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Airlink+ ACX 111 pcmcia ALMOST works out of the box

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    Airlink+ ACX 111 pcmcia ALMOST works out of the box

    Recently I inherited an old laptop (P-3) and, while I have been a Gentooer for most of my Linux life, decided to take the suggestion of a friend and give Ubuntu a shot. I downloaded the most recent flavor of Kubuntu that was listed (Download Kubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn)) and installed it via the alternative CD. Installation and startup went very smoothly and the first hitch I've come across is with connecting to the internet. KNetworkManager recognizes my WiFi card (an Airlink+ with a Texas Instruments ACX 111 architecture) and even detects the wireless connection in my house as well as it's signal strength (I've confirmed this through both KNetworkManager and iwconfig) but I can't seem to connect to the router no matter what I try.

    Basically, the laptop see's my pcmcia card and can correctly identify it. (Which to me means that it isn't a driver issue) To support this, wlan0 comes up when I run iwconfig and ifconfig. The acx module is also loaded and lspci shows both the cardbus and the device. This makes me think that the problem has to be connected to Kubuntu (it seems that varying versions produce varying results - if this is the case, which version should I use?), KNetworkManager (I heard that some people have had success with KWifi, but honestly I've also seen other people say that it doesn't really matter which I use) or thirdly (and what I'm thinking is the problem) is that the connection is encrypted with a 128-bit WEP hex code. KNetworkManager, however, only recognizes 'WEP Passphrase', 'WEP 40/104-bit hex' (double that for ASCII) and 2 WPA encriptions. I think that the issue may be that I'm on a 128 code but the manager can only handle 104-bit. That being said, I've also tried to manually set this information, but still no luck (and iwconfig does handle 128-bit encryptions, which I know for fact as my Gentoo desktop is currently connecting to the internet using that setup)

    Also, one last question (kinda unrelated), but when I first started the computer KNetworkManager showed an automatically read signal from my wireless network and, even though I can't connect, it was still able to see it. Then, after rebooting, this didn't show up any more and I could only use the Manual connection. Why is this and how do I get it back? (I have since gotten it back, mysteriously, but only after restarting several times, plugging in my pcmcia card and goofing around with those settings, so I'm not exactly sure why it came back)

    #2
    Re: Airlink+ ACX 111 pcmcia ALMOST works out of the box

    Here I have exactly the same problem with my laptop (Acer Aspire 1652LMI). My network is WEP with an ASCII Key (128). I only can select from the live CD of Kubuntu: 40/104. On the other hand, if I try with Ubuntu (not Kubuntu) everything is working properly from the live CD.

    Any suggestion?

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      #3
      Re: Airlink+ ACX 111 pcmcia ALMOST works out of the box

      My understanding is that 40/104 is 128 bit encryption.

      Many wireless problems are occurring because for new users, the procedure for using Knetworkmanager to connect is not intuitive. They then try to alter settings in an installed system and inadvertently make it worse.

      Do this:

      Boot from LiveCD (Not from your installed HD system)

      Single click on the KnetworkManager Icon in the lower right (looks like a white floppy disk)

      Your network should be shown on the fly-out menu with a bragraph display of signal strength. (If not, you need a driver for your card, or your wireless network isn't up.)

      Single click on this Bargraph line of your network.

      A dialog will open where you can enter your WEP key. Fill in the one you use (yes 128 bit) for the 40/104 line.

      You will also be asked to supply a password to save this whole new automatic setup to the KDE Wallet.

      You should be connected. This is the proper way to connect.

      If you are able to connect this way with the LiiveCD, the problem lies with the fact that you probably altered KnetworkManager settings on your HD Installed version, and it no longer works.

      You will need to correct these by editing /etc/network/interfaces (see the how-to at http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3088367.0)

      If you are unable to connect, I suspect there are router settings that are stopping you -- for instance do you have a filter for MAC addresses set up on the wireless router, are there other router settings that would lock you out?

      Try removing security and encryption from your router temporarily to see if you can now connect with the card. If you can, the card drivers are probably okay.

      You might also check out the settings attempted here:

      http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=511953


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