Been working on wireless all morning.....still no dice

ErrorBound · 05-02-2007, 02:39 PM

I installed etch (kernel 2.6.18-4-686) on a laptop this morning and so far I feel like I'm most of the way to getting this thing working but not quite there yet.....the wireless doesn't work at all.

My wireless hardware:

Code:

lspci | grep Ethernet
02:01.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8180L 802.11b MAC (rev 20)

I have built ndiswrapper using module-assistant and installed the driver correctly:

Code:

ndiswrapper -l
installed drivers:
lsrtnds         driver installed, hardware (10EC:8180) present

Code:

lsmod | grep ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper           157652  0
usbcore               112644  5 ndiswrapper,usbhid,ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd

I have the following in /etc/network/interfaces:

Code:

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid my-wireless-essid
wireless-key my-wireless-key

Also

Code:

iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Auto  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:11 Mb/s   Tx-Power:20 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
          RTS thr:2432 B   Fragment thr:2432 B
          Encryption key:(my-wireless-key)   Security mode:restricted
          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

sit0      no wireless extensions.

"iwlist wlan0 scan" finds my access point. "ifconfig wlan0 up" doesn't complain.

However, when I do "/etc/init.d/networking restart" in order to connect to the access point, I get

Code:

...
Listening on LPF/wlan0/00:0c:41:b5:96:a9
Sending on   LPF/wlan0/00:0c:41:b5:96:a9
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 6
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 15
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 15
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 16
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 2
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
done.

Garr! what's wrong?

Dutch Master · 05-02-2007, 02:57 PM

Try connecting without the encryptionkey. Allow the AP to connect to the MAC addres of the card.

ErrorBound · 05-02-2007, 03:18 PM

Nope, same thing happens.

ErrorBound · 05-03-2007, 08:19 AM

No ideas? This seems like it could be a common problem, and I've solved things like this before, but it just doesn't seem to fit together...

rickh · 05-03-2007, 08:29 AM

I'm sure there is a native Linux driver for an 8180 card. As far as I'm concerned messing with ndiswrapper is not worth the hassle.

ErrorBound · 05-06-2007, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickh

I'm sure there is a native Linux driver for an 8180 card. As far as I'm concerned messing with ndiswrapper is not worth the hassle.

There is a driver, I'm not sure if it is open source or proprietary though, but it is included in Ubuntu by default. I have Ubuntu Edgy installed again, and the wireless works, albeit with bugs (i.e. trying to use scp will lock up the machine due to a bug in the driver). It seems that for this reason, the driver has been blacklisted in Ubuntu Feisty.

I tried Feisty but along with the wireless not working, the power settings like 'suspend to disk' don't work anymore. Edgy is of course littered with bugs too like every other Ubuntu release, but at least they are mostly workable ones for me.

pentode · 05-07-2007, 10:46 AM

Any chance your router is restricting access based on MAC address?

I'd try turning off ALL security on the router and try to connect. It's so easy to have the wrong WEP key typed in. (Not that this has ever happened to me.)

You might also check the ndiswrapper wiki and verify that someone else has gotten this NIC to work.

There is a Wireless Networking forum on this site. You might try posting a question there if you continue to have issues.

Tons of Fun · 05-08-2007, 11:34 AM

What wifi card are you using, and what version is it? I had a netgear wifi card on my sarge machine, and it had 3 different versions. Two of the versions used a prism chipset, and the third (mine) used an Atheros chipset. I could not get ndis wrappers working to save my life, but after finding out about the atheros chipset, I installed the madwifi drivers and the card came up instantly. Once you get the actual wifi card info, go to the HCL portion of this great site, and you will more than likely find the info that you need to get your card working.

Hope this helps!

BillyGalbreath · 05-08-2007, 01:15 PM

You dont have wireless-channel in your /etc/network/interfaces - not sure if this is _needed_ but I have it in mine.

ErrorBound · 05-08-2007, 03:19 PM

The card is an old Linksys wireless-B card, using the Realtek RTL8180L chipset. Realtek seems to offer an (at least partly) open-source driver here but I had zero luck in compiling the thing.

I narrowed it down to the driver issue, though....I've played with /etc/network/interfaces, and the settings on the router as well. I installed Ubuntu Edgy again and it's working now for the most part. The wireless works at least.