Linux - Wireless NetworkingThis forum is for the discussion of wireless networking in Linux.
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
I upgraded my ubuntu dapper distribution using synaptic. This resulted in the inability of ubuntu to identify my DLink Wifi card using networking tools. I'm kinda new to linux and don't know what to do. Is there a way to step back the upgrade, add the cards drivers somehow to be seen, or do i have to recompile the kernel and if so how is that done? Now I don't know if its a good idea to keep upgrading the system. Anyway, the easiest possible solution would be greatly appreciated.
I ran into this situation recently on Fedora. I don't know if this applies to your specific problem, but in my case, the WiFi card used a Prism chipset, and two drivers were claiming the card (causing neither to work). You can check for this problem with (as root):
lsmod | grep "orinoco\|hostap"
You should see orinoco drivers or hostap drivers, but not both. If you see both then you need to blacklist one of them:
In the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, add:
# Wireless LAN card
blacklist hostap_cs
In the file /etc/modprobe.conf, add:
alias wlan0 orinoco_cs
Reboot, and check again; only the orinoco drivers should now be loaded, and the card should work.
I think that your new kernel is missing the kernel module for the wireless device.
For example, if I upgraded my kernel from 2.6.13-15.7 to ls 2.6.13-15.8-default,
then my old ndiswrapper is located in ls /usr/modules/2.6.13-15.7/misc/ndiswrapper.ko
But /usr/modules/2.6.13-15.8-default/misc/ is empty. I need to create a new ndiswrapper.ko kernel module.
( Which I do, after a security kernel update, using rpmbuild -bb in my case.)
OK, good, then that's not your issue. Do you know what driver your card used before? Did you set it up or was it automatically configured when you installed your distribution? Does 'ndiswrapper' sound familiar?
Can you provide the output of either (whichever your distribution has):
Unfortunately, "Dlink WiFi" describes about a dozen models/chipset combinations. The output of the above commands will provide the actual internal identifiers.
Well just rebooted the previous kernel have my wifi back. Does this mean any future kernel upgrade would cause the lost of my wifi card. I've upgraded the kernel many times through synaptic and haven't had this problem. 2.6.15-23 kernel resulted in the problem.
It looks like this is a recognized bug. I suggest you add a watch for the bug (so you get email on updates) and stay on the earlier kernel until the bug is closed.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.