Wifi adapters not connecting so need to compile drivers

[nassausky]

Hi all I am back and really enjoying the early feel of linuxbbq-chickenwings,

I have a Dell laptop about 4 years old and it has a built-in wifi which doesn't get detected by chicken-wing default setup using ceni so I have 2 other usb wifi adapters (Ralink RT2870) & (Edimax EW-7811Un) and both are recognized but don't connect to the network. The edimax for example keeps broadcasting for a DHCP address with DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
a few times then says No DHCPOFFERS received but again no problem using some other linux like LinuxLite or Antix.

All the 3 wifi adapters work fine in other flavors of linux but this one so I figured I would just try to compile the drivers from the installation CD of the edimax which looks like it uses the Realtek RTL8188C chipset hence it's driver name RTL8188C_8192C_USB_linux_v4.0.2.


During compilation it returns the following error:

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Authentication requested [root] for make clean:
rm -fr *.mod.c *.mod *.o .*.cmd *.ko *~
rm .tmp_versions -fr ; rm Module.symvers -fr
rm -fr Module.markers ; rm -fr modules.order
cd core/efuse ; rm -fr *.mod.c *.mod *.o .*.cmd *.ko
cd core ; rm -fr *.mod.c *.mod *.o .*.cmd *.ko
cd hal/rtl8192c/usb ; rm -fr *.mod.c *.mod *.o .*.cmd *.ko
cd hal/rtl8192c ; rm -fr *.mod.c *.mod *.o .*.cmd *.ko
cd hal ; rm -fr *.mod.c *.mod *.o .*.cmd *.ko
cd os_dep/linux ; rm -fr *.mod.c *.mod *.o .*.cmd *.ko
cd os_dep ; rm -fr *.mod.c *.mod *.o .*.cmd *.ko
Authentication requested [root] for make driver:
make ARCH=i386 CROSS_COMPILE= -C /lib/modules/3.17-5.towo-siduction-686/build M=/home/bbq/RTL8188C/driver/rtl8188C_8192C_usb_linux_v4.0.2_9000.20130911  modules
make[1]: *** /lib/modules/3.17-5.towo-siduction-686/build: No such file or directory.  Stop.
Makefile:584: recipe for target 'modules' failed
make: *** [modules] Error 2
##################################################
Compile make driver error: 2
Please check error Mesg
##################################################
root@grill:/home/bbq/RTL8188C#

I read one forum mentioning possibly needing linux-headers-generic installed so I tried an apt-get install but got the following information back:

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Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package linux-headers-generic is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Package 'linux-headers-generic' has no installation candidate
root@grill:/home/bbq#

Any ideas on either how to get it compiled or if it's a common issue to have a few wifi adapters not working out so well?

Thanks for any ideas :)

[pidsley]

"both are recognized" means what exactly?

You should not have to compile the driver. I have an edimax ew-7811un wifi dongle, and it works perfectly (with ceni) once firmware-realtek is installed (on my wheezy and sid systems.)

I don't have a current chickenwings install, but I can try it if you continue to have problems.

(edit) ok -- I just tried chickenwings live, and my edimax dongle works fine. I don't know why you are having problems, but I still don't think that building the driver will help.

Please show us the output of

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apt-cache policy firmware-realtek
lsusb

(with the edimax dongle plugged in, of course)

[nassausky]

Thanks and I'm sorry 'not recognized' was an incorrect phrase. What I meant is It saw the adapter in Ceni but was never able to get an IP address.

Here is the output of the 2 commands:


Hope this helps.

Thanks again

[machinebacon]

When we are at it already, two questions:

1) what's the output of

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env-info

2) are you running in a VirtualBox?

Thank you :)

If your dongle shows 'NO DHCPOFFERS' it means it does not get the DHCP from the router, which means that the router is either not sending a DHCP or that it is sending a static address and you need to set one in Ceni. Make sure you remove all configurations in Ceni, both eth0 (if ever set up) and eth1/wlan0 and then try again by creating a new interface in Ceni, choosing "removable" as device. There you also need to set an IP if your router does *not* broadcast a DHCP.

If you do not remove the configuration, it tries to connect with the active device that is not set to removable. The Removable flag helps you if you remove the dongle, it swtiches automatically to eth0.

[nassausky]

Great thanks for the info.

Answer 1) Is on the attached image. .



Answer 2) I tried both from the laptop in the image and from a virtualbox on this PC



and I stand corrected it's a modifed snapshot of bork not chickenwings so it uses openbox.

Getting back at what you said about the DHCP broadcasting from my router, I never had a problem with that before and I will confirm it again I haven't booted the other version of linux in a couple days so maybe there is a small chance it's the router. Running out the door now so might not get to it today.

