Wireless not working

[jna31415]

============ lspci ============
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub [8086:2a40] (rev 09)
Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel
Kernel modules: intel-agp
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a42] (rev 09)
00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a43] (rev 09)
00:1a.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 [8086:2937] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
Kernel modules: uhci-hcd
00:1a.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 [8086:2938] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
Kernel modules: uhci-hcd
00:1a.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 [8086:2939] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
Kernel modules: uhci-hcd
00:1a.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 [8086:293c] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
Kernel modules: ehci-hcd
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller [8086:293e] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:2940] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver
Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 [8086:2942] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver
Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1c.2 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 3 [8086:2944] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver
Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1c.3 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 [8086:2946] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver
Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1c.5 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 6 [8086:294a] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver
Kernel modules: shpchp
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:2934] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
Kernel modules: uhci-hcd
00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 [8086:2935] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
Kernel modules: uhci-hcd
00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 [8086:2936] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd
Kernel modules: uhci-hcd
00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 [8086:293a] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd
Kernel modules: ehci-hcd
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge [8086:2448] (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller [8086:2919] (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller [8086:2929] (rev 03)
Kernel driver in use: ahci
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. Unknown device [168c:002b] (rev 01)
06:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Attansic Technology Corp. L1 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter [1969:1026] (rev b0)
Kernel driver in use: ATL1E
Kernel modules: atl1e

============ lsusb ============
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 04f2:b071 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

============ lsmod ============
Module Size Used by
snd_seq_dummy 6788 0
snd_seq_oss 33408 0
snd_seq_midi_event 10240 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 50928 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 10380 3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 40480 0
snd_mixer_oss 17920 1 snd_pcm_oss
ipv6 241956 14
pcmcia 36524 0
pcmcia_core 35604 1 pcmcia
ppdev 11268 0
lp 13572 0
parport_pc 28196 0
parport 34796 3 ppdev,lp,parport_pc
fuse 54684 3
snd_hda_intel 367756 1
snd_pcm 70788 2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel
snd_timer 23176 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 11400 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
snd_hwdep 10756 1 snd_hda_intel
uvcvideo 57096 0
compat_ioctl32 5120 1 uvcvideo
intel_agp 29116 1
snd 51748 11 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd _mixer_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_hwd ep
videodev 36736 1 uvcvideo
agpgart 32584 1 intel_agp
v4l1_compat 17924 2 uvcvideo,videodev
video 20624 0
output 6656 1 video
soundcore 10080 1 snd
asus_laptop 19704 0
sg 30516 0
atl1e 34196 0
psmouse 40592 0
thermal 19484 0
serio_raw 9220 0
evdev 13088 6
button 10128 0
battery 14340 0
processor 36648 1 thermal
thermal_sys 15144 3 video,thermal,processor
hwmon 6300 1 thermal_sys
ac 8196 0
led_class 7684 1 asus_laptop

============ dmesg-firmware ============

============ kernel version ============
2.6.27.7-smp

[reed9]

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. Unknown device [168c:002b] (rev 01)

This is your card, and the unknown device return is probably why it isn't loading the wireless module.

From a little googling, it looks like the wireless is probably the AR9285. The ath9k drivers should work with this and are included in the mainline kernel since 2.6.27.

Try

su -
modprobe ath9k

Slackware 12.2 will not connect to Wireless Networks - LinuxQuestions.org

[waterhead]

Hello, and welcome to Linux Forums!

Thank you for the detailed information. Part of the problem is that your system can't properly recognize the wireless device:

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. Unknown device [168c:002b] (rev 01)

This is usually because the device is newer than the Linux distribution or kernel that you are using. You can update your system to properly recognize newer devices by updating the pci.ids file. You don't say which distro you are using, but in Ubuntu you can update the file just by using this command.

sudo update-pciids

For other distros, you can download the latest pci.ids file and manually install it. It can be downloaded from here:

The PCI ID Repository

You will have to find where the original is located on your system. Use this command:

locate pci.ids

In Ubuntu, it is in /usr/share/misc/pci.ids
In Fedora, it is in /usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids

I have checked the latest version, and your wireless card is listed:

002b  AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)

