Compex WLU11A with Mandrake 9.2 Detected but unable to surf the net.
 

i've got for meself a compex wlu11a wireless usb adapter. did some research on it and i found that it was to use the atmel driver. came across this site:

Jenning's Homelinux site. (found out i can't post URLs :D)

and it said to use the at76c503a driver over the atmel one. followed the instructions on screen and everything seemed to work. well, it worked up to the point where i can't seem to be able to surf. did a iwconfig, and realised that essid has been resetted to a default setting and so were the modes and channels. restored it back, got a signal level, but was still unable to surf or use the net.

am a windows user actually, played with RH9 a few months back and i got my wlu11a working but doesn't seem to be so with Mandrake 9.2. and i wonder why. can anyone point me in the right direction please?

p.s. did some searching in this forum, came across stuff like 'service network restart.' how do you actually do that anyways? also, what does broadcast in linux mean? the gateway or the dns server?

my server settings in case needed for explanation:
Internal IP: 192.168.168.102
DNS servers: 165.21.100.88 and 165.21.83.88
Gateway: 192.168.168.1
SubnetMask: 255.255.255.0
DHCP Server:192.168.168.1
(Got the above information from me windows xp os)

thanks and pardon the long post!

:)

Btw, in case you all are not sure what is the Compex WLU11A it's using the atmel driver. It's the 505A RFMD thingy. cheers

okie, i got this in my system.

[root@localhost root]# ifconfig
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:1573 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1573 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:158314 (154.6 Kb) TX bytes:158314 (154.6 Kb)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:80:48:21:F4:75
inet addr:192.168.168.102 Bcast:192.168.168.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:1201 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2419 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:198620 (193.9 Kb) TX bytes:192654 (188.1 Kb)

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

wlan0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"censored" Nickname:"NP16"
Mode:Managed Channel:6 Access Point: 00:02:2D:18:35:F0
Bit Rate:11Mb/s
RTS thr=1536 B Fragment thr=1536 B
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:30 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

[root@localhost root]# lsmod
Module Size Used by Not tainted
ide-floppy 16128 0 (autoclean)
sd_mod 13804 0 (autoclean) (unused)
snd-seq-midi 5056 0 (autoclean) (unused)
snd-opl3-synth 12680 0 (autoclean) (unused)
snd-seq-instr 7204 0 (autoclean) [snd-opl3-synth]
snd-seq-midi-emul 6924 0 (autoclean) [snd-opl3-synth]
snd-ainstr-fm 2928 0 (autoclean) [snd-opl3-synth]
snd-seq-oss 32000 0 (unused)
snd-seq-midi-event 6080 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-seq-oss]
snd-seq 42544 2 [snd-seq-midi snd-opl3-synth snd-seq-instr snd
-seq-midi-emul snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event]
snd-pcm-oss 43652 0
snd-mixer-oss 14200 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-cmipci 23800 0
snd-pcm 79588 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-cmipci]
snd-page-alloc 9044 0 [snd-pcm]
snd-mpu401-uart 4704 0 [snd-cmipci]
snd-rawmidi 17760 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-opl3-lib 8004 0 [snd-opl3-synth snd-cmipci]
snd-timer 18436 0 [snd-seq snd-pcm snd-opl3-lib]
snd-seq-device 5832 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-opl3-synth snd-seq-oss snd-s
eq snd-rawmidi snd-opl3-lib]
snd-hwdep 6304 0 [snd-opl3-lib]
snd 41380 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-opl3-synth snd-seq-instr snd
-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-cmipci snd-pcm snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-opl3-lib snd-timer snd-seq-device snd-hwdep]
soundcore 6340 0 [snd]
nfsd 75280 0 (autoclean)
sr_mod 19384 0 (autoclean)
floppy 55932 0
af_packet 14856 0 (autoclean)
at76c503-rfmd 40288 1
usbdfu 9452 0 [at76c503-rfmd]
at76c503 54560 0 [at76c503-rfmd]
nls_iso8859-15 4060 3 (autoclean)
nls_cp850 4284 3 (autoclean)
vfat 11820 3 (autoclean)
fat 38040 0 (autoclean) [vfat]
supermount 84032 2 (autoclean)
ide-cd 33956 0
cdrom 32608 0 [sr_mod ide-cd]
ide-scsi 11376 0
scsi_mod 106176 3 [sd_mod sr_mod ide-scsi]
usb-uhci 25136 0 (unused)
usbcore 74988 1 [at76c503-rfmd usbdfu at76c503 usb-uhci]
rtc 9004 0 (autoclean)
ext3 60048 1
jbd 39264 1 [ext3]
[root@localhost root]#

odd thing is, macaddress for ifconfig is different from that of iwconfig. any idea why? signal level is that but link quality is 0? 0.o a little weird?

also, when i put BOOTPROTO=dhcp, and did a 'service network restart' when bringing up the wlan0 interface, i got a failed because it couldn't find a dhcp client?

so what does Couldn't find a dhcp client actually mean?

the MAC address in iwconfig is the MAC address of the AP (access point),
not of the wireless card. I looked at the AP setting and when things
are working it changes frequently and seems to hover around the MAC address of the wireless router/gateway (that seemed strange, but it works).

On my working card, my link quality is 0 and Signal level usually around
60-110.

The main thing was when I saw TX and RX packets for wlan0 I knew it was working ok.

probably that the dns client software is not installed.

type which dhclient or
rpm -qa | grep dhclient

restart network
/etc/init.d/network stop
/etc/init.d/network start

I found using ifup wlan0 and ifdown wlan0 extremely helpful in getting my interface iwconfig parameters setup correctly.

broadcast is IP address that will broadcast to all machines within your own network in your case 192.168.168.255 where the last byte is set to all 1's
0xFF = 255

Gateway is address of machine (router) within your network that will route your packets to other networks. In this case your wireless router/gateway.

Netmask defines inversely what bits of the IP address that your local machines use your netmask is 255.255.255.0 Your machine addresses only reside in the bits (last 8) that are not set by the netmask. It basically masks out the bits that your local don't alter/use.

DNS server is IP address of machine that is Domain Name Service server.
for your setup you will add
nameserver 192.168.168.1
in this case the gateway will provide the actual DNS server IP addresses automatically, and no more DNS configuration is necessary.

Here is /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 you can
use, just replace your actual key 1 hex value and your ESSID.

GATEWAY=192.168.168.1
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
DEVICE=wlan0
MTU=""
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
BROADCAST=192.168.168.255
IPADDR=""
NETWORK=""
onBOOT=yes
MODE=Managed
ESSID=myessid
CHANNEL=6
KEY="restricted [1] 8675309BEE"


Great work!

Just install dhclient, edit ifcg-wlan0, and edit /etc/resolv.conf and
and you should be there!

When you plug in to the USB port with the card , hotplug will run automatically and its last thing is to ifup wlan0 which brings up the interface.

Hey thanks a lot! I will go try it later when I get home! Hey, from the comprehensive instructions you gave me, I am pretty sure it will work.

Cheers and season's greetings to you!