How To Configure Wireless Internet In Linux
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Attention: As of Ubuntu Heron this article is no longer an issue, you DO NOT need to blacklist rt2500usb any longer. Just plugin the rt73usb device, give it a few minutes for networkmanager to find it and go - that is it. But remember, its first use might take a bit for NM to see it. Be patient and stop following the wrong information about needing to compile extra drivers that is NOT needed whatsoever.
In a previous article at Mad Penguin, I shared my opinions and overall vision of the state of Linux wireless today. In this latest installment, I will demonstrate exactly how one can have a simple way to implement Linux wireless connectivity without all of the headaches.
Using A Working PCMCIA Card. Enter the rt61pci module that powers the Edimax EW-7608pg wireless card. It is fairly well known that the existing rt61pci module is considered a little buggy. However, based on my own daily use with it, when using a notebook-cooling pad to keep things from getting too hot, the present module works well enough for most people.
How do you get it to work? Simple, plug it in and turn on your notebook running Ubuntu Gutsy. Having issues connecting? There are two things to consider:
Are you actually having a problem with ipv6? If you think you might be, try blacklisting ipv6 to see if that helps. Simplify your interfaces file — /etc/network/interfaces to only show the following:
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
Is the legacy rt61pci module loaded? Assuming you did not heed the advice of the ‘experts’ from the various forums, try this: sudo modprobe rt61pci
Newer Notebooks, Newer Wireless Hassles. “Just use NDISWrapper, it should work just fine.” For every success story with this method, there are ten other failures. Yet those stuck with Expresscard as your expansion option for your notebook are generally left with this as your only solution. While USB is not the most elegant method for wireless, with the right device, it does work. Consider the Edimax EW-7318USg USB dongle, which runs the rt73usb module.
Here is where 99 percent of you fail when using this device — there is a common belief that it actually uses rt2500usb. As a matter of fact, the dongle itself appears to have a tough time making the distinction. Thankfully, this is Linux, so we will simply blacklist the problem module…
echo ‘blacklist rt2500usb’ | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
then…
sudo modprobe rt73usb
…and finally…
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
Nothing Is Working: Why?
A Few Common Reasons:
- You are still plugged into your wired network — lose the Ethernet cable when you need wireless.
- You “attempted” to compile something related to one of the drivers above. Always a fast track to frustration unless you are quite comfortable with advanced Linux usage. My Advice? Backup /home/ and start off again completely fresh.
- You are using something related to Ralink via NDISWrapper. Use the utility to uninstall the Windows driver or start fresh, your choice.
- Static IP vs. DHCP — want to use a static IP? Go for it. I’ve never tested this, so it may work — may not.
- Use WPA2 Personal (not WEP), make sure your router is on channel autoscan rather than a static channel (if possible), do not use “Super G,” as 802.11g standard is best.
For every ten people that have followed my advice above (via e-mail), at least six of them fail. With one exception, it was due to not wanting to follow a simple pattern of what works. Still, using the PCMCIA card and the legacy version of rt61pci is not all fun and games.
- You will likely get dropped. If you find yourself getting dropped, I’m willing to bet 98 percent of the time there are other networks nearby with fair signal strength. It appears this version of the rt61pci module does not do well keeping you locked on. Still, it is a simple enough fix to simply use Network Manager to reconnect. It is really not a big deal, but it can be avoided using the USB dongle, as I have not had a problem with it like this.
- All of the devices get warm. I have found it seems to be worst with the Ralink chipset products when using Linux modules. This is largely why others have opted to use NDISWrapper for Ralink wireless support. I choose not to opt out of principle. A product either works with Linux or it does not, as far as I’m concerned.
Some of you may be wondering a bit about Pre-N technologies? As I have been in talks with a representative from Edimax and actually reviewed a router and USB dongle using these new technologies, I can tell you that they are not yet there. Yes, you can compile a module into your distro install if you like. Personally, I will stick to what is plug-n’-play for the time being. I find this is much easier to duplicate for the average user.
This article has been republished with the kind permission of our friends at Mad Penguin. For more news about the Open Source community, go give ‘em a look or Subscribe to Mad Penguin’s RSS Feed!
Related Articles @ Mad Penguin:
- Funding Open Source Projects
- Is Dell Ready for the Linux Challenge?
- Open vs. Closed Source: There Really is No Competition
- Distro Selectors: How Accurate Are They?
- GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative: A Viable Option for Carriers?
