2006-05-03 chat trying to fix wlan card

Dialogue where tenebrackets was helping Woozle, who was trying to get a Linksys wireless card working in Fedora Core 5 (main article: wireless network cards in Linux)

(18:54:04) tenebrackets: just out of curiosity, did you end up doing a net install?
(18:54:35) Woozle: No, couldn't get any of the available network cards to work with boot.iso
(18:54:39) tenebrackets: 'kay
(18:54:43) tenebrackets: is it on the network now?
(18:54:47) Woozle: The one which normally works with Linux had a weird buggy-looking problem...
(18:55:22) Woozle: ...in that it wouldn't let me enter the SSID properly. There was all this garbage I couldn't erase, and then it would either not work or it would say the SSID was too long.
(18:55:29) ***Woozle checks to see if laptop is on the network
(18:55:43) Woozle: Apparently not.
(18:56:19) Woozle: Network card blinking the colors it usually blinks when it's working, but ping yahoo says unknown host.
(18:56:57) tenebrackets:  /sbin/ip addr
(18:57:10) tenebrackets: wireless?
(18:58:22) Woozle: It doesn't seem to have picked up an IP address, no. Yes, wireless.
(18:58:45) tenebrackets: does it show the device, though?
(18:59:02) Woozle: loopback looks normal, but nothing (v4 or v6) on wifi0. Looks like it does see the card, tho.
(18:59:12) tenebrackets: system-config-network-tui
(19:00:10) Woozle: ok...
(19:00:13) Woozle: it sees eth0
(19:00:22) Woozle: and it's set to use DHCP
(19:00:47) Woozle: "Sees eth0": I mean, it asks "Name" and "Device", and what's filled in for both of those is "eth0"
(19:01:13) Woozle: Should I change that to wifi0, or is that just an alias, or are there huge tacomoosepantses growing out of my head?
(19:01:38) tenebrackets: does it have onboard ethernet?
(19:01:52) Woozle: Not that I could find, else I would have used that instead... *checks again*...
(19:02:17) Woozle: No ethernet port in evidence.
(19:02:54) tenebrackets: check the mac addresses
(19:04:14) tenebrackets: to see if they're the same
(19:04:26) Woozle: I can get the mac address for wifi0, but not sure how to get system-config-network-tui to tell me more about this so-called eth0...
(19:04:51) tenebrackets: ip addr
(19:05:06) tenebrackets: heh, that's like the name of a snake, I think
(19:05:08) Woozle: not listed.
(19:05:17) Woozle: there's lo, wifi0, wlan0, and sit0
(19:05:21) tenebrackets: huh
(19:06:50) tenebrackets: what happens if you just run 'startx'?
(19:07:13) tenebrackets: or we could just do the wireless stuff manually
(19:07:42) Woozle: Something graphical seems to be happening.
(19:07:50) Woozle: Fedora splash.
(19:08:09) tenebrackets: did it even try to start X when it booted?
(19:08:16) Woozle: Not as far as I could tell.
(19:08:27) Woozle: But I wasn't watching the whole time.
(19:08:31) tenebrackets: kk
(19:08:40) ***Woozle waits to see what it goes to next...
(19:08:53) tenebrackets: maybe it's just set to start in console mode
(19:09:21) Woozle: That was my guess... but I didn't know how to change that. I know how to do it with the graphical mode thingy, but not from CLI.
(19:09:42) Woozle: Ok, we seem to have booted into something Gnomish.
(19:09:48) ***Woozle looks for network configurator
(19:11:16) ***Woozle finds something likely-looking, and plays with it.
(19:12:35) Woozle: There are still those three devices... I'd expect to see something wonky like that in XP, but not in Linux...
(19:13:31) tenebrackets: run ifconfig -a
(19:13:38) tenebrackets: see what devices it shows
(19:14:28) tenebrackets: what card is it?
(19:14:34) Woozle: waiting for console...
(19:15:12) Woozle: (This system seems slower than it should be; it's a 1 GHz processor, but FC5 setup made some mention about there not being much memory...)
(19:15:26) tenebrackets: cat /proc/meminfo
(19:15:33) tenebrackets: or ask the hardware info thingy
(19:15:45) Woozle: 128 mB
(19:15:51) tenebrackets: that's not much
(19:15:58) tenebrackets: for Gnome
(19:16:03) tenebrackets: I believe.
(19:16:45) Woozle: Gnome should be lighter-weight than KDE, I'd think... but yeah, it's probably straining for space.
