Bad wireless troubles, desktop machine running Ubuntu 9.04
 

Hello, everybody. I'm having some real problems with my USB wireless adapter in Ubuntu 9.04 (kernel 2.6.28-14-generic), although I'm not surprised, after hearing about people with other problems regarding Linux wireless support.

What's happening is this: I'll go to connect to my wireless network (which is WPA2 encrypted, btw), and it'll seem like it's connecting, but it takes a while for it do do so. However, when I pull up a terminal to do some pinging to see if I've got a connection, 95% of the time it returns "Destination Host Unreachable" wherever I try to ping (even the router itself) It'll keep this up for a good while (anywhere from 10-15 minutes to an hour or more) before it'll finally connect successfully.

I really don't understand what's going on with this. I've got it set to connect using manual configs, so I know it's not DHCP, since I'm not even using it. I've got the correct DNS server IPs put in, because when it does finally get a successful connection, I can get online. I have a Terminal running in the background (on a separate virtual desktop, minimized) doing constant pings to the router to ensure that it doesn't drop the connection, and that seems to do fine.

My system info:

Dell Dimension 4600

Intel® Pentium 4 2.66GHz

1.5GB RAM

3 HDDs: 1 Maxtor internal drive (40GB), 1 Maxtor OneTouch USB external drive (160GB), and 1 Western Digital SATA internal drive (320GB)

OSes: MS Windows XP (on Maxtor internal drive) and Ubuntu 9.04 (on Western Digital SATA internal drive)

Video adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT AGP 512MB VRAM

Network adapter: NetGear WN111v1 USB adapter.

I'm using the Windows drivers with ndiswrapper for the NetGear adapter. So far, this is the only problem I have with Linux. The video drivers work great (I've got Compiz enabled and everything), and all the programs I've used so far haven't really had a hitch, except for NetworkManager so far.

I apologize if I'm being a bit too verbose; I'm just trying as best I can to clarify exactly what my problem is. Yes, I've tried the Ubuntu forums, but no one there seems to be able to help me (apparently what's going on here is some deep Linux voodoo ;)). So, if anyone can offer some decent advice, it would be much appreciated.

bump...Does this mean that no one is able to help out? Or is it because I posted in the wrong forum?

The fact that it eventually connects and then stays connected would seem to indicate that you have done well configuring the thing.

After all, if the configuration were the problem, it would NEVER work.

I'm assuming that you have no such difficulties in Windows, or you'd've mentioned that, given your self-professed verbosity.

I apologize in that I am by no means an expert when it comes to wireless networking under Linux. However, my wife's laptop is also a Pentium 4, also using wireless, also running Linux (Slackware not Ubuntu, but the kernel (which is all that matters) is almost identical.) with the only difference being that her wireless card is PCMCIA, and not USB.

I wonder if IRQ sharing isn't playing a role in this issue? Are there any other USB devices in use on your machine?

The WN111 RangeMax is not listed in the HCL, but apparently it is at least partially supported. Do you know what module is being used as the driver? If not post the output of lsmod and we should be able to tell.

The other consideration is the classic wireless LAN crap that you have doubtlessly already considered . . . does moving the computer around help . . . move the AP, etc.

Few things to try:

Check signal strength on both sides (AP and NetGear). If it is too weak getting connected may be problematic.

Check dmesg whether it is really getting your card recognized and not trying to use any kernel module instead before activating ndiswrapper

@foodown:

I have 3 devices (one is composite) plugged into USB ports on the back. 1) the external HDD, 2) the network adapter, and 3) the keyboard/mouse (which are wireless, and the USB slot is taken by the reciever, thereby making it a composite device...?). They all seem to work fine under Linux except for the network adapter.

I Wiki'd IRQ, and it seems to me that if it's a problem with interrupts, then I guess ndiswrapper is to blame? Also, another thing is that there are 3 of us in this house, and 1 needs to use a VPN for his work activities. I can never seem to connect while he's on the VPN. Maybe it's something to do with connection sharing?

and @shpenat: I'm pretty sure that the router is within signal range. It's only 2 floors below me (maybe about 10-15 ft.)

One other thing: I did a while connected and got this: Does that "0" mean it's not really in use? If that's the case, then shouldn't that mean the wireless wouldn't work at all? Also, if I right-click on the NetworkManager icon and go to Connection Information it shows that it's using ndiswrapper as the driver.

The 0 just means that no other modules are using it.


