sis163u on an amilo Li 1818 and slackware
 

hi

I've got a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Li 1818 which came with some other OS preinstalled and a wlan card with a sis163u chip. I repartitioned the disk and put slackware 12 on it, but I cannot get wlan to work. I've got the sis163u driver and installed it with ndiswrapper:
Then
I think this all looks ok, but when I try to ping my router, I get this:

What am I doing wrong? It occurred to me that the driver might be incompatible, so I installed pclos on a spare partition, just to see if I could get it working. And it does. With the same driver. Why? Or, more importantly, why can't I get it working with slackware? PCLOS has a gui network setup so I don't really know what exactly happens.

Please help. I would really like to stay with slack.

ros

Boy, that looks like it should go without a hitch. The only thing I can think of is that dhcpcd is failing somehow. What is the output of route -n? You're router's IP address should be in the Gateway column, and if it isn't, then something is going screwy with dhcpcd.

Now with that said, I have seen some threads on the Amilo where the kill switch has been a serious problem. You might do some digging in the log files and see if either the card or ndiswrapper are complaining about anything.

I kind of thought it should be working too!

Here is the output from netstat -r from slackware 12

And the same command issued from PCLOS, where it works (I'm using it right now)

I don't know what that 169.254.0.0 is, or if its important...

I tried setting my ip address manually with ifconfig, but I still couldn't talk to the router (192.168.1.1). I reinstalled slackware, because I have a vague feeling, but I can't be sure if my memory is playing tricks on me, that the very first time I installed ndiswrapper it all worked... But to no avail.


Slack is just better and cleaner somehow.

ros

In case you didn't know, that is actually a multi-step process, it isn't as simple as adding an IP address. You need to set the IP with ifconfig, set the gateway with route, and then add DNS servers to your /etc/resolv.conf files. When you run a DHCP client, that all happens automatically, but not if you set the IP manually.

To be honest, I don't see any reason why this isn't working. Your output from route -n is correct, as are all the other aspects you've been posting. What is really weird is that dhcpcd works. That strongly suggests that the card is functional. So basically, we're going to have to do some fishing to see if we can find some clues. Here is what I suggest you look at:

- The ability to scan: iwlist wlan0 scan
If that fails, it might suggest a driver problem, but if it works, it is more evidence the card and drivers are fine

- Your firewall: iptables -L
I'm guessing you didn't set up a firewall yet, but it doesn't hurt to look

-Your log files. I'm afraid you're going to have to spend some serious time in /var/log/messages, /var/log/syslog and the dmesg output and see if the card or ndiswrapper are leaving any clues as to what might be going wrong.

By the way, I'm assuming you've installed ndiswrapper from source. If that isn't true, I would try doing it and make sure you've got the latest version, but NOT an rc version. Also, check the ndiswrapper wiki and see what drivers are suggested for your card. If you're already using the suggested driver, you might try experimenting a little anyways. In the deep, dark past, ndiswrapper was very picky about which Windows drivers would work. It hasn't been a problem lately but it still might be worth trying a different driver.

Hi
I have a pristine slack 12 installation with the default kernel. I haven't added any of the security upgrades. I downloaded ndiswrapper v 1.52 and compiled it from source, following the instructions, because I've never needed ndiswrapper before. I don't know much about firewalls; I leave that to our router, perhaps I shouldn't? Thanks for that bit about setting ip manually; I didn't know that.
Anyway, here's a copy of what I typed in, and what happens in messages & system logs at the same time as I loaded the driver..


That bit in the messages file about W720V is from when I checked if I could contact a router without a wep key. We have a spare router in the house which normally resides in a forgotten drawer in the cellar, but I got it out and plugged it into the mains (not the phone line), booted it up and switched on wlan. It has unencrypted access and the essid is W720V. That line is in rc.wireless.conf. But as you can see when I type iwconfig, the essid is "Wir". The spare router has now been relegated to the cupboard again, after I discovered I could access it without wep, but not with.

I'll look for another driver later on this evening

ros

Well now I'm really puzzled! I tried a version of ndiswrapper (1.48 - which is what pclos successfully uses), but the results were the same. iwlist wlan0 scan returns our ssid and that of our neighbour, but ping says the same old thing. So I booted up with grml, which comes with ndiswrapper 1.50 preinstalled and kernel 2.6.23-grml and did the same old thing - ndiswrapper -i sis163u.inf, modprobe ndiswrapper, iwconfig wlan0 key xxxx open. Then ifconfig wlan 0 192.168.1.102, route add default gw 192.168.1.1, edited /etc/resolve.conf to contain nameserver 192.168.1.1. And here I am. Admittedly, the environment is a bit alien - I've never used links before, so please excuse the total lack of formatting. But Why? I can more or less type these commands in my sleep now - and it worked first time no hiccups, peculiarities, nothing, and it just worked just like that. And I've never used grml before. So just why can't I do the same thing with slackware? Is there something very peculiar about slack that I've never noticed before?

