Linux Help on X24

[Doctor Device]

a while ago I bought a thinkpad X24 2662-MPU. I bought it specifically to learn Linux on. since I bought it, I've gone through 5 or 6 distros of Linux, with varying degrees of success, but always without Wireless. I just can't make it work. (and yes, I know the 2662-MPU was not designed for wireless, but bear with me).

on rare occasion I can get Linux to recognize that there is a wireless card, and only once, actually made a connection. of course, that turned out to be a fluke, I was never able to get it to reconnect. I'm trying to access an open AP, broadcasting it's SSID, but even with the laptop 8 inches from the antenna, most of the time I get nothing. several distributions have insisted, vehemently, that my wireless card is two wired network cards on one board.

you can understand how irritating this is, I'm sure. so my big question, is what distro would the forum recommend for the best wireless support. I'm sure I will also need help with setup and tweaking, but let's take this one step at a time.

[ajkula66]

How about we begin with eliminating the distros that you've already tried?

What wireless card are you using?

[Harryc]

...and what chipset is onboard the wireless card?

[Doctor Device]

distros I have tried: X/K/Ubuntu 6.x/7.04, Xubuntu 7.10 (what I am using now), DSL, PCLinuxOS, and SAM. I think I may just have the curse of Anti-Linux... do I have the Mark of Bill Gates on my forehead?

the card is this one

the chipset is "Intersil Corporation Prism 2.5 Wavelan chipset" (or so says lspci and lshw).

[ajkula66]

I can tell you for a fact that aforementioned card works in Linspire 5.0/Freespire 2.0 with no issues.

I've had it working under Kubuntu 7.10 as well as under SuSE 9.2 Professional.

This one will need re-testing on my part, but I'm fairly certain that it works on Linux Mint (Daryna)

It may or may not work (I don't like the inconsistency of its performance) under Fedora 8.

Hope this helps.

[Doctor Device]

I neglected to mention that when I tried Linux Mint (about a week ago), it locked up hard when I tried to enable the wireless interface.

I'm actually in a live instance of freespire 2.0.8 right now, and I am running into a problem that I encountered in kubuntu 6.x. the network settings don't even acknowledge the existence of wireless capabilities in my wireless card, though knetworkmanager will happily try to activate wireless networking anyway. which means it gets to 28% in trying to connect wirelessly and hangs permanently.

[ajkula66]

Hate to tell you, but it seems to me like you have an underlying hardware issue.

I've had this card running Linspire/Freespire on at least a dozen A31p machines over the last year, never an issue.

[Doctor Device]

that's what makes it so weird! under windows the card works perfectly, but it refuses to co-operate under linux.

[lightweight]

Since this is your learning computer for Linux, why jump to another distro instead of figuring out the problem? Post output from

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lsmod
sudo ifconfig
sudo iwconfig
sudo iwlist scanning

[Doctor Device]

Since this is your learning computer for Linux, why jump to another distro instead of figuring out the problem? Post output from

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lsmod
sudo ifconfig
sudo iwconfig
sudo iwlist scanning

it is easier for me to learn how something works if it starts out working. it is kind of hard to know if you've made a mistake when you results are either "it doesn't work" or "it still doesn't work".

