[SOLVED] Wireless network botched in lucid

[Guest]

As anyone can witness by taking even a cursory glance at the (k)ubuntu forums, lucid lynx has screwed up wireless wifi badly. I have posted on ubuntu forums, but have received no answers in 24 hours, so I am trying here, where there is less traffic. I'm on a (relatively old) AMD Duron 1.5Ghz, 1.5G memory with a VIA KM-266 motherboard. Wireless *worked fine* in 9.10. Both in ubuntu and in ubuntu + kubuntu-desktop. With a fresh install of the new Kubuntu 10.04 from the live CD, the usb wireless adapter is not detected, the tab to add a new wireless connection is grayed out, starting the KNetworkManager (did I got the name right?) does nothing (that is, no application starts), etc.

And if you are wondering how I am accessing the internet, I just booted from the 9.10 live CD, which as you can imagine is not the most practical thing in the world.

Here is the info. The commands lsusb and lspci spit out the following:

grodrigues@grodrigues-desktop:~$ lsusb
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0baf:0118 U.S. Robotics U5 802.11g Adapter
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

grodrigues@grodrigues-desktop:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8375 [KM266/KL266] Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8633 [Apollo Pro266 AGP]                                     
00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)                          
00:0c.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller (rev 46)                
00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)                           
00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)                           
00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] (rev 01)
01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] (Secondary) (rev 01)

Note that the lsusb command returns the *correct* usb wireless adaptor, so not everything is lost. Next, the interfaces:

grodrigues@grodrigues-desktop:~$ ifconfig
eth0   Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:30:1b:3c:73:ee 
     UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
     RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
     TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
     collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
     RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
     Interrupt:11 Base address:0xd000 

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:80 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
     TX packets:80 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
     collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
     RX bytes:4800 (4.8 KB) TX bytes:4800 (4.8 KB)

grodrigues@grodrigues-desktop:~$ iwconfig
lo    no wireless extensions.

eth0   no wireless extensions.

As you can see, there is no wlan0 interface. So something has gone wrong. For the sake of completion here is what network config spits:

grodrigues@grodrigues-desktop:~$ sudo lshw -C network
[sudo] password for grodrigues: 
 *-network        
    description: Ethernet interface
    product: RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+
    vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
    physical id: b
    bus info: pci@0000:00:0b.0
    logical name: eth0
    version: 10
    serial: 00:30:1b:3c:73:ee
    size: 10MB/s
    capacity: 100MB/s
    width: 32 bits
    clock: 33MHz
    capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
    configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=8139too driverversion=0.9.28 duplex=half latency=32 link=no maxlatency=64 mingnt=32 multicast=yes port=MII speed=10MB/s
    resources: irq:11 ioport:d000(size=256) memory:e4100000-e41000ff

Finally, network scanning returns (as one would image):

grodrigues@grodrigues-desktop:~$ iwlist scan
lo    Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0   Interface doesn't support scanning.

I have left out the ouput of lsmod and dmesg as they return a *lot* of text, but here is an interesting piece of info. If I run dmesg on Kubuntu 10.04 we find the following snippet:

[  9.917692] usb 1-2: firmware: requesting isl3887usb
[  9.935674] usb 1-2: (p54usb) cannot load firmware isl3887usb (-2)!
[  9.935732] usb 1-2: firmware: requesting isl3887usb_bare
[  9.959242] p54usb: probe of 1-2:1.0 failed with error -2
[  9.959285] usbcore: registered new interface driver p54usb

While in the Ubuntu 9.10 live CD, we have:

[ 120.172905] usb 1-2: firmware: requesting isl3887usb
[ 121.463596] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
[ 121.463607] (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
[ 121.463613] (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[ 121.463617] (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[ 121.463622] (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[ 121.463626] (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[ 121.463630] (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[ 121.976344] phy0: p54 detected a LM87 firmware
[ 121.976351] p54: rx_mtu reduced from 3240 to 2384
[ 121.976355] phy0: FW rev 2.13.24.0 - Softmac protocol 5.9
[ 121.976360] phy0: cryptographic accelerator WEP:YES, TKIP:YES, CCMP:YES
[ 123.060966] phy0: hwaddr 00:c0:49:5c:74:66, MAC:isl3887 RF:Frisbee
[ 124.774243] phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'minstrel'
[ 124.775405] Registered led device: p54-phy0::assoc
[ 124.775435] Registered led device: p54-phy0::tx
[ 124.775465] Registered led device: p54-phy0::rx
[ 124.775490] Registered led device: p54-phy0::radio
[ 124.775513] usb 1-2: is registered as 'phy0'
[ 124.775587] usbcore: registered new interface driver p54usb

So in going from 9.10 to 10.04, the capability of loading the firmware isl3887usb was lost. Anymore info needed, just ask, but please give precise directions as I am a functional analphabet when it comes to this type of things. Anyway, has anyone any ideas on how to proceed?

Just in case it is not obvious, let me add that the only way I have of adding new software is either by firing up the live 9.10 cd, save it (e.g. on a usb drive) then install it on kubuntu or install it directly from the kubuntu 10.04 live cd.

Regards, thanks in advance,
G. Rodrigues

[walto]

Re: Wireless network botched in lucid

It seems you need to install the firmware for your wlan device. It is part of the linux-firmware-nonfree package.

[Guest]

Re: Wireless network botched in lucid

Replying to myself, but it is ok as the problem is solved. As walto mentioned, one has to install the linux-firmware-nonfree package. I reached the same conclusion by following my dmesg snippet and googling for "firmware isl3887usb" which directed me to the following page:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/549383

Then I just pointed to the lucid ubuntu package, saved the deb package in my usb drive, install it (just click in it in the file manager) and reboot. And voila, internet is on again.

Ever since, I switched to linux from windows a month ago it has been a constant stream of problems. On the upside, I am starting to get a knack for fixing problems...

[maestrobwh1]

Re: [SOLVED] Wireless network botched in lucid

It isn't always so difficult;-) I would agree that wireless seems to be more of an issue in Lucid. It is just kind of flakey.

I have used ubuntu since 6.06?! Wireless since 7.10;-0

There have been dark spots BUT I will say that more devices are supported out of the box these days and with the plethora of different kinds of machines and wifi devices, remember to be kind. Since when does a newly installed windows have everything working without installing 12 drivers individually? Most of the time it does not even recognize the lan device so you can't even connect to the net to get a driver (or in this case, a package).