm 'minstrel_ht'
I should mention that I get the same results in this Averatec laptop as I got a month ago when I converted my Thinkpad T30 to Gentoo and an identical WPC54G card. I received the same failure messages as I see in this Averatec machine. I chose to use the Thinkpad with an Ethernet cable.
This is the the error message that I get when I issue the command:
/etc/init.d/net.wlan0 start:
Code:
* Caching service dependencies ... [ ok ]
* Bringing up interface wlan0
wlan0 no wireless extensions.
* Configuring wireless network for wlan0
wlan0 no wireless extensions.
Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.
Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.
Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.
Error for wireless request "Set ESSID" (8B1A) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.
* wlan0 does not support setting SSID to "richardlinksys"
* Connecting to "richardlinksys" in managed mode (WEP Disabled) ...
cat: /sys/class/net/wlan0/carrier: Invalid argument
cat: /sys/class/net/wlan0/carrier: Invalid argument
cat: /sys/class/net/wlan0/carrier: Invalid argument
cat: /sys/class/net/wlan0/carrier: Invalid argument
cat: /sys/class/net/wlan0/carrier: Invalid argument
cat: /sys/class/net/wlan0/carrier: Invalid argument
cat: /sys/class/net/wlan0/carrier: Invalid argument
cat: /sys/class/net/wlan0/carrier: Invalid argument
cat: /sys/class/net/wlan0/carrier: Invalid argument
cat: /sys/class/net/wlan0/carrier: Invalid argument [ !! ]
* Failed to configure wireless for wlan0
* ERROR: net.wlan0 failed to start
This is my /etc/conf.d/net file, with the actual key and essid replaced by the terms <my-hex-key> and <my-essid> respectively:
Code:
config_enp0s18="192.168.1.68 netmask 255.255.255.0 brd 192.168.1.255"
routes_enp0s18="default via 192.168.1.2"
modules="iwconfig"
#mac_key_c0c1c0c25734="<my-hex-key>"
key_ESSID="<my-hex-key>"
config_wlan0="192.168.1.69 netmask 255.255.255.0 brd 192.168.1.255"
routes_wlan0="default via 192.168.1.2"
mode_wlan0="managed"
channel_wlan0="1"
#mac_essid_c0c1c0c25734="<my-essid>"
essid_wlan0="<my-essid>"
It is not possible to change any of the wlan0 parameters using iwconfig commands while booted into Gentoo. This was always possible in previously used distributions and is still possible with a Debian based live CD.
Since lspci indicates that my CardBus bridge is a 16-bit bridge, I followed the Gentoo WIKI instructions to create a file /etc/pcmcia/config.opts. That did not improve the situation.
I booted the machine into a recent Debian-based live CD which uses the same B43 firmware version as Gentoo and wireless worked fine. I copied the entire contents of the live CD /etc/pcmcia/ directory to the same directory in Gentoo with no improvement.
I feel like I must be missing something basic that is unique to Gentoo. I would be very grateful for any suggestions.