(19:17:00) tenebrackets: they're both been cutting a lot of ram use lately
(19:17:08) tenebrackets: kde more than gnome
(19:17:40) Woozle: Ok, ifconfig -a gives me those same 4 devices, lo and 3 maybe-real other devices...
(19:17:59) tenebrackets: does it show a HWaddr for all three?
(19:18:15) Woozle: Not for sit0; that looks like something virtual also.
(19:18:23) tenebrackets: sit0 is virtual
(19:18:25) Woozle: wifi0 has a really long HWaddr
(19:18:43) Woozle: 15 hex pairs
(19:18:51) tenebrackets: huh
(19:18:54) Woozle: The last 7 pairs are 00
(19:19:02) Woozle: wlan0 looks more normal
(19:19:19) Woozle: wifi0, however, shows some Rx activity; wlan0 does not.
(19:19:24) tenebrackets: and what kind of card is it?
(19:19:46) Woozle: The actual card is a LinkSys
(19:20:06) Woozle: One of the GUI apps identified it as "Instant Wireless", and I think that's the internal name I've seen associated with it before.
(19:20:27) Woozle: wifi0 is UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST...
(19:20:35) Woozle: wlan0 is BROADCAST MULTICAST
(19:21:13) Woozle: (correction: 16 hex pairs, ending with 8 00 pairs; there was one wrapped around the next line which I didn't notice)
(19:22:33) tenebrackets: iwlist wifi0 scanning
(19:23:17) tenebrackets: ip link set wlan0 up
iwlist wlan0 scanning
(19:24:07) Woozle: wifi0 no scan results
(19:24:32) Woozle: 2nd command: no errors, no response
(19:25:04) Woozle: wlan0 no scan results
(19:25:16) tenebrackets: iwconfig wifi0
iwconfig wlan0
(19:25:18) tenebrackets: differences?
(19:25:39) tenebrackets: ... is there any chance the laptop has onboard wireless, maybe?
(19:25:50) Woozle: They've both correctly identified our local SSID, and I don't think I had typed that in...
(19:26:07) Woozle: Hmm... it *could* have onboard wireless...
(19:26:28) tenebrackets: lspci
(19:27:14) tenebrackets: and actually, just 'iwconfig' by itself will list wireless information for all devices
(19:27:30) Woozle: host bridge, vga controller, display controller, USB controller x 2, PCI bridge, ISA bridge, IDE interface, SMBus, audio controller, modem, cardbus bridge. 
(19:27:39) ***Woozle tries iwconfig
(19:28:20) Woozle: same as iwconfig wifi0 plus iwconfig wlan0, but also adds a line about sit0 having no wireless extensions.
(19:28:26) Woozle: And yes, the first two are different...
(19:28:45) Woozle: wlan0 has 3 extra lines after "power management: off"...
(19:29:27) tenebrackets: see what happens after you eject the card
(19:29:31) Woozle: link quality, signal level, noise level / rx invalid nwid, rx invalid crypt, rx invalid frag / tx excessive retries / invalid misc / missed beacon
(19:29:37) Woozle: ejecting, roger...
(19:30:04) Woozle: I presume I can just pull it out, unlike Windows which wants you to warn it first.
(19:30:09) tenebrackets: yeah
(19:30:19) tenebrackets: that's what I always do, at least
(19:30:32) tenebrackets: well, I push the little thing that pushes the card out some of the way first
(19:30:35) Woozle: iwconfig now just shows lo and sit0
(19:30:37) tenebrackets: >.>
(19:30:39) tenebrackets: curious
(19:30:45) tenebrackets: now plug it in again
(19:30:51) tenebrackets: actually
(19:30:54) tenebrackets: check dmesg first
(19:30:56) tenebrackets: and then after
(19:31:00) tenebrackets: dmesg|tail, that is
(19:31:30) Woozle:  last msg is wifi0: card already removed or not configured during shutdown
(19:31:35) tenebrackets: huh
(19:31:41) Woozle: Some timeout messages for wifi0 earlier
(19:32:22) Woozle: and "wifi0: hfa384x_cmd: entry still in list? (entry=c0dfdea0, type=0, res=-1)
(19:32:24) Woozle: "
(19:32:27) tenebrackets: well
(19:32:36) Woozle: and another one a little like that.
(19:32:43) tenebrackets: in this situation, I'd just try connecting with one of the devices
(19:32:49) tenebrackets: if it didn't work, I'd try try the other
(19:32:54) Woozle: Yeah, ok...
