lost wifi connection

portia · 10-26-2009, 09:34 AM

Hi people,

I have been using slackware 13 for the last 2 months or so. I didn't have any problems with my wifi.

Code:

08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5001 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

Everything was working perfectly. I was booting it through debian's grub (+chainloader). I wanted to try out Ubuntu 9.10 beta, so installed it in place of debian. Ubuntu's grub2 picked up my slackware installation correctly. I mean it doesn't boot it through chainloader but boots it straight from grub. The problem is that I don't have wifi connection now on slackware (It's ok on ubuntu). When I run wicd-client it can't find any wireless networks.

That's my lsmod | grep ath5k:

Code:

ath5k                 109216  0
mac80211              155588  1 ath5k
led_class               3392  3 ath5k,sdhci,hp_accel
cfg80211               36468  2 ath5k,mac80211

iwconfig:

Code:

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:""
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Tx-Power=27 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B
          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

Thank you for any help in advance
ifconfig:

Code:

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:23:4d:96:98:60
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

What might have happened, I did not do anything to the configuration, just installed ubuntu on a separate partition. Is it the problem that some modules are not loaded at the start any more? As you can see, ath5k is present.

MS3FGX · 10-26-2009, 09:49 AM

A bit strange, as according to those commands it appears the device is detected and working well enough to show up under iwconfig.

Do you get any results if you run the command "iwlist wlan0 scan"?

portia · 10-26-2009, 10:14 AM

Code:

iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0     No scan results

Nothing

Should I try reinstalling something?

portia · 10-26-2009, 01:03 PM

I was thinking of doing it anyway: I installed the latest stable kernel from kernel.org and it works fine. My wifi is back!!!

portia · 10-26-2009, 01:19 PM

Just an update: after installing a new kernel, I upgraded to -current and installed ATI proprietary drivers. Everything works fine.

Just one more question which is not really related to the initial topic: How can I check if the 3D acceleration works fine (so that I could install google earth/compiz, etc)?

sycamorex · 10-26-2009, 01:32 PM

Try:

Quote:

glxinfo | grep rendering

It should say 'yes'. If it does, you should be fine.

btw, I must try doing it as well on one of the partitions. Sounds good.