Wireless problems.

[Mark Haney]

Matthew Saltzman wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-06-23 at 13:56 -0400, Mark Haney wrote:
>> Matthew Saltzman wrote:
>>> On Mon, 2008-06-23 at 11:53 -0400, Mark Haney wrote:
>>>> Timothy Murphy wrote:
>>>>> Mark Haney wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I will mention that when I reboot, and I look in 'Network' in GNOME,
>>>>>> that I see 2 wireless cards listed.  Originally, it showed 'wlan0' and
>>>>>> 'wlan0.bak', along with 'eth0' and 'eth0.bak'.  I don't know how that
>>>>>> happened, but I'm wondering if kudzu doing something.  Even when I
>>>>>> deleted the wlan0.bak option and rebooted, same thing.
>>>>> I think this is part of the completely crazy pre-NM WiFi setup.
>>>>>
>>>>> NM is crazy too, but in a different way.
>>>>>
>>>>> Did you try, incidentally, "iwconfig wlan0 essid <whatever>"?
>>>>> Do you have the ESSID set in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 ?
>>>>>
>>>>> Also maybe worth trying "iwconfig wlan0 MODE Managed" or "MODE AdHoc".
>>>>>
>>>>> Ps I'm not a WiFi guru, just a sufferer from it.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> See, on my other wireless system (laptop running Gentoo), I always fire 
>>>> up my wireless this way with no trouble, no matter where I am. (Uh, the 
>>>> manual CLI way) The script I use has never failed me to launch iwconfig 
>>>> and then bring up the interface.
>>>>
>>>> In Fedora, even from the CLI I cannot get the interface to connect. 
>>>> It's UP, from the standpoint that I have an entry in ifconfig that tells 
>>>> me it's up.  The modules are loaded (and I've tried load/unload).  I've 
>>>> tried the other AP modes and still nothing. I just don't understand what 
>>>> changed in a week.  This is the one system I haven't wired because of 
>>>> it's location and so far I've not had trouble with it.
>>>>
>>>> At this point, I'm tempted to try Gentoo on it and see if that makes a 
>>>> difference, just to make sure it's not some weirdness with Linux in 
>>>> general with that card.
>>> You might try the following:
>>>
>>>       * Open system-config-network.
>>>       * Delete all wireless interfaces and devices.
>>>       * Reboot, and let the hardware detector re-detect them.
>>>       * Try connecting again.
>>>
>>>
>> Yep.  Tried that too.  No go.  It's the craziest thing.
> 
> Did it get rid of the multiple copies?  Did it correctly detect the
> cards?  

It did.  Until a second reboot. Then they came back.
> 
> Do you have Windows on the machine, and does it work there?  Does the
> Ubuntu or Knoppix live CD work?  I came late to the thread, so did it
> work with older kernels?  Does it work connecting with
> system-config-network, or ifup, or wpa-supplicant?

Yes I have XP on that box and the card works perfectly (gasp!) there. 
I've never tried wpa-supplicant.  This connection is totally open, 
unencrypted since I live so far away from any of my neighbors.  Unless, 
of course the squirrels or deer in my woods has connectivity. :)


> 
> A that point, I'd consider filing a bug.  John Linville handles the
> wireless stuff, and he's usually been pretty responsive.

The problem is, I don't know what the problem is, so don't know what to 
file.

> 
> Wireless is a seriously tricky business.  From what I've read here and
> on the fedora-devel, fedora-testing, and NetworkManager mailing lists,
> I'm not surprised that it's still kind of flaky on Linux.  It's gotten
> dramatically better over the last couple of Fedoras, though.


-- 
Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt -- Caius Julius Caesar


Mark Haney
Sr. Systems Administrator
ERC Broadband
(828) 350-2415

Call (866) ERC-7110 for after hours support