Wireless not working [Solved]

[warren13n]

I have just installed sl8 with lxde on my Asus laptop. My wired connection works fine but not the wireless and I only have a public connection to work with. I cannot find any help because wireless is setup and should work. By this I mean lspci shows my card (ath5k) and lsmod shows the correct module. When I was able to connect to a wired connection briefly I installed network manager and ifconfig shows wlan0. net-setup shows my card and I have it connect to any network with dhcpcd. Ifconfig shows no address for wlan0 and chromium cannot connect. Finally this is my only computer and I dual-boot with win-7. I have to reboot to try things. This has to be simple, right?

[Fitzcarraldo]

I'm using the ath5k module and wireless works flawlessly, so it might be that you have another wireless module loaded simultaneously that is interfering with the ath5k module and you need to blacklist it. Please post the complete output of the commands lspci and lsmod entered as root user in a Konsole/Terminal window.

Also, I have found that NetworkManager with dhcpcd as the DHCP client does not work with my Atheros-using wireless card whereas NetworkManager with dhclient as the DHCP client does work with my Atheros-using wireless card. So, if we don't find a clash in your lsmod output then the next avenue to pursue would be to look at your /var/log/messages file (you can see what mine contained by reading the Gentoo Linux Forums thread Wireless not working (Atheros ATH5K) [Solved]).

[warren13n]

Sorry for the delay. I have a wired connection for a few days so things are much easier. Here is lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801IBM/IEM (ICH9M/ICH9M-E) 4 port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x / AR542x Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR8121/AR8113/AR8114 Gigabit or Fast Ethernet (rev b0)

and lsmod:

Module Size Used by
snd_seq_dummy 1144 0
snd_seq_oss 22891 0
snd_seq_midi_event 4111 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 39371 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 4013 3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 28785 0
snd_mixer_oss 11153 1 snd_pcm_oss
ipt_REJECT 1904 1
ipt_LOG 6088 1
xt_limit 1432 2
xt_tcpudp 2112 8
xt_addrtype 2224 4
xt_state 976 6
ip6table_filter 1072 1
ip6_tables 14116 1 ip6table_filter
ipv6 242589 34
nf_nat_irc 1168 0
nf_conntrack_irc 3080 1 nf_nat_irc
nf_nat_ftp 1360 0
nf_nat 11956 2 nf_nat_irc,nf_nat_ftp
nf_conntrack_ipv4 8794 8 nf_nat
nf_defrag_ipv4 1150 1 nf_conntrack_ipv4
nf_conntrack_ftp 5016 1 nf_nat_ftp
nf_conntrack 48831 7 xt_state,nf_nat_irc,nf_conntrack_irc,nf_nat_ftp,nf_nat,nf_conntrack_ipv4,nf_conntrack_ftp
iptable_filter 1120 1
ip_tables 13045 1 iptable_filter
x_tables 13485 10 ipt_REJECT,ipt_LOG,xt_limit,xt_tcpudp,xt_addrtype,xt_state,ip6table_filter,ip6_tables,iptable_filter,ip_tables
ath5k 116924 0
ath 13188 1 ath5k
i915 313066 2
snd_hda_codec_hdmi 19853 1
drm_kms_helper 20935 1 i915
mac80211 187620 1 ath5k
drm 170019 3 i915,drm_kms_helper
snd_hda_codec_via 27792 1
snd_hda_intel 19272 3
snd_hda_codec 63776 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_via,snd_hda_intel
uvcvideo 53783 0
iTCO_wdt 11560 0
videobuf2_core 15064 1 uvcvideo
iTCO_vendor_support 1617 1 iTCO_wdt
i2c_algo_bit 4090 1 i915
videodev 68806 1 uvcvideo
intel_agp 9320 1 i915
intel_gtt 10551 3 i915,intel_agp
snd_hwdep 4542 1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm 56106 4 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
asus_laptop 13288 0
media 7986 2 uvcvideo,videodev
snd_timer 14278 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd 45020 18 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_via,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_timer
pcspkr 1472 0
atl1e 22736 0
v4l2_compat_ioctl32 7685 1 videodev
snd_page_alloc 5909 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
videobuf2_vmalloc 1609 1 uvcvideo
cfg80211 137064 3 ath5k,ath,mac80211
joydev 8096 0
i2c_core 14872 5 i915,drm_kms_helper,drm,i2c_algo_bit,videodev
videobuf2_memops 1655 1 videobuf2_vmalloc
sparse_keymap 2329 1 asus_laptop
serio_raw 3512 0
video 9950 1 i915
xts 2773 0
gf128mul 5338 1 xts
sha512_generic 4545 0
sha256_generic 9549 0
sha1_generic 1787 0
aes_x86_64 7340 0
iscsi_tcp 7788 0
tg3 116866 0
e1000 83543 0
fuse 55810 1
xfs 416073 0
nfs 247894 0
nfs_acl 1983 1 nfs
auth_rpcgss 35738 1 nfs
lockd 61842 1 nfs
sunrpc 166621 4 nfs,nfs_acl,auth_rpcgss,lockd
jfs 140097 0
reiserfs 206212 0
ext4 232909 3
jbd2 43774 1 ext4
ext3 106515 0
jbd 37078 1 ext3
ext2 53541 0
mbcache 4529 3 ext4,ext3,ext2
scsi_wait_scan 695 0
sl811_hcd 8915 0
ohci_hcd 17548 0
uhci_hcd 18690 0
ehci_hcd 36240 0
sx8 10949 0
imm 8661 0
parport 27063 1 imm
pata_pcmcia 9621 0
pcmcia 29288 1 pata_pcmcia

How do I get dhclient? Just equo install? Also I have no gui display for network manager. How do I get that? Thanks.

[Fitzcarraldo]

The GUI front-end for NetworkManager in your case would be nm-applet, so install it if it is not already installed:

Code: Select all

equo install nm-applet

To launch it, you can enter the following command under your own user account in a Terminal window:

Code: Select all

nm-applet &

I can't see another wireless module from a cursory look through your lsmod output, so interference from another module is unlikely. You might want to unload the ipv6 module though, just to see if that is causing the problem. To do that just until you reboot, use the following command as root user in a Terminal window:

Code: Select all

rmmod ipv6

The pre-built package NetworkManager in SL was built to use dhcpcd as the DHCP client, so, if it transpires that your machine is not able to obtain an IP4 address (which may or may not be your problem, as more information is needed), you would need to rebuild NetworkManager using Portage to switch the DHCP client to dhclient instead of dhcpcd. However, before embarking on what might be nugatory effort, look through the file /var/log/messages and see if you can see any error messages pertaining to networking (see again the post I linked to earlier for the sort of messages in /var/log/messages I'm talking about) and post those messages here.

[warren13n]

Reinstalled Sabayon with KDE and everything works out of the box! Sweet. Does anyone know if I can now add LXDE and have the option at login which to use, KDE or LXDE? Or is that just asking for trouble. Well, thanks for the help. Warren

[wolfden]

you can install other DE and they will available in the login manager