wireless not starting about 75 % of time at boot

Elixer · 05-28-2010, 09:16 PM

I have a Linksys WMP54G wirelesss card which I believe to be a Ralink RT2561. My primary OS is Debian Lenny. More often than not wireless will not initialize at boot. Sometimes requireing 3 or more reboots before it starts. It is just realy annoying. If I boot WinXP or Xandros 4.5OCE on the same box and hardware, the wireless always starts. I think the key here is the time allowed to initialize during boot. Win XP, well boots like a turtle, (no a slug) thus giving plenty time. Xandros not much faster befor GUI is up and running. Debian Lenny boots like lightning but seldom initializes wireless. I have posted a thread requesting help on this back on 2-17-10 and recieved some help but no solution.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ghlight=Elixer

I would like if possible information on how to alter the time allowed at boot for wireless card to initialize. As a second less acceptable patch for this problem perhaps some code I can type in at shell to initialize wireless card in circumstance in does not start so I do not have to keep rebooting just to get online.

Any help appriciated. Thanks, Jon

syg00 · 05-29-2010, 06:06 PM

A while back I had a similar issue with Ubuntu. What mine problem was the init scripts started the wireless before the network was completely ready.
So I merely moved the start script later in the sequence. You could also move it to rc.local or similar - that way you could feel better about putting a delay in if needed (probably not).
If Debian are using upstart these days you could put a dependancy (on the network) before allowing the wireless to start.

Elixer · 05-31-2010, 08:15 PM

Here is ther last of about 250 lines of dmesg. It apperars it is trying to initialize wireless hardware at the end. This report is obviosly when it does not start. I assume the start script is near or at the end as it is at the end of the dmesg report.

Still new to linux. Would need some faily detailed help to acomplish the latter of the 3 suggestions.

No way to just type a command at shell prompt to start up wireless lan if it fails to start ar boot?

4.067537] NET: Registered protocol family 10
[ 14.068090] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions
[ 14.239249] lp0: using parport0 (interrupt-driven).
[ 14.256425] ppdev: user-space parallel port driver
[ 17.462217] firmware: requesting rt2561s.bin
[ 17.573374] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[ 17.694992] eth0: link down
[ 17.695239] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[ 20.138248] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
[ 20.393179] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:00.0[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[ 20.393191] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:01:00.0 to 64
[ 20.393393] NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86 Kernel Module 190.53 Tue Dec 8 18:51:41 PST 2009
[ 77.710965] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
jon@debianlenny:~$

rkski · 06-01-2010, 02:21 AM

If having problems starting wlan at boot, you can disable the boot start in your distro, and start it at the command line whenever you want:

Code:

ifup wlan0

or:

Code:

ifconfig wlan0 up
...
dhclient wlan0

Elixer · 06-13-2010, 09:01 PM

Tried both, neither seems to work. Is there a command to just retry brining up the wlan0 if it doeds not start up at boot? Thanks, Jon

nimnull22 · 06-14-2010, 03:51 AM

Hi.
Can you post here output of:
chkconfig | grep net

Thanks.

Elixer · 07-07-2010, 09:46 PM

jon@debianlenny:~$ su
Password:
debianlenny:/home/jon# chkconfig | grep net
bash: chkconfig: command not found
debianlenny:/home/jon#

Something wrong with syntax I guess

nimnull22 · 07-08-2010, 01:49 AM

I suggest you to read through manuals for Debian and find there how to disable interface activation on boot.
On my OpenSuse I have:

Code:

STARTMODE {manual*|auto|hotplug|ifplugd|nfsroot|off}
Choose when the interface should be set up.
manual Interface will be set up if ifup is called manually (without option boot or
hotplug)
auto Interface will be set up as soon as it is available (and service network was
started). This either happens at boot time when network is starting or via
hotplug when a interface is added to the system (by adding a device or load-
ing a driver). To be backward compliant onboot, on and boot are aliases for
auto.
hotplug
This mode is nearly the same as auto. The difference between auto and hot-
plug is that the latter does not make rcnetwork fail if the interface cannot
be brought up.
ifplugd
The interface will be controlled from ifplugd. At initial ifup only ifplugd
will be started for this interface. Then if ifplugd detects a link if calls
ifup again which finally sets the interface up. See also variable
IFPLUGD_PRIORITY below.
nfsroot
Nearly like auto, but interfaces with this startmode will never be shut down
via rcnetwork stop. ifdown <interface> still works. Use this when you use a
root filesystem via network.
off Will never be activated.

And second, network service has its own config, there is:
## Type: integer
## Default: 30
#
# Some interfaces need some time to come up or come asynchronously via hotplug.
# WAIT_FOR_INTERFACES is a global wait for all mandatory interfaces in
# seconds. If empty no wait occurs.
#
WAIT_FOR_INTERFACES="30"

On Debian should be something the same.

Elixer · 07-20-2010, 10:02 PM

I am still quite new, Where would I find the network config. Thanks, Jon