Wireless issue

[MailmanTX]

Evening All,

I posted this on "help the newb" but figured it transcends the barrier between the two topics being a hardward issue and all. I've been having a bit of trouble with my new wireless stuff here at the apt. Since last I spoke to you all I moved apts and decided to switch to wireless to save holes in my walls... needless to say things aren't going great.

I've had to reboot into windows for the first time in nearly a month to see what the issue is with my wireless stuff - after getting it set up in windows fine (using WEP protocol) I figured it was merely a matter of rebooting into linux and entering the password... unfortunately the Knet manager (or whatever it's official called) seems to time out around 57% completion and then after some length of time simply re-prompts me for the network password (I've made sure it uses WEP - WPA wasn't even an option, the password is set as a 128bit ASCII and I switch the WEP to the ascii protocol after the first timeout).

I'm uber new to wireless so I'm not sure of where all the settings are, etc... Some things to know to help you help me:

- Router is a DLink 2310 Wireless G
- Adapter on the PC is a DLink 2320 Wireless G
- Router is set with a specific name and as stated it is currently only using a WEP encryption, 128bit, ASCII Password
- ALSO: I have not updated Kubuntu in a bit (probably a month - I know I know), so if a hardwiring is in order to address the issue I will attempt and post my results.

I'm still pretty newb to linux, but I'm quite proficient with finding my conf and log files now... if ya need one, tell me what it is and I will probably be able to find it in know time...

Thanks folks!

L.

[jankushka]

Re: Wireless issue

wpa-psk should work alright, actually.
and i'd suggest to go with wpa rathen than wep.
anyway...
first thing that comes to mind is to check the network name broadcast mode of your a.p.
see how this is set.
it should be set to "broadcast".
if it's set to "non-broadcast", it sometimes gives troubles.

otherwise i would reset everything and try one thing at a time.
remove the mac address mapping if it's set.
remove the wep security.
clean up the configuration files on your box.
try connecting (now your wireless is "open") and see if it works.
then try adding the security features again.
see if this link helps.

cheers

[kbunt]

Re: Wireless issue

Ubuntu/Kubuntu (I don't know about other distros) makes it very difficult to use WPA! When you configure in Network Interfaces, WPA is not even an option. That's probably what the OP was implying. I don't know why no one discusses that anywhere. I've been searching both forums to find not one note of that.

Can't you maintain a static IP using wireless? If you can, I don't see how you do it using WPA. I like KDE but Kubuntu does an absolutely horrible job with the network stuff.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Wireless issue

I agree with what is said here. Gutsy doesn't seem to be any better.

I spent a whole afternoon yesterday trying switch from WEP to WPA, without success. I suspect that the reason is that there is no WEP option in System Settings/network settings (which itself appears to be simply an instance of knetworkmanager).

Can someone please give me (and I suspect others) a walk-through on how it should be done as, frankly this is becoming something of a PITA?

Thanks

Ian

[jankushka]

Re: Wireless issue

this issue about wireless/wep/wpa has been discussed at length.
there are tons of threads about this all over the place.
i do not want to start this thing all over again.

wireless in general, and wireless wpa in particular,
should work out of the box in linux and in *ubuntu
because people want/need/use it.

if you have the right combination of hw and sw,
wireless in *ubuntu does actually work out of the box
(wpa included, whether psk or enterprise) with
knetworkmanager.

if you have the wrong combination of hw and sw, though,
things may become anything from tricky to frustrating to helpless.

in all honesty, this actually has a little to do with
how linux is designed and with how networking works.
but really only just a little bit.
it has more to do with whether or not drivers/microcodes/...
are provided by manufacturers (open source, preferably).

you will have to agree with me, that not even windoze
works without providing it with the proper drivers.

so, if despite your efforts (and ours) you're still stranded
without wireless, then just continue to use windoze.

and check back every now and then.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Wireless issue

Forgive me for not being clear, but I've been happily running Wireless in Kubuntu since the launch of Dapper. This has been using WEP. However, in system settings /network settings and full-blown knetworkmanager the only security option is WEP. I have wpasupplicant installed. The only application in which I see a WPA option is in the wireless assistant (once wpasupplicant is installed) but configuring this fails (is this because the wireless card is set up at system level to the wrong protocol? - I don't know). I do not believe that this is a hardware issue at all - to me it seems that it is simply the lack of a piece of software that allows me to enter the settings

Ian

[easoukenka]

Re: Wireless issue

I had the EXACT same problem and was able to fix it after hours and hours. I am not at that computer now but I had to totally get rid of knetwork manager and use I think it was called kwifimanager or something I got from synaptics.

I noticed on reboot befause kwifi would load before knetwork that from 0-whateverpercentitfrozeon that it picked up a signal. For some reason knetwork was losing my connection. I couldn't believe it was so simple. I did read awhile ago on the net about knetwork manager just sucking for alot of people and some wanted it dropped from the installed apps. Good luck

Im no linux pro just a new guy trying to help because I have been helped ALOT here!