BTW where is the configuration that I should remove. Ceni does a scan for adapters and finds the internal eth0 adapter as well as wlan0 the attached usb wifi adapter and asks me to choose one so I pick the wlan0. On that screen are you saying I should create a new logical interface there? Thanks for all your time.

[machinebacon]

"I never had a problem with that before" does not mean your router is broken or so, what I mean is that it is possible you set up your other Linuxen to use a static IP address. So, check the router if DHCP is enabled. If yes, you enable DHCP on your Chickenbork. If not, set up Ceni with an IP, like 192.168.1.33 if your router has 192.168.1.1

Not sure if you need to create a new logical interface with the dongle or if some internal device is seen as wlan0. Probably (!) the dongle is wlan0, so this is the one to manipulate in Ceni. You say your box has a built-in wifi card, so maybe this is taken precedence, and the dongle would be named usb0? I really don't know, too many options. I would appreciate a screenshot of the output of following command:

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lspci -nnk|grep et

Wrt to the existing problem:
As root edit and clean out the /etc/network/interfaces file, so that it contains:

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# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

save and exit, then start ceni again and set up the wlan0 interface only.

Or, in Ceni you can do:

ceni_remove.png (5.01 KiB) Viewed 5650 times

after choosing the device in the menu.

If you have access to the other Linuxen, please post their /etc/network/interfaces -- or compare the config files. Usually this is the file that does the magic. Ceni is just Configuring Etc Network Interfaces.

If it still won't work, please grab yourself chickenwings.iso and try it in a live session. Maybe the snapshot (which was made in an unsupported way) has some problem.

[GekkoP]

/moved to support section

[machinebacon]

^ Thanks.

[machinebacon]

By the way, I just checked the screenshot - the USB dongle works well, it's the router not sending DHCP, I guess.

Anyway, plug an ethernet cable in and do:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --reinstall firmware-realtek

The version on your computer is one version behind.

[nassausky]

Great let me run some suggestions above at home because I'm at work now. Curious though, what do you think the problem is with compiling it and in regards to the error I received above:

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 /lib/modules/3.17-5.towo-siduction-686/build: No such file or directory.  Stop. 

Will keep you all posted with updates.

[machinebacon]

You need the headers for exactly the kernel there. You are tracking unstable, so the headers seem to have been moved out from the repositories already. You have another option:

sudo apt-get install linux-image-686-pae linux-headers-686-pae

reboot the PC, in the GRUb menu select the entry Linux BBQ BORK! or Chickenwings "advanced options", there choose the kernel that is not towo-siduction (so probably the kernel with version 4.0)

It should not be necessary to compile the firmware from source. Anyway, it will only work for the selected kernel, but if you upgrade the kernel, you will have to rebuild it again. Please use the firmware from the repositories. We are on top of Debian with non-free enabled, and most if not all devices work OOTB. Remember to post the lspci -nnk later.

[nassausky]

Ok so like you said it probably isn't necessary to build the drivers from source but it is nice to learn something new about compiling something in the future. My guess is when you mentioned reboot to GRUB, that it is an HDD install rather than running live from my USB boot medium. since the USB boot menu doesn't list advanced options.

:)

[nassausky]

OK this is from Bork.

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root@grill:/home/bbq# lspci -nnk|grep et
09:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller [11ab:4354] (rev 12)
0b:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
root@grill:/home/bbq#

This if from Antix 15 beta

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root@antiX1:/home/demo# lspci -nnk|grep et
09:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller [11ab:4354] (rev 12)
0b:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)
root@antiX1:/home/demo# 

Will try from a fresh ISO of Bork

[nassausky]

OK tried one more reboot with my custom snapshot of bork and I am on the Dell laptop using wifi. I did 2 things. I disabled the internal eth0 and the internal wifi adapter on the laptop. The only thing I notice though is very slow DHCP assignment. It takes about 30 seconds.

Will update the firmware and run a few more tests.

To be continued....

[machinebacon]

You should have actually posted the content of /etc/network/interfaces of any /other/ Linux that connects. Nevermind. My fault. First things first. I'm out for a while.

[nassausky]

Hi all.

Sorry about that I will work on that later again and post etc/network/interfaces. I did update the firmware which didn't make a difference but I did realize I do some things so fast and don't pay attention like I should. 1 thing I noticed is that I was mainly using the internal built in wifi adapter which received DHCP broadcasts faster and receives DNS results faster but Bork doesn't have the driver for that card built into the original ISO. I have one more external USB wifi dongle I want to try out tonight.

Thanks
To be continued....

[nassausky]

3 day later update. Haven't tried anything new with the 2 usb wifi adapters but found an old usb wifi adapter in my drawer that works and have been using that for the moment.