(19:33:06) Woozle: Is there a good way to reactivate the card without rebooting?
(19:33:11) tenebrackets: hmm?
(19:33:13) tenebrackets: "reactivate"?
(19:33:25) Woozle: Well.. I shove it back in, and... oh, ok, it's blinking happily again.
(19:33:31) Woozle: The first time I tried, it stayed dark.
(19:33:41) tenebrackets: yay
(19:34:12) tenebrackets: you want to just do it manually, or use the magic tool?
(19:34:44) Woozle: It seems to have recognized the card. iwconfig shows both of it again.
(19:34:53) tenebrackets: nodnod
(19:35:06) Woozle: momentary interruption to finish scanning a form for H
(19:35:17) tenebrackets: kk
(19:35:23) tenebrackets: I need to take off relatively soonish
(19:35:28) Woozle: k
(19:35:32) tenebrackets: not immediately
(19:36:36) Woozle: If I select "Auto" for SSID, that should automatically detect our network here, yes? (I mean, it seems to be doing that, cuz both the wireless devices in iwconfig have the right SSID filled in... it just also seems not to be connecting to it successfully.) 
(19:37:00) tenebrackets: if you're broadcasting an ssid and not using encryption, I'd guess it should be okay
(19:37:06) tenebrackets: I've never used 'auto'
(19:37:56) Woozle: Maybe I should try filling it in manually, if it Just Won't Connect.
(19:38:21) tenebrackets: also try setting static ip information
(19:38:44) tenebrackets: so there's one less variable
(19:39:21) Woozle: bleh... but yeah, I've had cards that would only work that way... though I happen to know that this particular one *is* quite capable of working happily with DHCP, but maybe there's something funky about FC5.
(19:39:41) tenebrackets: see, this is an example of what I've talked about before...
(19:40:02) tenebrackets: I just inserted my card, typed in the ssid and wep key, and everything worked
(19:40:10) tenebrackets: while things are magic crazy for you
(19:40:20) Woozle: It works fine with Ubuntu. >.<
(19:40:44) Woozle: Never had any trouble with this card on an Ubuntu system, and that includes the one I installed (but have now wiped) on this same laptop.
(19:40:49) tenebrackets: huh
(19:40:51) tenebrackets: interesting
(19:41:02) tenebrackets: ...what happens when you try to bring it up?
(19:41:22) Woozle: ok, it's slightly different depending on which device...
(19:41:29) tenebrackets: does it claim success?
(19:42:10) Woozle: wifi0: "Error for wireless request 'Set Mode' (8B06): SET failed on device wifi0; Operation not supported. Determining IP information for wifi0... failed." 
(19:42:20) tenebrackets: okay...
(19:42:36) Woozle: wlan0: " Determining IP information for wlan0..." <long pause...>
(19:43:12) tenebrackets: okay
(19:43:20) Woozle: (still waiting for it)
(19:43:24) Woozle: "...failed."
(19:43:30) tenebrackets: let's do some stuff
(19:43:37) Woozle: stuff! yay!
(19:43:39) tenebrackets: ip link set wlan0 up
(19:44:11) Woozle: k
(19:44:13) Woozle: no error
(19:44:14) tenebrackets: ip addr add 192.168.0.137 dev wlan0
(19:44:43) Woozle: k, no err.
(19:44:54) tenebrackets: ip route add default via 192.168.0.1 dev wlan0
(19:46:03) tenebrackets: not sure about that syntax
(19:46:05) Woozle: RTNETLINK answers: Network is unreachable
(19:46:19) tenebrackets: okay
(19:46:35) tenebrackets: ip route add 192.168.0.0/24 dev eth1
(19:47:32) Woozle: Cannot find device "eth1"
(19:47:35) tenebrackets: erm
(19:47:37) tenebrackets: wlan0
(19:47:45) Woozle: no err
(19:47:53) tenebrackets: ip route add default via 192.168.0.1 dev wlan0
(19:48:11) Woozle: no err
(19:48:20) tenebrackets: ping 192.168.0.1
(19:48:35) tenebrackets: or ping 192.168.0.106
(19:48:43) Woozle: .... destination host unreachable, for 0.1
(19:49:02) Woozle: same for 0.106
(19:49:59) tenebrackets: ip route
(19:50:22) Woozle: 192.168.0.0/24 dev wlan0  scope link
(19:50:36) Woozle: 169.254.0.0/16 dev lo  scope link
(19:50:49) Woozle: default via 192.168.0.1 dev wlan0
(19:50:59) Woozle: An' that's all she wrote.
