[solved] Intel 6205 Wireless not working on Salix 64bit

[kayasaman]

Hi,

I descovered Salix a few weeks ago as an up-to-date alternative to DSL (Damn Small Linux) which is now old and dead.....

Anyway, it works really well on my low powered 10 years old notebook hardware and doesn't overheat which had been the issue regarding every OS I tried on it including FreeBSD.

That aside; my new Lenovo X220 has just arrived and after trying and failing to get Solaris 11 on it I decided to turn back to Salix as the primary install.

My issue seems that the wireless doesn't connect to my router. I have a Cisco 857W operating at 802.11 b/g bit rates and frequency.

This is what I did:

Install the Wirless microcode: iwl-6000-ucode and also the 6xxx-ucode version (as wasn't quite sure which firmware I needed or what each was)

Install: wicd, wpa_supplicant, wireless-tools, and something which I can't remember that wicd needs in order to be able to execute

Reboot

Using wicd-curses (ncurses based Wicd interface) include my WPA passkey details and then attempt to 'connect' to the BSSID for my ESSID


Anyway having done that it tries to connect then fails. In dmesg the only thing I get is- wlan0 link not ready

I am guessing one of my firmware choices is wrong however, I have seen that other people have experienced issues with Lenovo and wireless cards too using other distros.

Can anyone help me?

I am going to put the dmesg iwl statements in just a sec as am on a different machine!

[kayasaman]

Here is the dmesg output regarding the interface:

Code: Select all

[    8.089642] iwlagn: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link AGN driver for Linux, in-tree:
[    8.089649] iwlagn: Copyright(c) 2003-2010 Intel Corporation
[    8.089808] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[    8.089868] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[    8.090083] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: Detected 6000 Series 2x2 AGN Gen2a, REV=0xB0
[    8.101365] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: device EEPROM VER=0x715, CALIB=0x6
[    8.101474] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 24 802.11a channels
[    8.102104] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: irq 45 for MSI/MSI-X
[    8.234468] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: loaded firmware version 17.168.5.2 build 35905
[    8.339857] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-agn-rs'

lspci shows the device as Intel 6205 (rev 34)

[kayasaman]

This is what I have in my /lib/firmware directory:

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iwlwifi-6000-4.ucode
iwlwifi-6000g2a-5.ucode
iwlwifi-6000g2b-5.ucode
iwlwifi-6050-5.ucode

Thanks for any support!!

[Shador]

There's an edit button, please use that instead of triple posting!!!

What's the output of lspci? Specifically the line regarding wireless. Possibly you need a more recent kernel, but let's see.

[kayasaman]

Ok i figured this out but I might have discovered a bug in the process with WICD.

I did this:

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mv /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.bak
wpa_passphrase <essid> <passkey> >> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
wpa_supplicant -Dwext -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
ifconfig wlan0 <ip_address>
route add defualt gw <gw_address>

It's very crude and a manual way of doing things but I think this should be looked into as I would like wicd workin as it makes switching networks so much easier over oldskool methods


Again any thoughts or help would be highly appreciated.

[kayasaman]

There's an edit button, please use that instead of triple posting!!!

What's the output of lspci? Specifically the line regarding wireless. Possibly you need a more recent kernel, but let's see.

Apologies, however in other forums that I'm used to and have been using for many years they prefer not-editing as people may miss the new material or 'update' so to speak.

I will adhere to your request though

lspci shows this:

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00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:16.3 Serial controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family KT Controller (rev 04)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b4)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev b4)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev b4)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev b4)
00:1c.6 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 7 (rev b4)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 04)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6205 (rev 34)
0d:00.0 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd Device e823 (rev 04)
0e:00.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation uPD720200 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 04)

[Shador]

Ok, that chipset should be supported by the kernel in 13.37. So let's see what's going wrong with wicd, shouldn't be much as wicd uses wpa_supplicant.

First preferences: Is the driver set to wext? Is the interface wlan0? Anything you changed there?

Now regarding the settings for your wifi network. What exact settings did you choose? You don't need to spell out your password, etc, but at least tell me what you entered and where you entered it. Also which profile you selected? Among WEP and others there's a bunch of WPA profiles.

[kayasaman]

Ok as stated in the beginning am using wicd-curses.

I haven't created a profile as usually I work on the default profile and everything just 'out-of-the-box'. Actually what I have done is exactly the same as for the 32bit version of Salix which I used for my older uni-core machine.

Pressing the -> key I added/checked these settings:

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use these settings for all networks sharing this essid
automatically connect to this network
use encryption
wpa-key

Under preferences I have:

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always switch to wired network connection when available
use default profile on wired auto-connect
automatically reconnect upon connection loss

To make the system work (am using wireless now ) I bypassed wicd and did the above.

wext driver
wlan0 interface
/etc/wpa_supplicant config file

Syntax of file is as follows:

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network={
         ssid="ESSID"
         #psk="psk_key"
         psk="encrypted psk_key"
}

Oops forgot to add:

In wicd 802.11 driver is set to wext vv

the dhcp client is set to dhcpd


I should be able to enable the debug mode for wicd and run from terminal which 'may' give some better insight into things??


[EDIT]

I figured this out!!!

wicd needed to be run with ioctl as the backend from the advanced settings under preferences.......

[Shador]

wpa-key

Then the used template/profile/whateve (that's what I was referring to as profile previously) with external backend is probably /etc/wicd/encryption/templates/wpa-psk

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name = WPA 1/2 (Preshared Key)
author = Adam Blackburn
version = 1
require apsk *Preshared_Key
-----
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
network={
       ssid="$_ESSID"
       scan_ssid=$_SCAN
       proto=WPA RSN
       key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
       pairwise=CCMP TKIP
       group=CCMP TKIP
       psk="$_APSK"
}

Looks the same as yours apart from some additional settings, which probably should not matter.

In wicd 802.11 driver is set to wext

and wirless interface is wlan0, I guess.

wicd needed to be run with ioctl as the backend from the advanced settings under preferences.......

If it works with wpa_supplicant, I'm sure it can work with wicd + external backend (which uses wpa_supplicant) as well. But nevermind. Probably some pecularity of your chipset which doesn't like some additional option or whatever.
You could add another file to the the templates dir with the extra options stripped and another name for that template. Then adding it to /etc/wicd/encryption/templates/active should make it visible. I had to do this for example to access my university wifi (eduroam) which uses some fancy encryption/authentification.

[kayasaman]

You could add another file to the the templates dir with the extra options stripped and another name for that template. Then adding it to /etc/wicd/encryption/templates/active should make it visible. I had to do this for example to access my university wifi (eduroam) which uses some fancy encryption/authentification.

Yeah I could, I'll look into that soon! I've just got the machine literally a few hours back so is still brand new.

Uni Wifi network

I remember many years ago how many problems and issues we used to have at my old uni. That's when wifi was just coming out as everyone was still on 802.11b cards even PCMCIA cards.

Now things have moved on afar as we have N-Draft and work at 2.4GHz or 5GHz carrier frequencies.... well at least for some access-points including my Cisco 1801W which totally rocks but being uni-core lets the box down.


That aside I'm having sound issues now.... I get sound through the speakers but nothing through the headphone/mic (combined) socket.

Is using the Intel HD Snd driver and only Master and PCM plus 5 s/pdif connections show. Even after running alsaconfig. On my now defunct Hp it had was using the HD driver too for sound but had many more options and the headphone socket worked.

---oops just went off-topic but it's still an issue New Thread??