Well now I'm really puzzled. After having zero success with other versions of ndiswrapper (14.8 like pclos uses and has success with), I downloaded grml and booted with that. And here I am. Kernel 2.6.23-grml and preinstalled ndiswrapper 1.50. I did the usual run of commands ndiswrapper -i sis163u.inf, modprobe ndiswrapper, iwconfig wlan0 key xxx open, ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.102, route add default gw 192.168.1.1, added the following to /etc/resolve.conf: nameserver 192.168.1.1. And that was that. Just like it should be. If only that sequence would work in slackware...

Please help

ros

OK, this may be a stupid question, but in Slackware, if you set up the card the way you've described can you surf the net? I'm wondering if there is something odd going on with ping rather than a serious driver problem. Because as far as I can see:

- The driver is installed properly
- The driver works (scanning works)
- You can associate with your AP
- You can get an IP address via DHCP
- You're gateway is set correctly

The only thing you haven't posted is your /etc/resolv.conf file after running dhcpcd. If that has nameservers in it, then I am completely stumped.

Hi
I don't think its a driver problem; 2 other linuxes can get this driver running. I must have set something up somewhere incorrectly, but I don't know where to look. This is what I typed this morning. First I set the ip address manually and showed the contents of resolv.conf, then I used dhcpcd. resolv.conf then gets a new value. I think it gets this from the router, because when I type in from pclos or vista, it is redisplayed as Incidentally, this is ndiswrapper v 1.48. The router has been set up to always set my hardware address *:DA:6F:FE to 192.168.1.102.

Sorry about the double posting yesterday, but I've never used links before and I was getting in a bit of a muddle. I was quite excited that I could get online so easily with grml. Perhaps I should reinstall slack and start afresh.

I just reread your post and you asked if I can surf the net. Well, I hadn't tried that. So I opened firefox and typed in http://192.168.1.1 and got an Unable to connect message. Then I tried to access the Slackware home page and after an age I got a Can't find the server message. Then, just out of interest, I pressed the back button, and there was my router welcome page! I clicked on the start configuration button, but got the Unable to connect message. I tried reloading that page several times, but to no avail. But doesn't that show that I can talk to my router, just very slowly and unreliably? What is going on? So I've just rebooted to pclos and looked at the router log file for the last few minutes:
Interesting but what is going on??
ros

I'm going to be upfront about one thing. I have absolutely no idea why this isn't working. EVERYTHING you've posted suggests that you should be happily surfing away, so the stuff that follows is really a fishing expedition.


I think that for the time being, you should turn this off and let the laptop get whatever IP address it gets. At this point, the fewer complications, the better.

Wow. If the gateway was set, that should have worked if the driver was working.


My aching head................................


The one thing that does look a little off is your resolv.conf after you've run dhcpcd. That should have contained the nameservers from your ISP, not just your router. However, that doesn't change the fact that trying to get to your router by IP address should have worked. I also see that you've set up your wireless card in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf. I think for the time being, you should comment out any changes you've made there and work exclusively from the command line.

I usually hate to suggest this, but in your case, that might not be a bad idea. Something is screwed up, but it sure isn't leaving any clues.

I'm getting quite depressed about this.
I've reinstalled slackware 12.0. I've disabled the setting on our router which assigns this laptop a specific ip address. I haven't touched rc.wireless.conf or rc.inet1.conf. Nothing. I'm only working from the command line. I compiled and installed ndiswrapper and then did the following:
You can see the time when I did all this. Netstat -r takes an age to return the last line. I don't know if that is significant. I was unable to connect to the router with firefox as I did before. Then I rebooted into pclos and looked at the router log:
I think I'm going to install slackware 10.2 or 11.0 - it will be interesting to see if I get anywhere with that. Bearing in mind that 2 other linuxes have managed to get this thing working with the same driver leads me to think that it is a slackware peculiarity.


ros

I agree with you on this, but to be honest, I have no idea what it could possibly be. As I've said before, everything appears to be functioning normally and the only conclusion I can reach is that there is some fundamental incompatibility between Slackware and your hardware. The one thing to keep in mind about Slackware is that it is a VERY conservative distro, and it could be that the incompatibility is due to some older software still being standard in Slackware. That would fit with the fact that newer distros are able to handle your card better. If this is the case, I'm not sure that moving to older versions of Slackware will help. On the other hand, Slackware 12 was a pretty substantial change from earlier versions and it is possible that something got introduced that is causing the problem.

Sorry I can't be of more help, but this one really has me stumped.

Throwing in the towel
 

Hi

Well, that didn't work either. I've just, out of desperation, installed slackware-current, but still no go. I think I've invested quite enough time in this problem. Tomorrow I shall go and buy a usb wlan dongle, which feels a bit like giving up. So which one shall I buy? What chipset does slack support? On my desktop I've got one with a zd1211 chipset and I was jolly glad when that was incorporated into the kernel (2.6.18 I think) I don't have any problems with that. Hmmmm praps I should pop it into my laptop...

Thanks for your help and ideas.

ros

You know, it might be cheaper to simply use another distro rather than buy a new wireless rig. Besides, given what you've seen on this laptop, I'm not sure that a different wireless card is going to be any different that what you've seen so far.

As for chipsets, I'm currently using an Intel 3945 in my main laptop, and that works fine. I think Atheros chipsets are also well supported as are some Ralink chipsets.

Hi
I guess you're right; I'll keep slackware on my desktop and something else that works, like pclos, here on the desktop.

ros