ipw2200 on Fedora: eth1 initialization delayed

max2004 · 01-08-2007, 06:36 AM

Hi,

I'm running FC5 (2.6.18) on a Thinkpad R52 with an Intel wireless card. ipw2200 + firmware are installed using yum. But during boot, I get told that eth1's initialization got delayed (and that I should check the cabel

). In other threads about this, it was recommended to turn on the device using system-config-network after installing ipw2200 + firmware. But when I run Fedora's system-config-network, the interface is shown as deactivated and when I try to activate it, I get the same message (initialization delayed).

When I run iwconfig (I have the latest wireless-tools package installed) directly, I found this warning:

Code:

[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

Warning: Driver for device eth1 has been compiled with version 20
of Wireless Extension, while this program supports up to version 19.
Some things may be broken...

eth1      unassociated  ESSID:off/any  Nickname:"localhost.localdomain"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.462 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   Sensitivity=8/0
          Retry limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          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

eth0      no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.


[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig --version
iwconfig  Wireless-Tools version 28
          Compatible with Wireless Extension v11 to v19.

Kernel    Currently compiled with Wireless Extension v20.

eth1      Recommend Wireless Extension v18 or later,
          Currently compiled with Wireless Extension v20.

What could I do about that?

Thanks,
Max

Lenard · 01-08-2007, 07:04 AM

You may be missing something in your configuration. Some wireless routers do not play well with Linux and a little help is needed.

As root try editing the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 file and add the wireless routers ip address;

GATEWAY=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

then (still as root) restart the network service from the console or xterm session;

service network restart

max2004 · 01-09-2007, 03:51 AM

Hi Lenard,

thanks for your post! I tried what you suggested, but the problem didn't change.

In case there are other things I could try... please don't hesitate to tell me.

Thanks,
Max

Lenard · 01-10-2007, 01:17 PM

Sometime it is also required to setup the /etc/resolv.conf file by hand as root using any text editor (vi, gedit, nedit, kwrite or whatever). The format is fairly simple;

nameserver XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
nameserver XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
nameserver <the IP address of the wireless router>

The XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX values come from you ISP and are normally listed on the wireless routers web based interface.

max2004 · 01-13-2007, 05:56 AM

I tried it, however it didn't work (i.e. I still get the same error message)

Thanks,
Max

Lenard · 01-13-2007, 07:46 AM

Download the latest source rpm for wireless-tools from Fedora Development;

http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pu...-1.fc6.src.rpm

and build/install the updated package;

rpmbuild --rebuild --recompile --define 'dist .fc5' wireless-tools-28-1.fc6.src.rpm

Follow the output* from the command above to install the binary package;
rpm -Uvh wireless-tools-28-1*.rpm

*Sample output, just the part to note;
Wrote: /home/lenard/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/wireless-tools-28-1.el5.x86_64.rpm

Code:

$ rpm -qa wireless-tools
wireless-tools-28-1.el5

$ iwconfig --version
iwconfig  Wireless-Tools version 28
          Compatible with Wireless Extension v11 to v20.

Kernel    Currently compiled with Wireless Extension v21.

wlan0     Recommend Wireless Extension v18 or later,
          Currently compiled with Wireless Extension v21.

$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"AP_Router"  Nickname:"Aspire500"
          Mode:Auto  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:0A:E9:09:EC:60
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:25 dBm
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:89/100  Signal level:-39 dBm  Noise level:-96 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:21  Invalid misc:618   Missed beacon:0

tskears · 01-15-2007, 05:05 AM

My laptop has an ipw2200, and every time I've had problems it's been the driver/firmware. With various distros, I've had wireless NIC not detected at all, or detected and configurable but just doesn't work, or works "out-the-box" with no problems.

The ultimate fix every time has been download the latest driver source, download the latest firmware, eradicate the existing installation, and rebuild everything.

Not as hard as it sounds, and it's worked every time.