atheros card recognized as ethernet (not wireless)

banditski · 12-08-2004, 11:14 AM

hi,

i have a sony vaio k23 with a wireless card that madwifi recognizes as an atheros 5212 card.

the problem is that it recognizes it as a regular ethernet card, not a wireless card. i can access the internet okay using an ethernet cable, but i'd really like to get the wireless working.

any ideas??

thanks.

snecklifter · 12-08-2004, 04:35 PM

Hello banditski,

Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org. Can you post back with more info to help folks troubleshoot your problem easier. The outputs from these commands would be a nice start:

Code:

ifconfig

Code:

iwconfig

Code:

lspci

You may need to be root to run these.
Regards
Chris

banditski · 12-09-2004, 12:41 AM

hi chris (and others),

here's the output you were talking about...

ifconfig

Code:

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:2004 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2004 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:2457261 (2.3 MiB)  TX bytes:2457261 (2.3 MiB)

iwconfig

Code:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.

lspci

Code:

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS200/RS200M AGP Bridge [IGP 340M] (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc PCI Bridge [IGP 340M]
00:03.0 Modem: ALi Corporation M5457 AC'97 Modem Controller
00:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: ALi Corporation M5451 PCI AC-Link Controller Audio Device (rev 02)
00:06.0 Bridge: ALi Corporation M7101 Power Management Controller [PMU]
00:07.0 ISA bridge: ALi Corporation M1533 PCI to ISA Bridge [Aladdin IV]
00:09.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI7420 CardBus Controller
00:0a.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCI7x20 1394a-2000 OHCI Two-Port PHY/Link-Layer Controller
00:0a.3 Unknown mass storage controller: Texas Instruments PCI7420/PCI7620 Dual Socket CardBus and Smart Card Cont. w/ 1394a-2000 OHCI Two-Port  PHY/Link-Layer Cont. an
00:0c.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)
00:0c.1 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)
00:0c.2 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB 2.0 (rev 04)
00:0f.0 IDE interface: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE (rev c4)
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon IGP 330M/340M/350M

i think i should have mentioned that i'm running fedora core 3.

thanks again!!

snecklifter · 12-09-2004, 12:52 AM

okay,

So this site has an entry for you card, sort of. You can use ndiswrapper to get this baby working. You will also want to download/print installation instructions found at that site as for some reason they only give a link to a site in the installation instructions - not great when you are obviously not connected to the internet! You will need to install kernel-source files (these are on your fedora cd - use the install manager), get the xp driver from your cd as most people with the same card as you seem to be doing and then see how you go.
Regards
Chris

banditski · 12-09-2004, 01:41 PM

first off, thanks chris for the pointer...

i've got it a lot farther along now, but it still isn't working... here's what i have now...

Code:

[root@localhost dude]# /sbin/iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"00-0D-88-2F-F5-C3"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437GHz  Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
          Bit Rate:11Mb/s
          Encryption key:off
          Link Quality:43/100  Signal level:-61 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Code:

[root@localhost dude]# /sbin/ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:46:E8:1B:A6
          inet addr:192.168.0.129  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::a00:46ff:fee8:1ba6/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:16960 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:14826 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:14763300 (14.0 MiB)  TX bytes:1985716 (1.8 MiB)
          Interrupt:3 Base address:0x9000

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:1886 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1886 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:2258144 (2.1 MiB)  TX bytes:2258144 (2.1 MiB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0E:9B:24:8D:6A
          inet6 addr: fe80::20e:9bff:fe24:8d6a/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1132 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:15 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:352744 (344.4 KiB)  TX bytes:1134 (1.1 KiB)
          Interrupt:11 Memory:1c010000-1c01ffff

the lspci is the same.

here's where it gets weird by my simple understanding... following http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/p...p/Installation, i get up to step 4. "configure interface" relatively easily. but when i get to "ifconfig wlan0 up" it does it instantaneously (ie it doesn't appear to be 'looking' for anything). and here's the really strange part... if i "ifconfig eth0 down", it stops my ehternet connection from working fine, but if i then "ifconfig eth0 up" again, it does the same "instant connect" that "ifconfig wlan0 up" did. and if i then try to use the ethernet connection (ie click a link to the internet) i get a "connection not found" type error.

