Sabayon 5.0 - Atheros AR5001

[Fitzcarraldo]

I think this may be a bug in NetworkManager specific to WPA encryption but not specific to the Atheros AR5001. I have an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG network controller and can connect to unprotected and WEP-protected networks but not to WPA-encrypted networks. However before I world-upgraded a week or so ago NetworkManager and the KDE panel network applet did show WPA networks and did connect to my home WPA network. I have not had the chance to re-install the previous version to see if my theory is correct, but I've seen this type of thing happen before.

[ethos]

I'm having the exact same issues. Any updates on it?
Atheros ar5001 on Acer Aspire 5720z
Lsmod shows Ath5k which works fine in ubuntu.
I'm using the e17 desktop version.

[Fitzcarraldo]

I think this may be a bug in NetworkManager specific to WPA encryption but not specific to the Atheros AR5001. I have an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG network controller and can connect to unprotected and WEP-protected networks but not to WPA-encrypted networks. However before I world-upgraded a week or so ago NetworkManager and the KDE panel network applet did show WPA networks and did connect to my home WPA network. I have not had the chance to re-install the previous version to see if my theory is correct, but I've seen this type of thing happen before.

Actually, this was my misunderstanding regarding NetworkManager. The functionality is as described in my post Re: Cannot connect to my wireless network. You have to uncloak a hidden SSID for NetworkManager to be able to first detect a WPA-encrypted network (then re-cloak it if you want, although cloaking is a waste of time, as explained in the aforementioned post.)

[ethos]

Maybe I'm not having the 'exact' same problem. I can't connect to an open/unsecured access point. WICD goes to 'obtaining IP address' but then fails. The device works fine under every other distribution I've used. I'm wondering if I should create my own original post with some log files (Not sure which ones I need to show).

[Fitzcarraldo]

I'm having the exact same issues. Any updates on it?
Atheros ar5001 on Acer Aspire 5720z
Lsmod shows Ath5k which works fine in ubuntu.
I'm using the e17 desktop version.

What network manager are you using in SL? Wicd? ConnMan? NetworkManager and nm-applet?

EDIT: I typed this post while you posted your previous post, so didn't see that you are using Wicd. Get rid of it and use either ConnMan, or NetworkManager with nm-applet. I had the same problem with Wicd in E17. Wicd is buggy.

What is the output from the commands lsmod, ifconfig and iwconfig?

Have you tried reducing the MTU?

I'm using SL 5.4 E17 upgraded to current from Entropy repository, and using ConnMan with Atheros AR2413 802.11bg NIC and it works fine, although I had to reduce the MTU to access some sites (see One Web site stalls (due to 'black hole' router) [Solved]) and also I don't have my WPA-encrypted network cloaked (see Re: Cannot connect to my wireless network.).

Code: Select all

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR2413 802.11bg NIC (rev 01)

As you can see in the output from lsmod below, I'm using the ath5k module successfully with ConnMan (also works with NetworkManager and nm-applet):

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Module                  Size  Used by
snd_seq_midi            2796  0
snd_seq_dummy            804  0
snd_seq_oss            18551  0
snd_seq_midi_event      3207  2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                30659  6 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_pcm_oss            25177  0
snd_mixer_oss           8841  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_es1968             14892  1
gameport                5036  1 snd_es1968
snd_ac97_codec         68638  1 snd_es1968
ac97_bus                 588  1 snd_ac97_codec
ath5k                 108588  0
snd_pcm                43053  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_es1968,snd_ac97_codec
mac80211              134856  1 ath5k
snd_timer              11098  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc          4765  2 snd_es1968,snd_pcm
snd_mpu401_uart         3131  1 snd_es1968
ath                     6142  1 ath5k
snd_rawmidi            11251  2 snd_seq_midi,snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device          3333  5 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
cfg80211               97624  3 ath5k,mac80211,ath
snd                    31161  13 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_es1968,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
led_class               1397  1 ath5k
ppdev                   3780  0
radio_maestro           3232  0
v4l2_common             4635  1 radio_maestro
videodev               44924  2 radio_maestro,v4l2_common
i2c_piix4               6396  0
v4l1_compat             9200  1 videodev
shpchp                 17003  0
tpm_tis                 4636  0
parport_pc             19277  0
i2c_core               11043  3 v4l2_common,videodev,i2c_piix4
pci_hotplug            16306  1 shpchp
tpm                     7508  1 tpm_tis
yenta_socket           14584  0
intel_agp              17852  1
tpm_bios                2922  1 tpm
joydev                  6424  0
pcspkr                  1036  0
battery                 6688  0
ac                      1900  0
xts                     1713  0
gf128mul                5062  1 xts
iscsi_tcp               6365  0
tg3                    97562  0
e1000                  75192  0
scsi_wait_scan           463  0
sl811_hcd               7186  0
ohci_hcd               15905  0
uhci_hcd               15612  0
ehci_hcd               27573  0
sx8                     9777  0
imm                     7058  0
parport                20759  3 ppdev,parport_pc,imm
pata_pcmcia             6909  0
pcmcia                 24499  1 pata_pcmcia

[Fitzcarraldo]

See SL 5.4 E17 Spin x86: WiFi (Wicd) problem [Solved]. Use either NetworkManager with nm-applet, or ConnMan (I have used both successfully with SL 5.4 E17 and the ath5k module). Drop Wicd as it's no good. But you still may need to reduce the MTU (see a post I linked to in my earlier post).

[ethos]

Excellent! I did a "rc-update del wicd' and then "rc-update add NetworkManager default"

Is that the proper way? (I'm a Gentoo noob but good on Debian)

I did run-everything and typed nm-applet. It works great.

How can I get nm-applet to run at startup? "rc-update add nm-applet default" is my guess, or is that necessary?

Thanks again!

[Fitzcarraldo]

Yes, that's the proper way to stop Wicd running at boot and make NetworkManager run at boot instead. You have to run nm-applet from your user account, not from the root user's account. Which you seem to have done as you're happy. Your guess for running nm-applet is wrong, though, as it's not an initscript and it has to be launched by the normal user, not by the root user. To autostart nm-applet, I think the following should work in E17:

1. Click on Start > Settings > Settings Panel > Apps > New Application and create a Desktop Config File called nm-applet.desktop (you don't enter the ".desktop"; E17 adds that itself).
2. Click on Start > Settings > Settings Panel > Apps > Startup Applications
3. Scroll down the list until you find nm-applet, and click on it to select it.
4. Click the Add button to add nm-applet to the Startup Applications list.
5. Click Apply and Close.

EDIT: Yup, just tried it and it works.

Mind you, you could instead delete NetworkManager from the default runlevel (no need to uninstall NetworkManager or nm-applet), install ConnMan (package is called "connman") and add that to the default runlevel as per the thread I linked to earlier, and that will launch at startup automatically.

[ethos]

Awesome thanks! I'll give connman a go and see whats up too.

This is great, you guys are WAY more helpful than the Gentoo folks. At least from my experiences a few years back when I (eventually) installed a fresh gentoo box.

[offtopic]...now to straighten out my broken shelves... (it crashes every time I try to change something) Is there a way to reset the desktop manager to default?

[joost]

You can "reset" stuff in your home if you copy the .e directory from /etc/skel into your homedir.
And preferable remove the .e directory from your homedir first.