Linux - Wireless NetworkingThis forum is for the discussion of wireless networking in Linux.
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I'm trying ndiswrapper after some success with bcm43xx. I'm switching not because bcm43xx doesn't work, but because after a reinstall I must use a 2.6.18 kernel, which I cannot get to work with bcm43xx. Now I'm trying out ndiswrapper.
Firstly, Installation seemed to go really well. For drivers I downloaded the ones recomended for my card by the ndiswrapper site, but they were essentially bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys. There was also a driver for 64 bit systems. I tried to put it in the directory with the other 2 files, when I loaded them into the module, but it didn't make a difference. My laptop has a 64 bit processor, but I'm using 32 bit debian. I'm following a guide I found here: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=17719
Here's some info. After I modprobe ndiswrapper, dmesg says this:
Code:
ndiswrapper version 1.28 loaded (preempt=no,smp=yes)
ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5 (Broadcom,10/12/2006, 4.100.15.5) loaded
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:0b:00.0[A] -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 201
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:0b:00.0 to 64
ndiswrapper: using IRQ 201
wlan0: vendor: ''
wlan0: ethernet device 00:19:7e:bd:d7:ca using NDIS driver bcmwl5, 14E4:4311.5.conf
wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP; TKIP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK; AES/CCMP with WPA, WPA2, WPA2PSK
usbcore: registered new driver ndiswrapper
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
iwconfig says this:
Code:
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
sit0 no wireless extensions.
wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:32 dBm
RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 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
I type 'iwconfig wlan0 essid newpaltz' which is the name of the network, but when I type 'iwconfig' nothing changes. I type 'iwlist scan' and I see this:
Code:
lo Interface doesn't support scanning.
eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.
sit0 Interface doesn't support scanning.
wlan0 No scan results
Members of this forum were very helpfull to me in the past when I was trying to get bcm43xx to work. Any help now would be greatly appreciated.
I tried to upgrade my version of ndiswrapper to the one in testing. I downloaded the deb files and installed them with dpkg. I think the upgrade worked because in dmesg the version of ndiswrapper changed to 1.47.
The drivers I used at first were from a file called R140747.EXE that I got from the ndiswrapper site. They also spoke about a file called R115321.EXE. I downloaded this file and opened it to find the driver named the same (bcmwl5.inf,bcmwl5.sys), but I tried them. When I was loading ndiswrapper ('ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf') I got the output "forcing parameter IBSSGMode from 0 to 2" repeated several times on the screen.
I tried listing the drivers and ndiswrapper said "bcmwl5 driver installed, hardware (14E4:4324) present (alternate driver: bcm43xx)".
What do I do now? Dmesg still says (among other things) "ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready" What does this mean? iwconfig still shows zero signal and noise levels. I'm not near a wireless router right now, but I thought there should be something. Anybody have any ideas?
Distribution: approximately NixOS (http://nixos.org)
Posts: 1,900
Rep:
What about lsmod? Maybe there is some version of broken bcm43xx loaded. I don't remember if you need to do 'ifconfig wlan0 up' just to force initialization. No scan results is normal, by the way; but you should be able to change essid. Try 'iwconfig wlan0 power on mode Managed essid newpaltz commit'.
'lsmod | grep bcm' returns nothing, but the iwconfig command you mentioned changed the way 'iwconfig wlan0' looked a little:
Code:
wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:32 dBm
RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
Encryption key:off
Power Management max timeout:0us mode:All packets received
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 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
I'm not at school right now, but shouldn't I be able to change the essid regardless of weather I'm at a wireless router? Maybe the card just needed to be turned on. I'm put off by the dmesg line that says "wlan0: link not ready." I googled a little bit, but got no answers about my situation. I will supply more data next week, but thank you for responding. If anyone has any ideas I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks.
Distribution: approximately NixOS (http://nixos.org)
Posts: 1,900
Rep:
Yes, essid should be reported by card. Sometimes it is needed to turn WiFi card on. It can be done in BIOS, or by a special key, or by a key combination (like Fn-F2 on Dell Inspiron notebooks). Sometimes even repeating the command I gave can help.
There is a switch on the computer for turning on and off the wireless card. The switch is on and the light is on too. One disturbing thing: I turned the card off with the switch and nothing changed. I could still isssue the command 'iwconfig wlan0 power on' and the power management line would still change. With the card off the line 'iwconfig' still produces a block of information about wlan0.
This is an inspiron notebook - model 1521. The 'Fn-F2' combination doesn't do anything, though. As I say there is a switch and a light for the wireless card.
I am at a wireless router now and 'iwlist scan' produces no results. It says 'wlan0 no scan results'.The hardware is working. I can test it on windows.
I use the notebook's modem when I'm at home, so I thought maybe it was somehow getting in the way when I was trying to use the wireless. I uninstalled the hsfmodem software, restarted, and tried the wireless again. Everything was the same, though. The modem uses linuxant software. When I removed the hsfmodem software I didn't use the 'purge' option. Maybe I'll try that next.
