I'm working on an HP Pavilion laptop that belong to my daughter. The HD died after 9 years of service. I have installed an SSD, and installed Slackware 15.

As the title states, I can not get the wifi adapter to connect to my home router. I have enabled NetworkManager, and am trying to set the password in NM. The failure message is "No agents were available for this request".

First The wifi adapter is:

The loaded driver:

From what I know, the hardware looks good, and was working before. The ethernet connection is working as expected.

What I have tried and done.

In NM, I have tried setting up the password with Encryption, plain text, and ask every time. None work, all end with the agent message.

When I did the install, I did it from a Slack Live USB stick. I have used it for another install without problems. I edited /etc/slackpkg/mirrors for a 15.0 mirror and updated the system to the latest patch level.

On this install, I failed to format the partition for home. The installer used the USB stick for home. After booting, I realized my error, formatted sda3, edited fstab and mounted the partition. Since this is not normal in an install, I was guessing something might be missing in /home/user/.

I deleted the 2 users I had created, and re-added them back in using useradd. Still the error persists.

For the record, I have chmod -x on gnome-keyfing-3. I have done this on my slack installs without problems. I dislike the bugging messages it generates.

So, could some one give me a clew what agent is looking for? Or any suggestions on how to fix this.

Try the basics.

Try to connect by hand, run diagnostics on the cards. What's your connection. Post

• resolv.conf
• the output of 'route'
• the output of 'ifconfig'
• the output of 'iwconfig'

This is where I started, with just trying to add the router secruity password it fails to add. So, route only show the loopback interface, and the two devices do not have ip addresses.

As soon as I connect the wired ethernet, it connects, route shows the gateway, I have an ip address for the wired connection, and it works.

This is a laptop that gets moved around and connected to various wirelewss access points. This is why I want the wifi card to work.

The last message I saw from trying to connect through wi-fi was "Wireless interface wlan0, No secrets were provided".

It fails every time I try to set a password. I know the password is correct, I've verified it through the router, many other devices have no probles connecting with the password. I have even poked the 'eye' so when I key the password, I can see the letters I key in.

I need to understand what this 'agent' is.

Probably the Gnome Keyring daemon you disabled.

Out of curiosity, permit me to ask if did you did a full install?

And what DE you use? Plasma5, XFCE or something else?

I +x the file /usr/bin/gnome-keyring-3 and booted the system. Same results, no connection. Left clicked on the wireless icon, so I could see what was going on. At first it says 'Configuring interface' and then it changes to "never used". I get a pop up asking for the security credentials. I get a notification saying "Wireless Interface (wlan0) No secrets were provided".

Yes, full install of 15.0.

Yes both, the DE doesn't make any difference in the behaviour.

I'm beginning to suspect PAM some how. I know nothing out it. What really baffels me, I also reloaded an older laptop that had 14.2 using the same stick I loaded the failing machine with. The other one has no problem activating a wi-fi connection with the same credentials.

Honestly, I do not think is something related to LinuxPAM. Leave it alone and it will never disturb you.

BUT, could be possible to be affected by a kernel regression. Between Slackware 14.2 and 15.0 was released a truckload of kernel versions. Theoretically, those should ship improvements, but also regressions happens.

I for one, I discovered that my TP-Link WN725N which used to work fine at 150Mbps, now gets 10Mbps download speed with the brand new r8188eu crap, err... driver. And they call this "an improvement" ... Oh, well.

I suggest you to buy for testing a cheap Chinese USB dongle at 300Mbps - they usually are with rtl8192eu chipset, and there is an out-of-tree driver for it. Or you can buy something at 433Mbps, which usually have an rtl8821cu for which also is a maintained out-of-tree driver.

IF you manage to connect with the USB dongle, then you can know that you are affected by a kernel driver regression.

BUT, before of all, you can try a LiveSlak of today -current, because it ships already an kernel 5.17.4 - anyway, if I will be in your shoes, I will pursue the kernel drivers, the system is most likely quite fine itself.

The agent is probably wpa_supplicant, configured in /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf. You need to set up the PSK using wpa_passphrase(which has a man page) but NM should be doing that for you. Try connecting using wifi from a terminal. Set up wpa_supplicant using wps_passphrase, then run

I will give a go, it will take some time, and I'll post the results.

I can also try ( probably first ) a manual configuration. I havn't done that for a long time, so I need to find some doc first. Good thought though.

Two questions, if I may...

If it's a kernel issue, shouldn't "the kernel guys" be notified? As far as I've seen, they do not like regressions?

If a well working driver was in a previous kernel, can't it be "ripped" from it?


Sorry, but still try to learn and understand!

Yes, they should be notified, if we have reproducable proof this is a kernel regression. We are not there yet.

This is a common card. If it is a driver fault, we would need a patch. There is aposability an older driver could be a work around. Once again, no proof yet.

Maybe it is not the driver or the kernel. More than likely a network card without capability to use that router's configuration.

Did you by chance change the wifi configuration on your wireless router? Or upgrade your gateway? Sometimes its as simple as turning off 802.11a/c (5GHz) and enable 2.4GHz configurations like 802.11a/b/g, 802.11n or 802.11g. Or it could also be that the encryption cipher used by your router is not supported by your wireless card. You did mention it is a fairly old computer. You can check your wireless card capabilities with:
Then compare the band capabilities, frequencies, supported ciphers, and possibly bit rates to your router configuration.

This post is coming to the board through the now working wifi card.

I chmod -x on rc.networkmanager. I edited /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and asses the necessary info, and edited /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf and provided the necessary info, restarted the laptop. It is online now.

The problem is with NetworkManager. I have no idea why.

This works, but is not a good setup for my daughter. She has good user skills on windoze, not so much on linux. I will have to re-configure it for her use at her home.

If I leave the wpa_supplicant there, will NM work? Should I also comment out the changes in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf ?

MRALK3,

As you can see, it is now working by manual configuration. Thank-you for yor input. I had never come across the iw command, the info it can dump is very useful.

My router is dual band, supplied by my ISP. What ever is wrong appears to be related to NetworkManager.

2 members found this post helpful.

Right, so that clears the kernel and it's drivers, and all the wifi card stuff.

NetworkManager IIRC is a python thing. It should be on python3, but 'should be' and 'is' are two different things.

If that is your box in your house, you can leave it and say the sort of thing about networkmanager that I normally say . OTOH, if it's a laptop going round picking wifi from every cafe & business you set foot in, you really want networkmanager.

As for the command - both dhcpcd and wpa_supplicant set up the card for a period of seconds but that way around works best here.