Could you please post the full output of lsmod, lsusb, and dmesg?

Here's the output:

lsmod:

lsusb:

dmesg: so long not all of it could fit in terminal window: see this link. Sorry if it's too long, probably only a few lines are relevant...but I don't know which ones.

As a note, I've updated my kernel since my first post, I'm now with 2.6.28-15. Same wireless behavior, though.

Sorry about the bump, but otherwise I don't think this post would be noticed...

I had the .inf and .sys files that ndiswrapper uses for the wireless adapter on my external drive, and I just tried moving them to my Linux drive (/etc to be precise) and I re-installed them, and the connection went up almost immediately after I attempted re-connecting! Now, I don't know if this is a permanent fix, but it'll do for now, at least.

Maybe this is the "IRQ sharing bug" you were talking about (seeing as how the drive I was keeping the driver files on is USB)...I don't know. But if it is, then this might be a permanent fix. I'll see how it goes tomorrow when I try to get online, and if things are still going wrong, I'll post about it.

Thanks for the advice, guys!

Well, I think I've blown the VPN theory out the window, because I've got a connection even while the VPN is active. I still have a significant delay in gaining Internet access, though; I guess IRQ sharing had nothing to do with it. :( If anyone has any other theories, please post them. I personally think it has to do with ndiswrapper, but I'm not entirely sure, and I don't know how to research into the problem. (ndiswrapper is FOSS, right? Maybe looking into the source would help? Although I don't really know anything about programming for network interfaces, I do have a little C/C++ experience. If I find that the important part is in ASM, then I'll be disappointed, let's just say that.)

Probably not, but I still think that moving the windows drivers off of the USB drive was a very good idea.

I'm not sure if it's a flaw in ndiswrapper per se, but it might be advisable to play around with different versions of the windows driver, say older versions and versions for win2k, winxp, vista, etc. You might find something that "jives" better with the wrapper.

Thanks for the tip. I'll see if using an older (or newer?) driver makes a difference. One thing I also noticed, though: I looked at /etc/network/interfaces, and it looks like there are only lines for lo and I think eth0, but nothing for wlan0. Maybe that's where the problem is? If so, would adding "iface wlan0 inet manual" help? Or is it something else? I don't know the syntax of this config file...

I suppose I've got some learning to do...if I don't know the syntax of the config files (except maybe xorg.conf, which looks somewhat like C or structured BASIC), then I guess I can't really look into problems like this efficiently. To be honest, I'm surprised no one has posted anything regarding "homework questions" yet, LOL. But anyways, I'll try changing driver versions first and see how that goes.

EDIT: Here are some screenshots to clarify what's going on:

When I go to connect (after waiting for 10-15 seconds)

The (false) connection always drops after a little while

Just FYI, the load indicators are, from left to right, CPU, Network, Disk. that's why the middle one is circled.

Well, I tried both. I can't seem to find any newer (or older) versions of the drivers for the network card. The worst part is that even if I did, it would require me to install them on the Windows drive first; All NetGear device drivers come in a "handy" self-extracting .exe. AARGH!! You can't even use Archive Manager to extract them (it's not a WinZip self-extracting .exe or PKUNZIP or anything like that, it's a full-on Windows InstallShield thing or whatever).

I do have a D-Link DWA-130, but that's proven to be more of a hassle than the NetGear. I found Linux drivers, but I can't get them to install properly. They're distributed in source form, and so you have to compile them with make. It always crashes at the "make install" step for me. ndiswrapper drivers don't work at all.

Also, I tried editing /etc/network/interfaces, but to no avail. Now, even though I put things back to the way they were, it seems to only be able to detect my wireless network, and I can never seem to connect to it (haven't gotten anything the whole day, just more bogus connections and "Destination Host Unreachable").

Any ideas? I can post the output of the (failing) D-Link driver install if you want...

I suppose if all else fails I can reformat the Linux drive and install a different distro on it (e.g. Debian, Fedora, Slackware (that one seems to be popular among the LQ crowd)) and see if it's any "friendlier" towards maybe the D-Link adapter. I mainly chose Ubuntu for its "user-friendliness". I suppose I could learn to man-up a little and get a little bit more mature distro... Which one do you guys recommend?

Please? Any distro recommendations or advice w/ the D-Linux adapter?

Here's the output of make (which now seems to be failing before I ever get to "make install"):
I get the feeling that this just means that the source is poorly written... does that mean I'll have to go in and edit the source myself? (please let that not be the case...I know nothing about this field of programming, let alone being able to deduce how these drivers are supposed to work on a hardware level!)

