MEPIS 3.4-2 RC1 wireless issue SOLVED
After much deliberation, I decided to refresh my laptop with 3.4 RC2 two days ago. Unfortunately, while most of it went ok, the wireless is a bust. I tried and tried, but have decided that I am not smart enough to do this and am asking all you smart folks for help!
First this laptop and card has worked beautifully under previous versions of MEPIS. In fact, this is probably the only problem I have encountered running it on here.
The pcmcia card is an Orinoco Gold card. It is recognized by MEPIS, but only as an eth2 device. I will post the iwconfig results below. I have been unable to get this recognized as either eth0 or eth1, so the OSCenter doesnt see it either. Occassionally I will see lights flashing on the card as if it is transferring data, but I have no idea who it could be communicating with! I have Googled the world and tried to solve the problem, but to no avail.
Also, kwifimanager has never been useful and seems to be less useful now than ever. Because I travel to different locations, I can not hard code the network info into the interfaces file.
Any and all assistance would be appreciated.
Thorndike
IWCONFIG results:
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
eth1 no wireless extensions.
sit0 no wireless extensions.
vmnet1 no wireless extensions.
vmnet8 no wireless extensions.
eth2 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"" Nickname:"HERMES I"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.457 GHz Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
Retry limit:4 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=0/92 Signal level=134/153 Noise level=134/153
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
IFCONFIG results:
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0B:CD:85:05:5A
inet addr:192.168.10.113 Bcast:192.168.10.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20b:cdff:fe85:55a/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:4195 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:3091 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:2456217 (2.3 MiB) TX bytes:441420 (431.0 KiB)
Interrupt:10
eth1 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-0B-CD-71-A0-36-AC-15-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:18 dropped:18 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
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:146 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:146 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:8199 (8.0 KiB) TX bytes:8199 (8.0 KiB)
vmnet1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:56:C0:00:01
inet addr:172.16.190.1 Bcast:172.16.190.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::250:56ff:fec0:1/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:58 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
vmnet8 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:56:C0:00:08
inet addr:172.16.35.1 Bcast:172.16.35.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::250:56ff:fec0:8/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:58 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Anyone? Bump
Anyone?
Bump
Re: Anyone? Bump
Bump
I don't think that 3.4 RC2 has been released yet.
Sorry, my mistake. It is
Sorry, my mistake. It is 3.4-2 RC1.
Thorndyke, I have a somewhat
Thorndyke,
I have a somewhat similar problem (no solution though) with both the ethernet NIC and the wireless unit on my HP zv6000 laptop. I have installed a PCMIA wireless card (D-Link DWL G-650) which is right now connected to the internet and is downloading a Synaptic upgrade. If you want to read my sad tale, it is at:
http://www.mepislovers.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=13557&forum=23
I can only hope that we can
I can only hope that we can find a solution as I REALLY don't want to load Ubuntu on my laptop.
Distro-Don, It looks like we
Distro-Don,
It looks like we have to pin our hopes on the next release candidate as no one seems to have any idea.
I sent a bug repot to Warren et al, but have not heard anything back.
Thorndike
Well, it looks like the rc3
Well, it looks like the rc3 release his fixed this problem. Once installed it fired up like a champ using my previous wireless settings. I didn't have to change a thing to make it work.
Thanks Warren
Thorndike
Re: MEPIS 3.4-2 RC1 wireless issue
The pcmcia card is an Orinoco Gold card. It is recognized by MEPIS, but only as an eth2 device.
...snip...
IWCONFIG results:
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
eth1 no wireless extensions.
sit0 no wireless extensions.
vmnet1 no wireless extensions.
vmnet8 no wireless extensions.
eth2 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"" Nickname:"HERMES I"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.457 GHz Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
...snip...
IFCONFIG results:
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0B:CD:85:05:5A
inet addr:192.168.10.113 Bcast:192.168.10.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
...snip...
eth1 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-0B-CD-71-A0-36-AC-15-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
...snip...
vmnet1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:56:C0:00:01
inet addr:172.16.190.1 Bcast:172.16.190.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
...snip...
vmnet8 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:56:C0:00:08
inet addr:172.16.35.1 Bcast:172.16.35.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
...snip...
An Orinoco Gold card usually detects as ath0 or wlan0.
It appears that you have FIVE nic cards: eth0 and eth1 are assigned IP addresses by your wireless router, but only eth2 is viewed as a wireless device, and it is NOT assigned an IP, so you can't get a wireless connection to the web.
Here is what you need to do: In the MEPIS OS Center, on the Network tab, disable eth0 and eth1. As you uncheck the "start at system boot", click the "Apply" button on each page BEFORE you go to the next. On your eth2 page check the "start at system boot" checkbox and also the "use DHCP for IP" checkbox, then check "APPLY". On the "MISC" tab check "use DHCP for DNS". On the Wireless tab set your essid and key. Then go to the status page, turn off eth0,eth1 and start eth2.
Another alternative: Get the Windows *.inf and *.sys driver files for you Orinoco card from the Windows driver CD that came with the card. Use ndiswrapper to install the drivers, add the drivers to the modules and make it bootable. Read the ndiswrapper man pages or use "ndiswrapper -h" to read the help.
Please repost
ack7121, please email your info to since the developers are working hard to eliminate many of these "interesting" problems
Jon