LSMOD

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Module                  Size  Used by
radeon                124576  0
drm                    81812  1 radeon
binfmt_misc            13064  1
ipv6                  274080  14
af_packet              24072  2
forward_oss            15144  2
ppdev                  10116  0
lp                     12548  0
tc1100_wmi              8068  0
pcc_acpi               13184  0
sony_acpi               6284  0
dev_acpi               12164  0
video                  16260  0
battery                10756  0
ibm_acpi               31512  0
container               5248  0
sbs                    15528  0
button                  8720  0
i2c_ec                  6016  1 sbs
i2c_core               23424  1 i2c_ec
dock                   10424  0
ac                      6020  0
asus_acpi              17308  0
backlight               6784  2 ibm_acpi,asus_acpi
ohci1394               36528  0
ieee1394              300120  1 ohci1394
usb_storage            72128  0
libusual               17936  1 usb_storage
ext3                  134152  0
jbd                    63528  1 ext3
ext2                   67080  0
mbcache                 9604  2 ext3,ext2
loop                   18312  0
vfat                   14208  0
fat                    54044  1 vfat
sr_mod                 17188  0
sd_mod                 23556  0
hostap_pci             56976  0
hostap                114820  1 hostap_pci
ieee80211_crypt         7040  1 hostap
pcmcia                 39596  0
orinoco_pci             8064  0
orinoco                43156  1 orinoco_pci
hermes                  8448  2 orinoco_pci,orinoco
snd_intel8x0           34588  1
prism2_pci             70784  0
p80211                 31884  1 prism2_pci
snd_ac97_codec         98464  1 snd_intel8x0
ac97_bus                3200  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm_oss            45056  0
snd_mixer_oss          17920  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                80260  3 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_dummy           4740  0
snd_seq_oss            33408  0
snd_seq_midi            9600  0
snd_rawmidi            25856  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event      8448  2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
irtty_sir               9600  0
sir_dev                17540  1 irtty_sir
nsc_ircc               24208  0
irda                  201532  3 irtty_sir,sir_dev,nsc_ircc
crc_ccitt               3072  1 irda
yenta_socket           27532  2
rsrc_nonstatic         14080  1 yenta_socket
parport_pc             36644  1
parport                37576  3 ppdev,lp,parport_pc
snd_seq                53232  6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
pcmcia_core            41624  3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
snd_timer              24196  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device          9100  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
snd                    54788  12 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
soundcore               9440  1 snd
serio_raw               7940  0
snd_page_alloc         10888  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
pcspkr                  4224  0
iTCO_wdt               12072  0
iTCO_vendor_support     4868  1 iTCO_wdt
intel_agp              26140  1
shpchp                 34324  0
pci_hotplug            33608  1 shpchp
agpgart                35788  2 drm,intel_agp
tsdev                   8768  0
evdev                  11008  4
cpufreq_powersave       2688  0
cpufreq_conservative     8200  0
cpufreq_ondemand        9356  1
cpufreq_userspace       5408  0
speedstep_ich           6288  0
speedstep_lib           6148  1 speedstep_ich
freq_table              5792  2 cpufreq_ondemand,speedstep_ich
psmouse                38792  0
reiserfs              247680  1
ide_cd                 32672  0
cdrom                  37664  2 sr_mod,ide_cd
ide_disk               17024  3
floppy                 59748  0
piix                   11140  0 [permanent]
generic                 5124  0 [permanent]
e100                   36488  0
mii                     6528  1 e100
ata_generic             9092  0
libata                125848  1 ata_generic
scsi_mod              143116  4 usb_storage,sr_mod,sd_mod,libata
uhci_hcd               25488  0
usbcore               135048  4 usb_storage,libusual,uhci_hcd
thermal                14856  0
processor              31560  1 thermal
fan                     5636  0
capability              5896  0
commoncap               8192  1 capability
vesafb                  9220  0
fbcon                  43296  0
tileblit                3584  1 fbcon
font                    9216  1 fbcon
bitblit                 6912  1 fbcon
softcursor              3200  1 bitblit

SUDO IFCONFIG

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eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:D0:59:CF:2B:C8
          inet addr:192.168.1.103  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::2d0:59ff:fecf:2bc8/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:909 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:784 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:1058385 (1.0 MiB)  TX bytes:132478 (129.3 KiB)

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:18 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:18 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:1260 (1.2 KiB)  TX bytes:1260 (1.2 KiB)

SUDO IWCONFIG

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lo        no wireless extensions.
eth0      no wireless extensions.
irda0     no wireless extensions.
wlan0     no wireless extensions.

SUDO IWLIST SCANNING

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lo        Interface doesn't support scanning.
eth0      Interface doesn't support scanning.
irda0     Interface doesn't support scanning.
wlan0     No scan results

it looks to me like freespire did not even install the driver for the card, but I am definitely not an expert.

[lightweight]

It looks like the driver is found (these are the orinoco modules in your lsmod) but that the nic is down. So, let's make connection as easy as possible by turning off any encryption/key needed at the access point. Then let's try to be logical about points of failure.

Open two terminals and put them beside one another on the same screen. In #1 you're going to do this:

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sudo tail -f /var/log/messages

So you can see the system logs.

in #2, you're going to run the following commands. If you get an error in terminal #2, you're going to post it and the new stuff from term #1.

first bring up wlan0 using Linux' default networking configuration tool, ifconfig.

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sudo ifconfig wlan0 up

then see if it will let you scan.

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sudo iwlist wlan0 scanning

Get a list? If yes, you can configure using

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sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid [your access point name]

replace your access point name with the actual access point name. Exclude the brackets.

Then do another iwconfig to see if you are actually seeing packets transmitted and received.

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sudo iwconfig wlan0

And if you do, let's get a dhcp lease.

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sudo dhclient wlan0

If anything hiccups, remember to post the output of /var/log/messages (terminal 1) from the time of the error as well. We also want to check dmesg but may as well filter our output using grep, our handy cli searcher. (grep -e/egrep allows regular expressions.)

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dmesg |egrep -i "orinoco|prism|hermes|ath|net"

[Doctor Device]

error right out of the gate. "sudo ifconfig wlan0 up" resulted in

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SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such device

no change in the system logs.

[Doctor Device]

so is it safe to assume that something is wrong with the hardware itself? or is the issue just requiring very deep research?

[lightweight]

What's the dmesg output?

