[SOLVED] [PCLinuxOS] Is There No Hope for Using an Atheros AR5413/5414 WiFi PCI Card ?

mr-roboto · 08-02-2014, 08:06 PM

Development PC is a Windows 7/HP dc5100 P4x86. Installed PCLinuxOS LXDE w/ the 3.12.7 kernel as a guest VM in VMWare Workstation. Just updated everything (including the kernel) just a few days ago. The live media created from this VM works well on every relatively new PC I've tried on. Except for mine.

Boot PCLOS, then open the GUI-based Network Center, to configure the Atheros AR5413/AR5414 PCI card (don't remember who made it.) All of the local routers including the landlord's Netgear. Input the WPA2 key and click Connect. After a minute or so, Network Center returns w/ "Connection failed" dialog. In addition to displaying the names of the local routers, Network Center also shows the encryption status for each router as well as approximate signal strength.

One time it connected to a distant, but open router. Browsed a couple of pages, then immediately tried to connect to my normal router, but no joy. Next I tried my mobile hotspot from a few feet away, w/ and w/o the normal WPA2 encryption key. Obviously, no joy.

Oddly, the PCLOS live system is on a hand-rolled, multi-distro live UFD/DVD, which also contains Knoppix, Elementary, Lubuntu, Parted Magic, and Kaspersky Rescue Disc, all of which connect wirelessly w/o a hiccup (on my HP dc5100.)

Below is the (edited) output from lsmod:

Code:

ath5k                 115787  0 
ath                    11432  1 ath5k
mac80211              255184  1 ath5k
cfg80211              157148  3 ath5k,ath,mac80211
rfkill                  9792  1 cfg80211

Finally, I was inspecting something else (completely unrelated) and noticed w/in the output from chkconfig showed the wlan system service was off. Not sure if that means anything at all.

That's all the info I have. Realistically, I have alternatives on the same media so this isn't critical, but I'd like to learn to make Linux work under all circumstances, as this particular system has been tweaked/customized almost perfectly. Later....

xode · 08-03-2014, 12:46 AM

What does your PCLOS control panel program (i.e. the PCLOS equivalent of YaST in SUSE linux or control panel in windows) say about the wlan system service? The problem may be as simple as that service not being started at boot time, and making startup of that service at boot time the default could solve this problem.

mr-roboto · 08-03-2014, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xode

What does your PCLOS control panel program (i.e. the PCLOS equivalent of YaST in SUSE linux or control panel in windows) say about the wlan system service? The problem may be as simple as that service not being started at boot time, and making startup of that service at boot time the default could solve this problem.

Tried it and it worked !!!

Get the following noise just before the device is turned on:

Code:

Shutting down WLAN devices:
Shutting down WLAN devices:
wlanctl-ng:  Operation not supported
FATAL:  Module p80211 not found
Starting WLAN Devices:  FATAL:  Module p80211 not found

Have rebooted several times to confirm the hypothesis. The wlan service isn't reported running at all either in PCLOS Control Center or via chkconfig. However, some part of that code gets wlan0 working. Still trying to determine what owns p80211. I see many references to it via GOOGLE, generally associated w/ wlan-ng, but PCLOS uses (as shown above) wlanctl-ng.

Thanx for the suggestion. Solution in hand, the investigation for a permanent fix begins....