Wireless woes.

[dibl]

Re: Wireless woes.

I am not a student of that particular chip, like you are about to become, but I found this:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...t=intel+2200BG

which indicates you need to install firmware called "ipw2200-bss.fw".

If you do that, then the driver is named "ipw2200":

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...4&postcount=12

[Fintan]

Re: Wireless woes.

I'll have to look at that as well because I have the same setup and my mobile broadband is very expensive when only using it for a few minutes. Daily rate sFr. 3.50!!!

[OysterH]

Re: Wireless woes.

Thank you Dible.

I followed that link but did not reinstall the kernel.

Here are my outputs:

~$ sudo modprobe ipw2200
[sudo] password for user:
user:~$ sudo lshw -C network
*-network:0
description: Wireless interface
product: PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 3
bus info: pci@0000:06:03.0
logical name: eth1
version: 05
serial: 00:12:f0:da:2b:03
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ipw2200 driverversion=1.2.2kmprq firmware=ABG:9.0.5.27 (Dec 12 2007) latency=32 link=no maxlatency=24 mingnt=3 multicast=yes wireless=radio off
resources: irq:17 memory:b010b000-b010bfff
*-network:1
description: Ethernet interface
product: BCM4401 100Base-T
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 8
bus info: pci@0000:06:08.0
logical name: eth0
version: 02
serial: 00:c0:9f:c8:7f:96
size: 10MB/s
capacity: 100MB/s
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=b44 driverversion=2.0 duplex=half latency=32 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=10MB/s
resources: irq:16 memory:b0106000-b0107fff memory:54000000-5401ffff(prefetchable)
~$

and

~$ dmesg | grep ipw
[ 25.916050] ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.2.2kmprq
[ 25.916055] ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
[ 25.916142] ipw2200 0000:06:03.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[ 25.916217] ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
[ 25.916274] ipw2200 0000:06:03.0: firmware: requesting ipw2200-bss.fw
[ 26.173560] ipw2200: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
[ 26.176891] ipw2200: Detected geography ZZM (11 802.11bg channels, 0 802.11a channels)
~$

and

user:~$ lsmod | grep ipw
ipw2200 140292 0
libipw 43148 1 ipw2200
lib80211 6432 2 ipw2200,libipw
user:~$ sudo su
[sudo] password for user:
root@user:/home/user# echo 100 > /sys/class/firmware/timeout
root@user:/home/user# exit
exit
user:~$ sudo rmmod -f ipw2200
user:~$ sudo modprobe ipw2200
user:~$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 radio off ESSIDff/any
Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:0 kb/s Tx-Power=off Sensitivity=8/0
Retry limit:7 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Power Managementff
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

user:~$

At some point netwrok manager tells me it is attached, but I sill cannot see the list of access points
I know I am missing something here

[dibl]

Re: Wireless woes.

Yes, you're getting closer. This is the tail end of a fairly informative thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...pw2200&page=15

Also, review this and make sure you've got a handle on the basic setup choices, in light of your situation:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs

Between these two, I expect you'll crack through it. Here's a post from a few days ago that shows the setup that works for both my netbooks:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...6617#msg216617

[OysterH]

Re: Wireless woes.

Thank you dible I read your links. I don't think I will be using wicd as it does not support mobile broadband.

Where is the wpa_supplicant.conf file? In /etc I only see a wpa-supplicant folder but no .conf inside.

I did install b43-cutter from the repos but that made no difference.

My card just seems to be turned off. How to turn it on?

Edit: SOLVED here.
I played with the laptop a bit and found out that the wireless led is also the on/off button. Duh

Anyway now all is fine. Now to reboot and see if it stays fine

[GreyGeek]

Re: Wireless woes.

About 20 minutes ago I got a phone call from one of my "dependents".

"I don't know what happened but yesterday afternoon my laptop wouldn't show any networks!", he reported.

"You mean that when you start FireFox the mouse icon just spins and spins and finally you get an error message?", I asked.

"Ya".

"On the front of your laptop is a little mechanical switch just to the left of an orange lamp"

"Oh, ya! The orange light is off!"

"Slide the switch to the right"

"Ok..... FireFox still doesn't show anything"

"Reboot"

"Ok. Bye!"

He never called back.

[OysterH]

Re: Wireless woes.

Yes, that is what I was looking for. A slider.

Turns out the led IS the button

[GreyGeek]

Re: Wireless woes.

Having a lamp that has to be pushed in to toggle it on or off is made worse by having it on the thin, leading edge of the front of the laptop. It is so easy to inadvertently bump it and turn the associated hardware on or off.

My Sony VAIO has switches on the front edge, but they are in a recess under a lip on the front edge so they aren't as easily changed.