Network card problems in Slackware 12.1

Aled Evans · 07-18-2008, 04:10 PM

Hi there, a total newbie to Linux here. Basically I got sick of Windows and its instability so I've decided I'd like to use Slackware Linux (not only because of the improvement in stability and security, but I'd also like to learn the ins and outs of Linux to broaden my knowledge of computers in general).

Anyway, all has been well so far - I formatted the hard drive of my laptop just fine, installed everything just fine - however, my network card isn't working. As stated above I'm running Slackware 12.1, and it's a Broadcom BCM4813.

After trying to search for networks to discover my router, which wasn't working, I checked the network settings in KControl, and my wlan0 device is apparently disabled. Upon going to enable it, I got this error:

"There was an error changing the device's state, you may have to do it manually."

(that's strange, before it was telling me something about being unable to parse XML data from the network backend or something)

Anyhow, I ran iwconfig and ifconfig and got these results:

iwconfig:

Code:

lo          no wireless extensions.

eth0        no wireless extensions.

wmaster0    no wireless extensions.

wlan0       IEEE 802.11g ESSID:""
            Mode: Managed  Channel:0 Access Point: Not-Associated
            Tx-Power=0 dBm
            Retry min limit:7  RTS thr:off  Fragment thr=2346 B
            Encryption key: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

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:12 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:12 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
           RX bytes:756 (756.0 B)  TX bytes:756 (756.0 B)

And that's it. Any ideas? Help would be greatly appreciated.

kilgoretrout · 07-18-2008, 04:22 PM

Try getting the card to work manually at the command line. Your card is already detected with the ndiswrapper giving the wlan0 interface. If you are using WEP on your router and know the ESSID, then run as root:

# iwconfig wlan0 essid <insert essid name>
# iwconfig wlan0 key <insert WEP hex key>
# dhcpcd wlan0

Aled Evans · 07-18-2008, 04:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kilgoretrout

Try getting the card to work manually at the command line. Your card is already detected with the ndiswrapper giving the wlan0 interface. If you are using WEP on your router and know the ESSID, then run as root:

# iwconfig wlan0 essid <insert essid name>
# iwconfig wlan0 key <insert WEP hex key>
# dhcpcd wlan0

I remember reading something about ESSID, but where would I go about finding it? I assume if I log into my router as the admin it's around the settings somewhere?

Although, I looked earlier and all I found was the name of the router...would that be it, by any chance?

Edit: Also, would there be any need for me to reboot or anything, afterwards?

Edit #2: Alright, so I did all that (I used the router's name as my essid) and then tried using Firefox before and after rebooting, didn't work. And the device still isn't activating in KControl. Any more suggestions? I can only assume that the ESSID is wrong, in which case, how do I find out what it is?

vehn · 07-18-2008, 05:24 PM

First -- you need firmware for your broadcom`s wifi card. Your card does not work properly. See 'dmesg | grep b43' and go to http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43.

ESSID == name of your wireless net

Aled Evans · 07-18-2008, 06:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vehn

First -- you need firmware for your broadcom`s wifi card. Your card does not work properly. See 'dmesg | grep b43' and go to http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43.

ESSID == name of your wireless net

Thanks very much, installed the driver and at least the network card actually started up. It seems to turn on when I run dhcpcd (incidentally, that's when KControl actually lets me activate it) - but it always turns itself off again, and I'm right back to the same situation until I use dhcpcd again. So...still no connection

Anything else I can try?

Edit: Alright, after a bit of fiddling around I've been able to detect my wireless router using KWiFiManager, and I *seem* to be able to connect to it with the WEP key...however, I can't actually access anything through Firefox or Konqueror...or any internet based app for that matter. Any ideas what's going on here, and could somebody show me if I'm supposed to be editing some file somewhere?

vehn · 07-19-2008, 01:33 AM

I don't know about KWiFiManager/NetworkManager etc. I edit configuration file of slackware: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf

It's my (partially):

Code:

# Default gateway IP address:
GATEWAY="192.168.0.2"

# Change this to "yes" for debugging output to stdout.  Unfortunately,
# /sbin/hotplug seems to disable stdout so you'll only see debugging output
# when rc.inet1 is called directly.
DEBUG_ETH_UP="no"

## Example config information for wlan0.  Uncomment the lines you need and fill
## in your info.  (You may not need all of these for your wireless network)
IFNAME[4]="ath0"
IPADDR[4]="192.168.0.1"
#NETMASK[4]=""
#USE_DHCP[4]="yes"
#DHCP_HOSTNAME[4]="icculus-wireless"
#DHCP_KEEPRESOLV[4]="yes"
#DHCP_KEEPNTP[4]="yes"
#DHCP_KEEPGW[4]="yes"
#DHCP_IPADDR[4]=""
WLAN_ESSID[4]=DarkNet
#WLAN_MODE[4]=Managed
##WLAN_RATE[4]="54M auto"
##WLAN_CHANNEL[4]="auto"
##WLAN_KEY[4]="D5AD1F04ACF048EC2D0B1C80C7"
##WLAN_IWPRIV[4]="set AuthMode=WPAPSK | set EncrypType=TKIP | set WPAPSK=96389dc
66eaf7e6efd5b5523ae43c7925ff4df2f8b7099495192d44a774fda16"
#WLAN_WPA[4]="wpa_supplicant"
#WLAN_WPADRIVER[4]="ndiswrapper"