If anybody has any ideas I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
If I change the mode to 'Ad-Hoc' the essid can be changed. After a couple of minutes the card changes itself back to 'Managed' and I'm back where I started. This changing of the essid temporarily does not work if the card is switched off. 'iwlist scan' does not change, though. Neither does 'dmesg'.
Distribution: approximately NixOS (http://nixos.org)
Posts: 1,900
Rep:
Do you have wpa_supplicant running? And generally, try to determine purposes of running processes, maybe one of them tries to manage WiFi, but cannot supply correct essid.. Though 'no scan results' looks suspiciously.
wpa_supplicant is installed, but it's not used in '/etc/network/interfaces'. I removed wpa_supplicant and tried 'iwconfig wlan0 essid somthing' but it didn't change the essid. Then I replaced wpa_supplicant.
EDIT: I had these results at school today. They only lasted for a minute. I changed the mode to 'Ad-Hoc' and breifly the scan results below were shown. A minute later the mode changed back to 'Managed' and my 'iwlist scan' results were always 'No scan results' for wlan0 after that.
Code:
:/home/dave# iwconfig wlan0 mode Ad-Hoc essid newpaltz
:/home/dave# iwlist scan
lo Interface doesn't support scanning.
eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.
sit0 Interface doesn't support scanning.
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: BE:A9:79:FA:82:35
ESSID:"newpaltz"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
Mode:Ad-Hoc
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality:100 Signal level:0 Noise level:160
Encryption key:off
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0
It was repeatable. I could change the mode to 'Ad-Hoc' and 'iwlist scan' over and over again, but it always went away after a couple of minutes. Also, it doesn't work if I simply change the mode to 'Ad-Hoc'. I have to change the essid too in order to get any scan results.
Distribution: approximately NixOS (http://nixos.org)
Posts: 1,900
Rep:
Hm.. Try booting into a single-user mode and configure WiFi there. If you succeed, we will know that it is just a runaway configuration process, which can be hunted down.
Thanks for your help. Just for clarification, single user mode is when you choose a kernel that says 'single user mode' from grub, and then you enter your root password when prompted, right? I tried this today at school. I did not have great results.
Distribution: approximately NixOS (http://nixos.org)
Posts: 1,900
Rep:
Well, and does it go to Managed mode automatically?
Also, try using the drivers that Dell supplies for our notebook, instead of ndiswrapper-recommended.
The laptop dual boots vista. The ndiswrapper site says not to use vista drivers, only use windows xp. I tried the vista drivers and got an error when I was trying to install them with 'ndiswrapper -i'. I went to the dell site for drivers and got the same EXE files as I got from the ndiswrapper site... (R115321.EXE or R140747.EXE) I tried them both. Both load up correctly. I read both on the Dell site and the ndiswrapper site that the 115321 file has a security bug, so I started using the 140747 file after that, but the errors I got up to that point were the same.
The mode is not going back to 'Managed' on it's own any more. Now it seems to stay 'Ad-Hoc' and the essid stays set to what I set it to - when it's in 'Ad-Hoc' mode. I'm at home, so I need to test it at school, but the only change was that I made sure the directory '/lib/firmware' was empty. It had firmware files from an attempt to get bcm43xx to work with this 2.6.18 kernel. I should have known to delete them, and I DID blacklist bcm43xx, but I guess that wasn't enough. I'll report more tomorow.
This is another long post. Sorry. The essid does not stay the same in managed mode (in normal-user mode or in single-user mode.) In Managed mode I cannot set the essid at all. I did find out something interesting. I can set the mode to 'auto'. In auto mode I can set the essid like in ad-hoc mode, and when I wait a minute and then look at iwconfig I see the essid is set, there is an access point, and there are signal and noise levels. I tried 'dhclient wlan0' after setting everything up in 'auto' mode, but there was no connection.
I did a 'iwlist scan' and got results for wlan0, but the 'mode' field in the scan results says 'ad-hoc'. This is confusing. If I try 'iwconfig wlan0 mode ad-hoc essid newpaltz' I get an essid that wont change, but there's no access point and no signal levels. On the other hand if I try 'iwconfig wlan0 mode auto essid newpaltz' I get an access point and signal and noise levels, but dhclient doesn't work, and 'iwlist scan' shows the mode as 'ad-hoc'.
Managed mode still won't let me change the essid at all. Below are some results.
Code:
/home/dave# iwconfig wlan0 mode auto power on essid newpaltz
/home/dave# iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"newpaltz"
Mode:Auto Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 8A:CC:44:B6:1C:BC
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:32 dBm
RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
Encryption key:off
Power Management max timeout:0us mode:All packets received
Link Quality:60/100 Signal level:-57 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
You'll see below that the mode is ad-hoc, but the essid is right and the access point matches the address.
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