Downloaded Intel driver with 'System -> Administration -> Add/Remove Software', still cannot activate wireless card

[Steven F. LeBrun]

On 07/26/2009 04:23 PM, derek starr wrote:
> To Brian Morrison and Steven F. LeBrun,
>
> Steven F. LeBrun, I appreciate your suggestions.  I hope what I tell 
> Brian below, is in keeping with what you suggest.  Your quote:
> "There are 10 types of people in this world, those that understand 
> binary and those who don't."
> with it's quirky humor, is great!  I have a mathematics degree from 
> the University of California.  I am familiar with binary,octal,decimal 
> and hexadecimal number bases.
>
> Brian, you are correct, I should have subscribed to the Fedora 
> NetworkManager list, instead of the laptop list. My mistake!  I will 
> probably subscribe to that list tomorrow and document my wireless problem.
>
> I went to 'System -> Administration -> Add/Remove Software' and 
> hopefully downloaded
> 'Firmware for Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG'
>
> I have never used the 'Add/Remove Software' administrative tool 
> before, so I did not what to expect.  I am not sure I downloaded the 
> driver to my computer.
>
> This was my last message on the '/var/log/messages' you told me to check.
> 'Jul 26 12:49:07 localhost yum: Installed: 
> iwl3945-firmware-15.32.2.9-1.fc11.noarch'
>
> Immediately after reading that message, I went to 'System -> 
> Administration -> Network', but when under the 'Devices' tab, when I 
> clicked on the 'wlan1' entry, the 'Activate' , on the menu bar above, 
> was grayed out.  I could find no way to activate 'wlan1', which had my 
> Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG card.
>
> Any further suggestions or comments?  I definitely appreciate the help 
> that both of you have given me so far.
>
> Derek Starr
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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>    
Hi Derek,

If your network device is controlled by NetworkManager, you will no be 
able to activate or deactivate it using system-config-network (the 
command you reached through the System menu).

Run system-config-network, select your wireless card and then click on 
the edit icon.  In the dialog page/General tab that appears, the first 
checkbox item is "Controlled by NetworkManager".   If you deselect that 
checkbox, you can activate the wireless card back in the main 
system-config-network dialog (devices tab).

Also, did you reboot your laptop after installing iwl3945?  I am not 
sure if it is necessary but I always do it after installing new drivers, 
especially if they do not work after install before a reboot.

Are you familiar with the /etc/sysconfig directory?  There are two 
subdirectories, networking and network-scripts that are related to 
running networking.  I do not advise editing any of these files directly 
unless you are sure of what you are doing.  There are applets like 
system-config-network that will do the modifications safely and 
correctly since changing one parameter may require changes in multiple 
files and even the creation of new files.

You may want to look at the files there to see if the data looks 
correct.  Your system should have a file ifcfg-wlan1 (in multiple places 
in /etc/systconfig/network-scripts and 
/etc/sysconfig/networking/devices).  There should be an ifcfg-* file for 
each of your network devices.  That fact that your wireless card is 
named wlan1 instead of wlan0 suggests to me that there is something 
different between our configurations.  If you notice values in these 
files that does not look correct, find out how to change the values 
correctly (probably with system-config-network or a similar tool).

Do you know why your wireless adapter is wlan1 instead of wlan0?  Was 
this an option you selected somewhere?  Is there also a wlan0?

Your other source of information is your boot log and messages.log.  
During each rebooting of my laptop, my wlan0 fails to initializes and an 
error message is reported.  If you post the section of you messages log 
file and boot.log (if your boot.log is not empty) relating to 
starting/activating your wlan1, it would help.

 From my boot.log:

    Bringing up interface eth0:
    Determining IP information for eth0... failed; no link present. 
    Check cable?
    [FAILED]
    Bringing up interface wlan0:  Error for wireless request "Set Mode"
    (8B06) :
         SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.

    Determining IP information for wlan0... failed.
    [FAILED]

There is no cable connected to eth0 so its failure is expected.  The 
"Set Mode" error for wlan0 is a problem with one of the statements in 
one of the ifup-XXX scripts and appears to be harmless in this case.  
When NetworkManager starts up, it successfully starts my wlan0 
connection to my intranet, getting an IP address from my DHCP server.  
This all appears during a reboot.

Let me know if this helps or you still need or want more help.  It is 
after midnight and I am not sure how coherent I am at the moment. :-)

BTW.  I like the "10 types of people" quote; I first saw it on a t-shirt 
somewhere.

BTW2.  When I run "lsmod | grep iwl", I get the following:

    [root at tardis default]# lsmod | grep iwl
    iwl3945               125016  0
    mac80211           164720  1 iwl3945
    lib80211                  5064  1 iwl3945
    cfg80211               30604  2 iwl3945,mac80211

The first column are modules that are loaded and the last column is the 
modules that use that module.  Are all four of these modules loaded on 
your laptop?

-- 
   Steven F. LeBrun

Quote: /"The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there 
are dragons. But children have always known there are dragons. Fairy 
stories tell children that dragons can be killed."/
      -- G.K. Chesterton

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