It is necessary for you to change it according to your options.
And you need dns-servers of you provider in /etc/resolv.conf, like:

Code:

nameserver 83.174.192.227
nameserver 83.174.193.227

Aled Evans · 07-19-2008, 05:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vehn

I don't know about KWiFiManager/NetworkManager etc. I edit configuration file of slackware: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf

It's my (partially):

Code:

# Default gateway IP address:
GATEWAY="192.168.0.2"

# Change this to "yes" for debugging output to stdout.  Unfortunately,
# /sbin/hotplug seems to disable stdout so you'll only see debugging output
# when rc.inet1 is called directly.
DEBUG_ETH_UP="no"

## Example config information for wlan0.  Uncomment the lines you need and fill
## in your info.  (You may not need all of these for your wireless network)
IFNAME[4]="ath0"
IPADDR[4]="192.168.0.1"
#NETMASK[4]=""
#USE_DHCP[4]="yes"
#DHCP_HOSTNAME[4]="icculus-wireless"
#DHCP_KEEPRESOLV[4]="yes"
#DHCP_KEEPNTP[4]="yes"
#DHCP_KEEPGW[4]="yes"
#DHCP_IPADDR[4]=""
WLAN_ESSID[4]=DarkNet
#WLAN_MODE[4]=Managed
##WLAN_RATE[4]="54M auto"
##WLAN_CHANNEL[4]="auto"
##WLAN_KEY[4]="D5AD1F04ACF048EC2D0B1C80C7"
##WLAN_IWPRIV[4]="set AuthMode=WPAPSK | set EncrypType=TKIP | set WPAPSK=96389dc
66eaf7e6efd5b5523ae43c7925ff4df2f8b7099495192d44a774fda16"
#WLAN_WPA[4]="wpa_supplicant"
#WLAN_WPADRIVER[4]="ndiswrapper"

It is necessary for you to change it according to your options.
And you need dns-servers of you provider in /etc/resolv.conf, like:

Code:

nameserver 83.174.192.227
nameserver 83.174.193.227

Yep! Editing those files did it for me, and I'm now posting this from my freshly internet configured Slackware laptop

. I'll remember to do that in the future, rather than trusting K and its utilities heh. Thank you very much

Edit: *sigh* Never mind, after rebooting the laptop I was right back to square one. This time I've edited all those docs and they showed the same info, yet using "dhcpcd wlan0" isn't connecting me to my router. Bah.

Here's what I have in my /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf file:

Code:

# Default gateway IP address:
GATEWAY="192.168.1.1"

# Change this to "yes" for debugging output to stdout.  Unfortunately,
# /sbin/hotplug seems to disable stdout so you'll only see debugging output
# when rc.inet1 is called directly.
DEBUG_ETH_UP="no"

## Example config information for wlan0.  Uncomment the lines you need and fill
## in your info.  (You may not need all of these for your wireless network)
IFNAME[4]="wlan0"
IPADDR[4]="" (<--where do i get this??)
#NETMASK[4]=""
#USE_DHCP[4]="yes"
#DHCP_HOSTNAME[4]="icculus-wireless"
#DHCP_KEEPRESOLV[4]="yes"
#DHCP_KEEPNTP[4]="yes"
#DHCP_KEEPGW[4]="yes"
#DHCP_IPADDR[4]=""
WLAN_ESSID[4]=WANADOO-7F88
#WLAN_MODE[4]=Managed
##WLAN_RATE[4]="54M auto"
##WLAN_CHANNEL[4]="auto"
##WLAN_KEY[4]="562F774F2DC67D3C4CBEFFB437"
##WLAN_IWPRIV[4]="set AuthMode=WPAPSK | set EncrypType=TKIP | set WPAPSK=96389dc
66eaf7e6efd5b5523ae43c7925ff4df2f8b7099495192d44a774fda16"
#WLAN_WPA[4]="wpa_supplicant"
#WLAN_WPADRIVER[4]="ndiswrapper"

Oh and my nameservers are as follows:

Code:

nameserver 195.92.195.94
nameserver 195.92.195.95

Oh, and my iwconfig now shows this:

Code:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wmaster0  no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"WANADOO-7F88"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Tx-Power=27 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2346 B
          Encryption key: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

So I'm wonderign why exactly the encryption key is off, perhaps that could be the source of my persistent connection problems?

Ideas?

Aled Evans · 07-19-2008, 10:29 AM

Never mind, after some digging I found that the answer to my problem was as simple as adding a DHCP_TIMEOUT value to my wlan0 settings in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf file.

After then restarting rc.inet1, I was able to connect to the internet. I've restarted it several times, and rebooted, and it seems to work everytime now. Hurrah, I've started slacking!