On 7/9/07, peedee <no-reply-gw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
allright, a linux user of about a year now, mostly in ubuntu, but some
eperience in sabayon, and a few other distros
i just installed fedora and i like it so far, but i'm having
trouble with connecting wirelessly.
fedora apparently recognizes the card because the device is listed as
intel pro/wireless or something like that.
when i try to "activate" it with the network configuration tool i get
this:
Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.
Error for wireless request "Set Bit Rate" (8B20) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.
This always happens to me. It is harmless
Determining IP information for wlan0... failed.
i have tried plugging in my settings for one of my home wireless
routers, but it does not help
I've helped (or hindered :) ) several users lately, so I'm working up
a HOWTO on this.
I've made both iwl and ipw drivers
work. I'd say for getting it going the first time, here's what you
should do. Try ipw3945. It has a longer track record.
There are ipw3945 RPMS on several websites. They are on the ATrpms
web site--you need 3 packages. Axel Thimm (the AT maintainer) gave
instructions on how to get the RPMs with yum in this thread.
The RPMS I'm running right now are from the Freshrpms site,
ipw3945-firmware-1.14.2-1
ipw3945d-1.7.22-4
There is also a module that is specific to your kernel. I install
that from the source code, but I believe the correct module is also
available in RPM format. On Freshrpms, there's a package called
dkms-ipw3945.noarch
If you want to download the ipw3945 driver yourself, or learn how to
install it, there's a site http://ipw3945.sf.net. I've been following
that site for years and it has always been good for me.
After you have the ipw3945 rpms and the kernel module installed, go like this.
First, in
/etc/modules.d/blacklist, you need to add iwl3945 to make sure it does
not load when your system starts. If it does load, ipw won't work.
Perhaps an RPM you install will do this for you, but you better be
sure. You can restart the computer or manually remove the modules for
iwl3945 and mac80211 with the command /sbin/rmmod module-name.
Second, turn off NetworkManager, at least temporarily.
/sbin/service NetworkManager stop
Third, Find out if the regulatory deamon runs. If you type this and
it is running, you should see this (pasted in)
# /sbin/ipw3945d
ipw3945d - regulatory daemon
Copyright (C) 2005-2006 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.
version: 1.7.22
2007-06-29 10:30:31: ERROR: ipw3945d already running. If ipw3945d is
not running then you
need to remove '/var/run/ipw3945d.pid' and try again.
If it says there is no device, it means the module did not load. Load
it manually after making sure the iwl3945 and mac80211 modules are no
longer loaded. (use /sbin/lsmod to see them and /sbin/rmmod to get
rid of them)
/sbin/modprobe ipw3945
THen try to start the daemon again.
Then type /sbin/iwlist scan to see if there are wireless routers
around. If there are, run
system-config-network
and go through the steps of setting up a new wireless device. Click
"new", choose wireless, note it finds your wireless device. Some
people will say "ooh, that program is ikky, I use program XYZ, it is
easy" Don't listen. I've used s-c-n lots of times, and it is the
best way to get a foothold. By relying on less "automagical" stuff,
especially for wireless, you are closer to the problem and more likely
to fix it. The critical part in s-c-n is the last panel in the setup
of the new wireless device, where you put in the wireless server's
name and if you can, set the channel. After that, save your work, go
back to the devices tab. You should see a new device there. Choose
it, hit he activate button. You don't have to use the gui if you
don't want to. It is the same thing as typing
/sbin/ifup eth1
supposing that eth1 is the name that the s-c-n gave to your wireless.
It probably did, because eth0 is usually for the wired device
(usually). When you save the config in s-c-n, it writes files in
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts. You can study the output by reading
the files it creates in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts. Look at
ifcg-eth1. That will be customized for the current access point. If
you go to another wireless site, you can either manually edit
ifcfg-eth1, or you can copy it and edit the copy. For example, I do
"cp ifcg-eth1 ifcfg-othersite" and then edit that file. Leave the
device as eth1, change the essid. after that, /sbin/ifup othersite
does the trick. I have never had success with system-config-network
when adding more wlreless points. Don't bother.
If that works, then you can consider running NetworkManager again and
launching the program nm-applet to have a gui way to do this.
nm-applet will put itself into either a gnome or kde panel.
Rememeber that you should turn off the "network" service if you turn
on the NetworkManager service. If you forget the command line for
this, the GUI works well: system-config-services. I've also tried a
program "wifi-radar" that can do the same chore, and it sometimes
works. Frankly, none of the automatic programs have worked everyplace
for me. Being able to manually edit the ifcfg-eth1 file is the "sure"
way to make it work.
Honestly, I've wasted many hours on this and I promise this is the
best, most dependable way to get it started. I think the secret was
to blacklist iwl3945. After I did that, everything worked 20000%
better
Now, if you don't want to try ipw3945 as the driver, make sure you
update your Fedora kernel. In my experience, the built in iwl3945
driver did get better in the kernel update.
Use yum or whatever rpm manager you like to install this additional
package iwlwifi-firmware. The iwl3945 driver requires that firmware
to initialize your wireless card.
yum install iwlwifi-firmware
After that, you can run system-config-network and try to create a new
wireless network device. It worked the first time for me.
The downside of the iwl3945 driver was that it did not "seem" as fast
and lost connections. I do not notice that trouble anymore, but I
don't use it very much because I've just had so much more experience
with the ipw3945 driver.
OK, that's my good deed for the evening. Maybe the next person who
asks about ipw3945 cards will get an even more thorough piece of
harassment.
I sincerely hope this helps.
--
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas
