Re: [SLUG] problem with wireless

[David <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jul 11, 2005 at 01:00:26PM +1000, Visser, Martin wrote:
> David,
> 
> The interfaces that Ubuntu tries to bring up at boot time is determined
> basically by the contents of /etc/network/interfaces. (This is
> configured by the network GUI tool)
> 
> You might want to man "interfaces" and "ifup" to get a feeling of what
> is going on. A simple problem that you might have is that your wireless
> interface (eth1 or whatever) might not be marked as auto.

auto ath0 is not put in the configuration file by the Ubuntu install, but 
I tried putting it there without result. I'm slightly familiar with the 
interfaces file. I've done a kludge which works, although it's pretty 
ugly.

I've configured both eth0 and ath0 in the interfaces file, and put a three 
line script in /etc/init.d/rcS.d which removes the route to eth0 after the 
network comes up.

#!/bin/bash
route del default eth0
echo "Horrible Kludge"

That actually works! I can't say I really know why. If I don't remove the 
route, there are two default routes which causes networking to get 
confused. Needless to say, I'm not using ethernet :-) The only good thing 
is that the people using the machine will never know how ugly that is.

> 
> Also of consideration is that depending on how your wireless interface
> is physically integrated (my HP/Compaq laptop uses a special USB
> interface) might also determine when it is available to be "upped" (it
> might be hotpluggable). Do you have a Function-F2 or somesuch that turns
> wireless on or off - this might also cause the non-appearance of the
> device?

The pcmcia card is hotpluggable (which I only know because it comes to 
life during the hotplug boot process). I don't know anything about 
a special function key (how would I find out? is this hardware specific?), 
but the wireless always connects but only after eth0 is activated. 

> 
> You probably need to check out the tail of /var/log/kern.log and
> /var/log/messages	for pertinent warnings/errors. 
> 

I've left it at the office, so next time I've got the machine in my hands 
I'll check the logs. For some reason I didn't think to do that. Lots of 
other people seem to be using the atheros cards without any problems, so I 
guess it's something specific that I'm doing. This problem exists after a 
bog standard, unammended Ubuntu Hoary install.

Many thanks...

David.

> 
> I can't get my wireless to connect at boot. This is causing me
> embarrassment because I keep telling everyone they should use Linux :(
> 
> >From a fresh install of Ubuntu Hoary, specifying wireless for my net
> connection, wireless fails to connect. Signal is NOT a problem.
> 
> HOWEVER: If I deactivate wireless, manually create an ethernet
> connection 
> with the network panel, activate ethernet, deactivate ethernet, then 
> activate wireless.. i get my wireless back! I've been able to replicate 
> this consistantly.
> 
> Simply restarting networking doesn't work. I have to go through that 
> ritual.
> 
> Without doing that, all the settings in the network panel look OK 
> but the MAC address shown by iwconfig is FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF and the 
> flashing lights indicate no connection. ifconfig gives the right ip 
> address etc and route shows the right gateway (192.168.0.1) on ath0
> 
> Dell Inspiron 4000, Netgear WGT624v2 AP, Netgear WG511T pcmcia card,
> atheros chipset, using WEP 64bit key and static IP.
> 
> This is getting to be a showstopper for using Ubuntu. Works fine for 
> WinME dual booted on the same machine :(
> 
> If anyone is getting good results using a similar set up, I'd love to
> know 
> what I'm doing wrong.
> 
> 
> regards...
> 
> David.
> 
> PS: i've tried apt-get update, apt-get upgrade but that made no 
> difference.
> 
> -- 
> SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
> Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
> --
> SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
> Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
>