[Aessa]

Re: Wireless issue

KNetworkmanager did not work for me for the last year, and a few nights ago suddenly worked - I usually had to do everything via the wpa conf file and for some reason had to disable wifi altogether to get GPRS working (oh the joys). I do not know what I did, what was different or if it simply worked because I started thinking of formatting, but it just works now. Pretty little icon, WPA2 and even hidden SSID.

There are hundreds of tutorials on wireless in (k)ubuntu, but half of them simply contradicts the other half. Take one, work it through, see what happens and when you find the road that works for you, keep it safe.

A lot of things do work out-of-the box, but internet connectivity is not one of them, for any distro I've seen or heard of. This is rather a pity as they all seem highly online oriented now. I think most of the trouble is still on the lower level drivers for the terribly wide variety of wifi adapters.

Intersting side note: I have a Linksys WRT54GL which apparently runs linux. I also had a linksys wifi USB adapter. That adapter showed up in dmesg as something like "unknown on unsupported at unknown; failed" and never seemed to show up as a device anywhere. My ipw2200 on the other hand was another thing that just magically started working one day contrary to some sources that said something about ipw drivers not supporting WPA anymore. So, yes, right hardware right software. We all know the right software is linux (kubuntu then ), but it would be great if everyone knew what the right hardware is.

Many thanks to the people who actually work on these issues and continually solve a lot of problems.

[pwabrahams]

Getting wpa=psk to work

I just installed Gusty Gibbon (on a bare partition) and am still unable to get wpa-psk encryption to work. Kwifimanager shows that my network is detected, so the problem is probably not with the card itself or the drivers for it (though getting that to work was a saga in itself and worthy of a different thread.

So a simple question (hopefully): what program can I call up that has wpa-psk as a choice?

At the moment I'm operating with both a hardwired and wireless connection, but I want to disconnect the physical cable as soon as I can and get away with it. (And just in case someone is wondering, disconnecting the cable destroys my net access completely, so its presence is not the problem.)

There are a few posts around about how to configure this stuff under Gnome -- but of course I'm running KDE!

[Snowhog]

Re: Wireless issue

KNetworkmanager only supports wep. If you need wpa, try using KWiFiManager instead.

[pwabrahams]

kwifimanager results

I've brought up kwifimanager and the results are odd. It shows a connection speed of 54 mb/s and s signal strength of 0. Yet the network scan shows that my network has been found with the correct SSID and a quality of 84. It also shows that WEP is on, which might be part of the problem, but how can I turn it off?

[jankushka]

Re: Wireless issue

KNetworkmanager only supports wep...

suggesting to try kwifimanager is fine.
but please do not spread wrong information.
knetworkmanager supports both wep and wpa (personal and enterprise).
see here.

it works fine on my box (dell precision m65).
i have wpa-psk at home and wpa-enterprise at work.
no issues whatsoever.

[pwabrahams]

knetwork manager support for wpa-psk -- or not?

KNetworkmanager only supports wep...

suggesting to try kwifimanager is fine.
but please do not spread wrong information.
knetworkmanager supports both wep and wpa (personal and enterprise).
see here.

it works fine on my box (dell precision m65).
i have wpa-psk at home and wpa-enterprise at work.
no issues whatsoever.

Yes, the referenced article says that knetworkmanager supports wpa -- but how does one get to a screen that has wpa as a choice?

The one thing obvious about this whole subject is that it is not obvious, given the problems that people have had and are still having with it.

If the problem might be incompatible hardware, is there a way to determine if it is or isn't that?

[jankushka]

Re: Wireless issue

agree.
there's a whole bunch of issues.
but, in my experience, provided your driver be ok
provided you have a dynamic configuration with dhcp in place
knetworkmanager works with wpa no problems.

i yet have to find one case in which i wasn't able to fix it.

for some reason, knetworkmanager gets confused by manual configurations.
the kind of things you do with "system settings -> network settings".

i just had a colleague of mine complaining that he could only see wep networks
and that wpa did not work with kubuntu and knetworkmanager...
(we have wpa-enterprise here at the office, with dhcp, of course)

i just went over to his office, reduced his /etc/network/interfaces file to:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
address 127.0.0.1
netmask 255.0.0.0

and that was it.
all the wpa networks around the office showed up right away.
wep networks work as before, just like the wired ones...

if/when i have some time, i will experiment with a static configuration
with my router at home to see how it goes...

hth

[Pajoe]

Re: Wireless issue

I struggled with the wireless on my wifes new Dell 1420N, and eventually learned the answer was to do very little. For example, using the Kubuntu live desktop cd, all I had to do was create a new user and log back on as that user- click on the wireless network signal strength meter that listed the routers broadcast name and add the password when it requested it and it worked. I then tried it using one of the neighbors which was not encrypted ( no password) and sure enough that worked too. It's ironic, that when I was trying all kinds of fixes and different packages I could not get it to work but by allowing it to do it's own thing it worked every time. My suggestion is to try the live cd and/or just create a new user and see if it works for that user with the default setup - you may have actually changed something that prevents it from working.