This will enable it to recognize the wireless card, but it still may not make it work. It appears that this uses the ath9k driver module. You may have a version of it already in the kernel, and it may automatically load now that the wireless is properly identified. If not, you can download and install the latest wireless drivers from here:

Download - Linux Wireless

This is the drivers source files, and must be compiled. You need these prerequisites installed first:

kernel source
kernel headers (may not be necessary, but good to have)
gcc (Linux C compiler)
make (most likely already installed)

[jna31415]

Thank you, both. I'm going to be relying on Linux for a while, since my two-day-old computer's version of Vista managed to stop working the second time I booted it up, and I do not have the desire to figure out how to rescue it when I can learn to use Linux instead. Thus, I appreciate any and all help.

I updated the pci.ids file, and now when I do lspci I get a line mentioning the AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01).

I should have mentioned in my initial post that I am running Slackware 12.2, so I was able to add the ath9k module. I am not sure if everything is working just yet, as I do not have any wireless networks to connect to today. I will try it out soon unless I can find some other way to be sure that it is working properly. I suspect something improved, since the icon for Wicd changed.

[jna31415]

Thank you for your patience.

After attempting to test my wireless connection, I have determined that it does not work yet, and I have no idea how to set it up, and as I am new to getting wireless internet to work at all, I do not even know where to look for instructions. (Most of what I have used Linux for in the past has been progamming on specific projects, not working with the guts of the system to get it to work.)

So, any help would be appreciated.

[waterhead]

What do you get when you run these commands.

ifconfig

iwconfig

[jna31415]

When I run iwconfig, I get:

lo no wireless extensions

etho0 no wireless extensions

I would have expected something like wlan0 to appear.


ifconfig:

etho0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:26:18:39:16:fc
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets: 0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt: 17

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

I am not sure the lo is supposed to be there on either; I may have done that by accident (as I've been fooling around with this for several days).

I suppose it's also possible I screwed up while putting on ath9k. Would that explain the lack of a wlan0? Once I get the comuter to recognzie that, I assume Wicd will do the rest for me.

Thank you again for your help.

[jna31415]

A website (a link to which I cannot post until I've made 15 posts on this board, but I suppose i can say it's at Slackbook) told me to modify the file /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf, though upon doing so, I still get the same response when I run iwconfig. Here is what I added:

IFNAME[4]="wlan0"
IPADDR[4]=""
NETMASK[4]=""
USE_DHCP[4]="yes"
DHCP_HOSTNAME[4]="icculus-wireless"
DHCP_KEEPRESOLV[4]="yes"
DHCP_KEEPNTP[4]="yes"
DHCP_KEEPGW[4]="yes"
DHCP_IPADDR[4]="yes"
WLAN_ESSID[4]="BARRIER05"
WLAN_MODE[4]=Managed
WLAN_RATE[4]="54M auto"
WLAN_CHANNEL[4]="auto"
WLAN_KEY[4]=[long string of numbers and letters]
WLAN_IMPRIV[4]="set AuthMode=WPAPSK | set EncrypType=TKIP | set WPAPSK=[another long string]
WLAN_WPA[4]="wpa_supplicant"

I added /sbin/modprobe ath9k to my /etc/rc.d/rc.modules file, and now I get ath9k loaded when I boot the computer instead of only after I add it myself each time, so I suppose that's progress. Still, I'm not sure why I'm not getting anything new with iwconfig after changing all of those lines in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf, when that seems like the right thing to do.

I hear it might be good to download ndiswrapper from Slackbuilds, but I'm having trouble transferring files from the computer I am borrowing to type this (a Windows machine with working wi-fi), so I'll have to do that later. I don't remember ndiswrapper showing up anywhere on my Slackware 12.2 install disks, anyway.

Any ideas why wlan0 is not showing up?

[waterhead]

I have never used Slackware, or set up a wireless on it. I will have to let someone that has done this help you.

Slackware doesn't seem very wireless friendly. Try a LiveCD of something like Ubuntu, Suse or Fedora, and see if the wireless works.

[jna31415]

I tested it in Vista just after I got the computer, and it seemed to work there, actually.

I read somewhere else that even with the driver installed, there might be some reason the computer is not recognizing my wireless card. Maybe recompiling the kernel would help, though I'd have to look up how to do that. (Hey, trying it out is the best way to learn, right?)