[inditech]

(Already posted this on the Kubuntu forum also, but thought I would try here too! No disrespect to any replies on the K forum people!)

Hello,

Wonder if anyone can help me.

I had an old Thinkpad 240 laptop going spare, so I thought I would plunge into the world of Linux.

Downloaded the latest Kubuntu distro (not the Beta one) Edgy Eft.

I must say that I was impressed with the ease that it installed, and whilst my little 'ol laptop is not the greatest, it runs pretty well! LOVE the fuzzy clock!

Everything went fine, except for my WiFi.

I have a PCMCIA 802.11g card, and from the FCCID I *think* its RALINK RT2500 (made by Edimax), but I can't be sure as my knowledge of Linux is rather newbie...

I can see the adaptor under system settings, but when I try and enable it I get an error saying that it could not and has to be done manually.

Now coming from Windowz (yes I know - groan), my first thought was drivers. Therefore I hit google and found what I thought were the correct drivers.

I managed to get the TAR file, stuck it on a pen drive, and transferred it to a directory on the linux lappy (and wow, how easy my pen drive was recognised!).

Now I am a bit stuck. It came with basic instructions, and I managed to unTAR the image, and run various commands that I now cannot remember. I do remember submitting a MAKE and MAKE INSTALL command that worked (after logging in as root), but it still is not recognised.

Is anyone out there willing to push me in the right direction, or give me some *basic* instruction, or tell me I am being stupid! I don't mind!

Thank you so much in advance.

Pete

[comprookie20]

Did you see this;
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WifiDocs/Ral...lessCardsHowTo

[inditech]

Hi there,

That link did not work, although it did take me to roughly the right area. I dug around a bit and found a setup page for the RT2500. Still no joy.

Basically, what I do is go into System Settings --> Network Settings --> Enable admin mode.

Then I click on RA0 (Kubunutu can see the card) and click Enable interface. I then get an error:

"There was an error changing the device's state. You will have to do it manually"

Ok I thought. Click Configure interface. Enter my SSID/WEP etc. OK --> Apply --> Enable --> Same error.

Interestingly, my wep key is Hex, but under the configure option, it keeps changing back to ASCII and I can't seem to get this to stick!

Any other thoughts?

[comprookie20]

What happens when you;
sudo modprobe rt2500
sudo iwconfig
If the interface shows up as ra0
sudo iwconfig ra0 essid whatever
sudo iwconfig ra0 key "another whatever"
sudo dhclient ra0

[inditech]

Ok,

I will put the command output here, but firstly things have changed somewhat.

Firstly, if I use the Wireless Assistant under the internet menu, it see my router, but there are no lights on the PCM card??? However, if I follow this through, the lights sometimes come on but I get a connection failure. If I then (bizarelly) right-click --> Forget Settings, the lights come on and stay on. Then going back into System Settings --> Network, the card then says enabled.

Then! I go back into the Wireless Assistant and ask to connect, this time (despite having told it to forget settings) it does not present the wizard it simply says connecting. I have finally managed to get a connection, but it certainly is not stable.

Therefore I sumise that the card is installed to the system, but I am just being a newbie and rather stupid in setting it up!

The command output (running as root - or the kubuntu equiv):

sudo modprobe rt2500
nothing at all - returns me to konsole prompt

sudo iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

ra0 RT2500 Wireless ESSID:"my_essid"
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.412GHz Access point: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:0 dBm
RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Link Quality=50/100 Signal Level=-69 dBm Noise level:-204 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

If the interface shows up as ra0
sudo iwconfig ra0 essid whatever
no output - I assumed the word whatever to be replaced with my essid, tried with and without quotes

sudo iwconfig ra0 key "another whatever"
invalid argument "xxx" where xxx is my essid. Again tried with and without quotes.

sudo dhclient ra0
Too much output to type here (on windoze!), but the highlights that I think are relevent:

There is already a pid file /var/run/dhclient.pid with pid 4684
killed old client process, removed pid file
Listening on LPF/mac add
Sending on LPF/mac add
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPREQUEST on ra0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPACK from internal router add
bound to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx - renewal in x seconds

So therefore I am connected now - but how can I make this persistent!

Thank you very much for all your help so far!

Pete

[comprookie20]

If you are connected you and can get on the net then you don't need a key so we won't get into that. If you want to set it up for boot then;
edit /etc/network/interfaces and put something like;

 
iface lo inet loopback
 
iface ra0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid XXXXXX
 
auto ra0

If your losing your connection then you may need to install the current rt2500 driver. I don't use ubuntu/kubuntu so this can explain better;
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...r/RalinkRT2500

[inditech]

Actually I do have a WEP key, I must have just forgotten to include it in my reply.

Are you able to let me know the additional I need to put in the interfaces file?

Sorry to keep being a pain!

[comprookie20]

something like;

iface ra0 inet dhcp 
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 up
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 down
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 up
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 down
        pre-up iwconfig ra0 essid "myssid"
        pre-up iwconfig ra0 mode Managed
        pre-up iwpriv ra0 set AuthMode=WPAPSK
        pre-up iwpriv ra0 set EncrypType=TKIP
        pre-up iwpriv ra0 set WPAPSK="A shared key"
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 up

if that won't work you may need;
wpasupplicant
also when you get no output from the commands that is good, means it worked.
to see if modprobe worked;
lsmod
to see if iwconfig worked;
iwconfig
etc

[inditech]

Thanks - if its WEP rather than WPA, then should the line:

pre-up iwpriv ra0 set AuthMode=WPAPSK

read:

pre-up iwpriv ra0 set AuthMode=WEP

Don't want to muck anything up at this stage!

Cheers

[comprookie20]

That was for wpa so for wep;

iface ra0 inet dhcp 
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 up
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 down
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 up
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 down
        pre-up iwconfig ra0 essid "myssid"
        pre-up iwconfig ra0 mode Managed
        pre-up iwconfig ra0 key xxxxxxxx
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 up

try the commands first to make sure they work before you edit the file;

ifconfig ra0 down
ifconfig ra0 up
iwconfig ra0 essid "whatever"
etc
etc

[inditech]

Thanks,

should "face" read "iface" in the first line?

Pete

[comprookie20]

yes that was my paste err ....

[inditech]

No worries

The up/down commands a really useful - trying to figure out how to turn the card on!

Trying now - laptop is old and slow......

[inditech]

No joy I am afraid. It does not seem to be running the interfaces file on startup. The commands typed at a konsole seem to work, but not on startup.

Having said that, even after the card inits, I still cannot get on internet...

You have helped me a lot thank you, don't want to keep pestering you, so I will try and figure out the rest myself.

Unless you can suggest a better distro? My laptop is quite old, and I think Kubuntu is a bit resource hungry.

Pete

[comprookie20]

You should be able to get wireless to work, check to see if you got an address;
ifconfig
what does it say about ra0
route -n
should show your router or modem
if its a dns issue
cat /etc/resolv.conf
anything there
and its no problem that is how you learn.