9 Comments
John Rose
August 9th, 2008
at 10:27am
Matt,
I’m having problems with Edimax EW-7318USg on Hardy. I’ve tried the SeaMonkey drivers, Pedro Larbig’s rt73 & rt2570 drivers, and linux wireless compatible drivers. Nothing works! lsusb shows the device. Hardware Drivers shows rt73 &rt2570 drivers. Do you know whether I should be using the rt73, rt73usb or rt2570 driver for this device?
Regards,
John
Matt Hartley
August 9th, 2008
at 1:28pm
John: I can already see your problem - there was no need for any extra drivers whatsoever. rt73usb works out of the box. As soon as you begin compiling stuff you might as well start over.
Now, in some rare cases, you might find that an existing integrated card can create a conflict. So in a clean install of Hardy, you could blacklist your old card. But honestly, there is no reason to have added anything. My advice, beware of the morons in the ubuntu forums, they will get you on the wrong path when it comes to wireless every single time.
While one could go through an continue monkeying with the current install, I’d take the simple approach. With a CLEAN install of Hardy, none of that following the Forums nonsense, use this in a terminal:
lshw -C network
Then paste the results back here, I can tell you what to blacklist from there. More than likely you will end up blacklisting bcm43xx or b43. But honestly, after testing out a variety of ralink chipsets on multiple notebooks, 99% of the time issues with rt73usb is the user being told (incorrectly) that they must install extra drivers to get it working. This has always been a sore spot for me with the Ubuntu forums as it is utter nonsense. :)
Matt Hartley
August 9th, 2008
at 1:47pm
Oh, one last critical note - This article is VERY DATED. No longer do you need to do anything stated in it for the latest version of Ubuntu. Gutsy needed this, Heron does not.
Repeat, blacklisting rt2500usb is NO LONGER NEEDED. In a clean install of Hardy - plugin the device and give it about two-three minute to take ahold and become detected for the first time.
John Rose
August 10th, 2008
at 12:34am
Matt,
I did do a clean install of Hardy before trying other possibilities. Perhaps I didn’t give it the 3 minutes for the Broadcom 4311 & the Edimax EW-7318USg to be detected and get sorted.
lshw -C network:
*-network
description: Network controller
product: BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci at 0000:05:00.0
version: 01
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=0 module=ssb
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci at 0000:08:00.0
logical name: eth0
version: 02
serial: 00:19:b9:65:cc:83
size: 100MB/s
capacity: 100MB/s
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=b44 driverversion=2.0 duplex=full ip=192.168.0.72 latency=64 link=yes module=ssb multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100MB/s
*-network DISABLED
description: Wireless interface
physical id: 2
logical name: wlan1
serial: 00:0e:2e:cf:94:85
capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes multicast=yes wireless=RT73 WLAN
lsusb:
Bus 006 Device 003: ID 148f:2573 Ralink Technology, Corp.
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 062a:0000 Creative Labs Optical Mouse
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 Host Bridge (rev 10)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:05.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:06.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:12.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI2)
00:13.3 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI3)
00:13.4 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4)
00:13.5 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 13)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS485 [Radeon Xpress 1100 IGP]
05:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)
08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
08:01.0 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 19)
08:01.1 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 01)
Part of dmesg:
[ 113.016155] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan1: link becomes ready
[ 114.219978] rt73: closed
Regards,
John
Matt Hartley
August 13th, 2008
at 9:23am
Man that is weird. I have the same chipset in another notebook (broadcom), never had to do anything other than ignore it.
Some thoughts:
-Verify your restricted driver manager is NOT using anything for the chipset - this would explain a lot if it was - should still be disabled.
-With my system 76 notebook which uses the always working Intel 4965, due to the physical switch in front of the notebook, I have to blacklist iwl4965 to get my rt73usb USg working. So try this after verifying the above, be it not really needed in every case I have ever seen.
1) blacklist bcm43xx and also blacklist b43 .
2) triple check that you are not using the restricted firmware from the restricted driver manager. It should read “Not In Use” for Broadcom.
3) Despite other thoughts on this, restart the entire notebook vs just the network with the dongle plugged in.
4) After it has sat for a moment not connecting and again, you must blacklist the other stuff - try this:
modprobe rt73usb
Which should give you a new empty line prompt. Then just right click network manager and verify the wireless check box is toggled.