"ifconfig" (as i printed out above) seems to be consistant with itself - meaning if i "ifconfig eth0 down" then eth0 is not included in the printout of "ifconfig". and if i then "ifconfig eth0 up" it's back. same for wlan0.

the only way (i can find) to reconnect the ethernet connection is through the gnome network configuration gui. when i disconnect and reconnect the ehternet there, it's fine. however, the gui doesn't recognize my wireless card so i can't try the same process that way...

which brings me back to where i started... but farther along this time. 8^)

thanks again for any and all help.

snecklifter · 12-09-2004, 03:13 PM

Hehe, I think we'll have you up and running in no time - you're almost there. One question - is your AP's SSID set to its own MAC address intentionally? I only ask because in your output you have

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"00-0D-88-2F-F5-C3"

which is a very odd SSID to have. The SSID is the name of your WLAN in case you didnt know. Its usually just a name like "homenet" or some other thing. I think you've probably made a small mistake and specified the MAC address as your SSID.
To be brief - your hardware is fine. DOnt worry about that. Ifconfig is working fine as it should. You now need to specify the network to associate to using some iwconfig commands. Try

Code:

iwconfig wlan0 essid <your WLAN name here e.g. homenet>

followed by

Code:

ifconfig wlan0 up

If it doesnt work then post back the results. It should grab an IP from your router and then you'll be set.
Regards
Chris

banditski · 12-09-2004, 04:36 PM

WOO-HOO!!

it's working!! i wish i could boil down what i did to get it working to post it here for the next hopeless dude like me, but i'm not exactly sure...

what i do know:

yes, i had the access point sent to it's own mac address. at the time i thought they were the same thing. i still don't really know what they are, but i do know that the ssid is something that i set in my router (mine is a d-link di 514, and i set it by going to 192.168.0.1 in my browser).

what else... using the gnome network config, you actually have to reboot (at least sometimes) to take effect - logging out and back in isn't enough.

one other thing i noticed, is that when the ethernet cable is attached, it appears to 'override' the wireless connection - meaning when i removed the ethernet cable, the wireless connection wouldn't work (even though it was enabled) until i disabled both the eth0 and eth1 (wlan0) and restarted wireless.

anyway, thanks very much, chris. it's great to find a helpful person out there in cyberspace. 8^)

btw, if anyone wants any of my config files or anything, let me know at banditski@yahoo.com.

banditski · 12-09-2004, 04:57 PM

hhhmmm... actually, wireless works, but not without issues...

first, when i rebooted with both the ethernet and wireless connection set to activate on startup, linux froze while booting. when i rebooted it again, it worked for some reason.

second, i set the ethernet connection to be disabled by default and the wireless to be enabled. then it booted fine, but when i got into linux the wireless connection wasn't really working. i had to take the wireless connection down then back up for it to work.

but when it does work, it *appears* to be faster than under win xp. maybe i'm just optimistic about that - but it seems that way, and it makes me feel good. 8^)

hope this info is of interest to someone at sometime...

snecklifter · 12-10-2004, 05:34 AM

Its having problems becuase its getting two different IP addresses from your DHCP server. If you want two Network Interfaces enabled at the same time then you need to learn bridging. Otherwise you will get conflicts.
Regards
Chris

banditski · 12-11-2004, 01:19 AM

about the bridging... thanks, but no thanks - at least right now... let me just bask in my wireless connection for a while...

actually, today i got the encryption stuff working - both in win xp and linux!! in hindsight, it really helps to rtfm. 8^)

anyway, thanks again, chris. ya done good.