Well it certainly looks like a syntax error in the source, at least just based on this output:

I don't, however, recommend trying to rewrite it. :)

Which revision in your D-Link? (A, B, or C) I will d/l the source and see if I can build it. If so, I can post the steps that worked for me. (Assuming that the source is not completely broken.)

That, or, you can post a link to the actual source archive and I can just go from there.

Just curious, but why do you invoke "make -C tools" and not "./configure; make; make install"? Is that what it says to do in a README file or something?

The adapter is h/w revision C, and here's a direct link to the driver archive: DWA-130 REV-C Linux drivers

You might notice an Ubuntu logo on this post...it just means I've gotten a temporary connection - I'll probably lose it again next time I reboot the machine. I got it by setting the mode to "DHCP (addresses only)". I guess DHCP isn't a complete bust after all, although I highly doubt that it's a permanent solution.

Here's what happens when I try to install the mod from the source you linked:
It seems to work fine with just 'make; make install.'
An insmod call after that reports no errors . . . but, then again, I can't test it since I don't have the device. :)

Ok... it seems to work for you, so it must not be the source that's broken... I do have a theory, though: I noticed that you've un-tarred the file to the /usr/src directory. Maybe that's where I should put mine? That could be what the problem is; maybe it's just confused because it's not in the right directory. I've had similar problems before. I'll try it next time I lose internet and really can't get it back (I usually give it about 5 or 10 attempts before saying it's never gonna connect).

Yes, I'm posting from Ubuntu again... This time I set it back to manual, unplugged the adapter, and plugged it back in. Like I said, this is really inconsistent, so I'm hoping I can maybe get those Ralink drivers working so that I can use the D-Link instead. I've tested it under Windows, too, and it seems to do just fine there.

EDIT: Another idea would be to get a DWA-140. It's listed under the (Ubuntu) HCL as working "out-of-the-box".

Well, I tried compiling and installing the drivers again, and I got this at the "make install" step:

It turns out the other one I posted was wrong because I was compiling the wrong thing (oops!). All I know at this point is that some source file called "bounds.c" must be either missing or in a folder other than the one it needs to be in. If that's the case, could you maybe point me towards where it needs to be?

And yes I have to use sudo otherwise it'll fail on me. I suppose another way could be to "sudo -i" to login as root and try it again...would that make any difference? I can't just "su" because I apparently don't have the root password. I've tried my user password, but apparently they're not one in the same.

Hmmm . . . just to be sure, try this sequence of commands in the base source directory:
I'll never understand the whole Ubuntu sudoers setup . . . supposedly more secure, but then by default any user can become root with their OWN password with that 'sudo su -' . . . oh, well.

It's kinda like double-clicking 'Programs' in the Start Menu on Windows. Can't be disabled (easily) and gives any user access to everything on the drive. LOL.

Okay, I tried running those commands as root, and the drivers compiled and (supposedly) installed successfully this time (yay!), but when I try to do an insmod, it gives me this:

Does that mean the compile didn't go well? What did I do wrong? I ran them in the same sequence as you wrote them.

Well, if it built and installed, it went well.

What about after reboot? When you reboot and connect the stick, it should auto-load the module and start working.

Oh...surprised I didn't think of that myself. Well, I'm gonna call it a night here soon anyway, so I'll try the D-Link tomorrow.

Ok, I tried booting w/ the D-Link adapter in the USB port where the NetGear one was, and it seems to work! The only problem is that my internet access is still delayed...and after a little while of my gaining access, the whole system freezes! No mouse movement, no keyboard response, nothing. I have to press and hold the power button on the tower to reboot the machine. Could this be a major glitch in the drivers? (Maybe that's what all the warnings were about during the build process regarding unused return variables.) And I'm guessing that since internet access is still sketchy, then that problem's not on my end... I'll try setting it to WPA or WPA2 security, but not the combined one (it's a NetGear router, too, in case anyone was curious). In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to deal with using the NetGear adapter with ndiswrapper and hoping for a net connection... :(

Well, I've found that the problem seems to be on the router's end. I tried resetting the router (w/o changing any settings), and that seemed to make it work. Is this the only way I can make it work? I already mentioned that I can use the D-Link adapter, but it consistently freezes my system (maybe that's what the error was talking about when it mentioned an "unknown symbol"; something was going to majorly interfere with system operations).