If however, it spits out something like…
WARNING: Error inserting rt2x_cfg80211 (/lib/modules/2.6.24-19-generic/updates/wireless/rt2×00/wireless/rt2x_cfg80211.ko): Operation not permitted
You have a chipset conflict somewhere - which leaves me scratching my head if we are blocking everything from every direction?
With everything Broadcom totally blacklisted and nothing from the NDISWrapper side of things in use, Broadcom should no longer even be an option at that point. In other words, as far as the notebook is concerned, it no longer exists. It will still show up in lshw -C network, etc, but it should show up something like this:
*-network UNCLAIMED
description: Network controller
product: PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN Network Connection (Broadcom in your case)
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci at 0000:0c:00.0
version: 61
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list
configuration: latency=0
Because the USB dongle is being seen from lsusb, yet seemingly conflicted with something else, that ought to get it. Remember though, it will take a moment for network manager to detect the dongle the first time.
Matt Hartley
August 13th, 2008
at 10:06am
Well I’ll be damned…I just ran a
sudo dmesg | tail -n 30
and guess what - using your adapter…
[ 316.509996] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00usb_disable_radio
[ 316.510072] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00usb_init_txentry
[ 316.510148] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00usb_vendor_request_buff
[ 316.510350] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00usb_write_tx_data
[ 316.510426] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00mac_config_interface
[ 316.510502] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00mac_remove_interface
[ 316.510578] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00usb_vendor_request
[ 316.510654] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00usb_probe
[ 316.510730] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00mac_config
[ 316.510806] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00lib_write_tx_desc
[ 316.510887] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00usb_suspend
[ 316.510963] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00mac_conf_tx
[ 316.511039] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00mac_start
[ 316.511115] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00mac_stop
[ 316.511282] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00mac_configure_filter
[ 316.511358] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00usb_disconnect
[ 316.511434] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00mac_tx
[ 316.511538] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00usb_vendor_req_buff_lock
[ 316.511614] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00mac_get_tx_stats
[ 316.511714] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00usb_resume
[ 316.511790] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00usb_uninitialize
[ 316.511866] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00usb_initialize
[ 316.511946] rt2500usb: Unknown symbol rt2×00mac_bss_info_changed
For the love of Pete! I guess you still DO need to blacklist rt2500usb in some cases?? Blacklist that, apparently in some weird universe it is still needed. Man that is odd, never was a problem on my notebook using basically the same thing. I am still of the mind that this is unneeded regardless, but try all above and try this as a last resort.
What I can tell you is that the dongle and drivers work - but it might be something conflicting outside my realm of control creating issues - certainly nothing I have ever experienced before and I spent a lot of time (years) researching *native* wifi for Linux! ;)
Matt Hartley
August 13th, 2008
at 10:26am
Currently reviewing the ZyXEL G-220 v2 (although the older v1 uses 802.11b whereas v2 uses 802.11g)
Thus far on 32 and 64 bit Ubuntu, my experience it works out of the box.
That and they are VERY easy to purchase - big supply.
http://www.google.com/products?q=ZyXEL+g-220&btnG=Search+Products&hl=en&show=dd
If you want to make sure you are getting v2, just buy the one with specs for 802.11g .
Review with demo coming to youtube in Sept.
http://www.youtube.com/user/ctsdownloads
John Rose
August 22nd, 2008
at 1:38am
Matt,
I’ve blacklisted b43 & bcm43xx. Hardware Drivers shows b43 not in use. modprobe rt73usb was OK. lshw -C network doesn’t show Broadcom UNCLAIMED. I’ll do dmesg|tail -n 30 to check rt2500usb.
However, Edimax & zydas usb dongles and Netgear pcmcia work OK on a laptop (old Acer Aspire without wireless) I’ve setup for a friend.
I think the problem is Network Manager. I can use wired with static ip but not with roaming or with dhcp. Also, zydas usb dongle does not work. I think problem must be when I tried to compile modules. I’ll try make uninstall on those modules and try apt-get install networkmanager (must check its name). I’m at work now. back home in 7 hours. I’ll post with results.
John
Matt Hartley
August 22nd, 2008
at 2:38pm
Hi John,
“…when I tried to compile modules”
Yeah, this would do it for ya for errors alright. I can confirm that in 99% of the instances out there, you should not have this many problems - NM or otherwise.
You must have a very unique chipset configuration as I have never seen this problem where it could not be resolved.
Personally, I would try again with a vanilla install of Ubuntu.