(19:51:06) tenebrackets: okay
(19:52:18) tenebrackets: oh
(19:52:29) Woozle: lightbulb?
(19:52:36) tenebrackets: ip addr show dev wlan0
(19:52:55) tenebrackets: just tell me the inet
(19:53:09) Woozle: 192.16.0.132/32 scope global wlan0
(19:53:12) Woozle: err
(19:53:18) Woozle: 0.137/32
(19:53:32) tenebrackets: okay
(19:53:39) tenebrackets: ip addr del 192.168.0.137
(19:53:52) tenebrackets: ip addr add 192.1608.0.137/24
(19:54:07) tenebrackets: then ping again
(19:54:07) Woozle: "dev" argument is required
(19:54:11) tenebrackets: oh
(19:54:13) tenebrackets: dev wlan0
(19:54:56) Woozle: I typed: ip addr del 192.168.0.137/32 dev wlan0
(19:55:11) Woozle: it said: RNETLINK answers: Cannot assign requested address
(19:55:26) tenebrackets: drop the /32
(19:55:43) Woozle: I tried that first, and it said...
(19:56:06) tenebrackets: okay, ip addr flush dev wlan0
(19:56:40) Woozle: "Warning: Executing wildcard deletion to stay compatible with old scripts. Explicitly specify the prefix length (192.168.0.137/32) to avoid this warning. This special behavior is likely to disappear in further releases. Fix your scripts!"... but on rereading, I guess it actually did do it.
(19:56:52) Woozle: So should I try the add?
(19:56:57) Woozle: and did you really mean 1608?
(19:57:22) ***Woozle guesses not, and that the change was from /32 to /24
(19:57:30) tenebrackets: that's right
(19:58:12) Woozle: I typed: ip addr add 192.168.0.137/24 dev wlan0
(19:58:21) Woozle: it said: You have mail in /var/spool/mail/root
(19:58:40) Woozle: *I* think it's trying to change the subject.
(19:58:44) tenebrackets: hehe
(19:58:49) tenebrackets: okay
(19:58:52) tenebrackets: ip route flush
(19:59:07) tenebrackets: ip route add 192.168.0.0/24 dev eth1  proto kernel  scope link  src 192.168.0.137
(19:59:10) Woozle: "ip route flush" requires arguments.
(19:59:14) Woozle: (it says here)
(19:59:21) ***Woozle argues with it.
(19:59:26) tenebrackets: hmm
(19:59:31) tenebrackets: ip route
(19:59:43) Woozle: 4 lines...
(19:59:44) tenebrackets: then ip route del <copy/paste from earlier command>
(19:59:56) Woozle: all 4 of them?
(20:00:06) tenebrackets: individually
(20:01:05) tenebrackets: I'm just kind of figuring this out as I go here.  my memory is kind of shakey on this stuff.
(20:01:41) Woozle: k
(20:01:54) Woozle: examples of Stuff That Does Things are always useful for future reference, in any case.
(20:02:15) Woozle: Ok, the first 3 lines were apparently successful, but the last one gave an error
(20:02:24) Woozle: RNETLINK answers: No such process.
(20:02:41) Woozle: for this command: ip route del default via 192.168.0.1 dev wlan0
(20:03:06) Woozle: But ip route now returns nothing...
(20:03:13) Woozle: ...so I guess mission accomplished on that bit.
(20:03:18) tenebrackets: okay
(20:03:25) Woozle: And it's bedtime :-P
(20:03:26) tenebrackets: ip route add 192.168.0.0/24 dev eth1  proto kernel  scope link  src 192.168.0.137
(20:03:49) tenebrackets: ip route add default via 192.168.0.1 dev wlan0
(20:04:29) tenebrackets: also, for flush, you probably could have done 'ip route flush '*
(20:04:34) tenebrackets: for what it's worth
(20:04:35) Woozle: I'll have to do that after story, cuz typing IP addresses without a numberpad is excruciatingly slow.
(20:04:46) tenebrackets: ... oh, right, you can't copy/paste
(20:04:48) Woozle: And I guess you'll be gone, but maybe that will get me somewhere.
(20:04:52) tenebrackets: I was wondering why this was taking so long ><
(20:04:58) Woozle: Thanks for the helpsofar ;-)