# [SOLVED] wireless trouble

## Gear.0

I have been noticing some system oddities.

I'm just going to list all the strange things I've noticed, and error messages from my system just in case anything is related to my wireless problem.

One is that I used to be getting SIOCSIFFLAGS errors or something similar when I looked in dmesg for lines containing "iwl" which is my wireless driver.

I also noticed firmware errors, so I emerged the proper firmware and both of those error have gone away from dmesg. However, I still see:

SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such deivce

when the system is booting. But it doesn't appear to interfere with anything.

I also notice an MTRR error when starting OpenBox via "startx".

error setting MTRR (base = 0xd0000000, size = 0x10000000, type = 1) Inappropriate ioctl for device (25)

But again this doesn't seem to really affect anything.

---- Now for things that I think might actually be related to my wireless issues ----

I seem to be having some DBUS troubles. I first noticed it when starting firefox the first time, it gave some error about not being able to access dbus or something.

So I did a dbus-uuidgen --ensure (which the error message suggested I do), and this seemed to solve that I can now start firefox.

Ok, now when I try to start my wireless with 'wicd-client' to automatically handle networking, I get more dbus errors.

So then I check and /etc/init.d/dbus doesn't seem to turn on by itself. I also saw some other forum thread about a related issue and they said to turn on dbus and consolekit. So I also noticed that consolekit doesn't start.

So I just do /etc/init.d/consolekit start (I have no clue what consolekit is) but that appears to start both consolekit and dbus.

Then I can now run 'wicd-client' and it starts, however this time I get a popup box saying that dbus coudln't connect with wicd or something like that.

But, if I then run the command 'wicd-client' again it does not give the error message... but it just doesn't work, it doesn't find any wireless networks.

If I check /var/log/wicd/wicd.log

I see an almost endless amount of messages of the form:

 *Quote:*   

> Running command ['ifonfig', 'eth0'] failed: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
> 
> Running command ['ifonfig', 'wlan0'] failed: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
> 
> Running command ['iwconfig', 'wlan0'] failed: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
> ...

 

it's literally just a bunch of those errors printed over and over.

Well that's really all the errors I see that I would think could even be remotely related to my wireless problems.

I do have the correct kernel modules built, and I have emerged the firmware. The driver for my wireless card is iwl3945, and hardware is:

PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection

and I have followed this guide in setting it up:

http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Iwlwifi

I will be happy to provide any additional information.Last edited by Gear.0 on Thu Aug 05, 2010 2:07 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## DawgG

some error msgs are normal - does stuff work all right?

before using any "automatic" stuff, especially with wireless networking, make sure everything is configured correctly and works "by hand", ie with the appropriate commands (lsmod, modprobe, iwconfig, ifconfig, route, dhcpd....)

the modules have to be loaded (or the right stuff compiled in), the wireless parameters have to be set up correctly, the ip-stuff has to be set up correctly, routing and dns also (maybe you can use dhcp), and that's about it.

when everything is configured correctly and works, it's time to go about configuring all the "automatic" stuff by putting the working configs into that.

GOOD LUCK!

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## Gear.0

I got it working

It was 3 things.

1) I feel like an idiot, I had to press the wireless button on my laptop to turn it on, that got rid of the SIOCIFFLAGS error.

2) I had to add /sbin to my $PATH variable in order to allow wicd to use commands like 'ifconfig' 'iwconfig' and 'iwlist'.

3) I had to use wicd-curses instead of either wicd-client or wicd-gtk.

Without changing any settings, the GUI based wicd could not connect for some reason. But without changing anything, just firing up wicd-curses and connect did finally allow me to connect.

Could number 3 possibly be a bug? I wouldn't mind reporting it, or doing further investigation.

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