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dmesg |egrep -i "orinoco|prism|hermes|ath|net" 

[Doctor Device]

gah! I always forget to read all of the instructions.

dmesg |egrep -i "orinoco|prism|hermes|ath|net"

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[    5.004336] NET: Registered protocol family 16
[    5.055185] NET: Registered protocol family 8
[    5.055189] NET: Registered protocol family 20
[    5.058173] NET: Registered protocol family 2
[    6.055985] audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)
[    6.480978] NET: Registered protocol family 1
[    8.944108] e100: Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Driver, 3.5.17-k2-NAPI
[   19.072000] prism2pci_init: prism2_pci.o: 0.2.5 Loaded
[   19.072000] A Prism2.5 PCI device found, phymem:0xf0000000, irq:11, mem:0xd0a58000
[   20.600000] NET: Registered protocol family 23
[   20.823000] orinoco 0.15 (David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au>, Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org>, et al)
[   20.826000] orinoco_pci 0.15 (Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org>, David Gibson <hermes@gibson.dropbear.id.au> & Jean Tourrilhes <jt@hpl.hp.com>)
[   31.457000] ibm_acpi: http://ibm-acpi.sf.net/
[   71.449000] NET: Registered protocol family 17
[   74.865000] NET: Registered protocol family 10

[lightweight]

Sidetracked from the internets by work + drinking

Poking around, Freespire reports a problem with their Prism/Orinoco modules on their wiki. See the hardware section: http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/Freespire_2_Bugs It appears unloading, renaming, and reloading the modules works. Weaksauce, but their forums or some digging should have more info.

Or, try the steps above with one of your other distros. It's not a big deal if the wireless interface comes up as eth1 with some distro -- you can still move forward.

[Doctor Device]

under SAM I get the following:

TERMINAL 1

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Feb  3 21:23:06 localhost kernel: netfilter PSD loaded - (c) astaro AG
Feb  3 21:23:06 localhost kernel: IFWLOG: register target
Feb  3 21:23:06 localhost logger: Shorewall started
Feb  3 21:24:07 localhost gconfd (doc-5332): starting (version 2.14.0), pid 5332 user 'doc'
Feb  3 21:24:07 localhost gconfd (doc-5332): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only configuration source at position 0
Feb  3 21:24:07 localhost gconfd (doc-5332): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.local-mandatory" to a read-only configuration source at position 1
Feb  3 21:24:07 localhost gconfd (doc-5332): Resolved address "xml:readwrite:/home/doc/.gconf" to a writable configuration source at position 2
Feb  3 21:24:07 localhost gconfd (doc-5332): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.local-defaults" to a read-only configuration source at position 3
Feb  3 21:24:07 localhost gconfd (doc-5332): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only configuration source at position 4
Feb  3 21:24:08 localhost net_applet[5321]: ### Program is starting ###
Feb  3 21:26:07 localhost ntpd[3142]: synchronized to LOCAL(0), stratum=10
Feb  3 21:30:26 localhost ntpd[3142]: synchronized to LOCAL(0), stratum=10
Feb  3 21:31:14 localhost tp-fancontrol[1577]: Changing fan level: 0->4  (temps: 42 46 47 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 , _ )
Feb  3 21:35:45 localhost ntpd[3142]: synchronized to 208.75.88.4, stratum=2

TERMINAL 2

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[root@localhost doc]# ifconfig wlan0 up
wlan0: unknown interface: No such device

clearly this presents a problem.

[lightweight]

Your errors related to gconfd (Gnome) and in your log output do not appear to be related to networking. Better to use ifconfig, iwconfig, dmesg, and lspci to find your device information, so you are not dependent on the gui frontends (and whatever limitations they have) of whichever desktop/manager you use.

I had to google to find out what SAM is. While all Linux is Linux, I would suggest starting with something stable and widely supported, like Debian or it's derivatives (Ubuntu, Knoppix, Mepis, [censored] Small, etc) or Redhat/Fedora or Slackware derivative (SLAX, for example). I understand this goes against earlier posts of not changing distros, but I see your point now. Modern releases of stable and old school distributions with reasonable hardware support are often easiest, despite that being intuitively incorrect. Orinoco/Prism/Hermes hardware support is reasonable -- these were the chipsets most used when wireless support in Linux was more limited.

[Doctor Device]

it just got more confusing.

I decided to try reinstalling xubuntu 7.10, until I remembered that it takes almost 3 minutes to boot on my X24 (I don't know how that's possible, windows XP doesn't even take that long).

so now I'm sitting on a live OEM session of Ubuntu 7.10... and wireless networking just works. I can't think of a reason why it would, though.


I knew it wouldn't be that easy. it only successfully connected once. once I tried to change AP's, it not only lost it's original connection, it was unable to establish a new connection OR recover the original. apparently I have to be VERY sure of what wireless network I connect to, because I'm not allowed to change my mind.


EDIT: SAM is PCLinuxOS with xfce as it's front end. it is based on Mandrake/Mandriva. I chose it because it boots fairly quickly, and one of the first things it does during live boot is ask how you want networking configured.

and bizarrely enough, wireless is working here as well, though I did have to input the network name manually, so it will probably crash and burn hardcore when I try to change networks, but we'll see/

[whizkid]

This may not be related at all, but I hope it helps.

I recently bought a T41p on eBay from user ibmfactoryoutlet. It has a 90 day warranty. The WiFi (Atheros a/b/g card) worked fine until I plugged in the wired network. After that, it could see networks, get their names, and associate with them, but it never got an IP address, or did so maybe one in 20 tries.

IBM sent me a new card and it works great. If the card is always seen, it could be bad in a subtle way. If it's not always seen, you could have a problem with the MiniPCI slot.