# Wireless Driver Is Not Working

## lcR0N05

I have looked through eight+ threads on the forums, all of them have different answers, and none of them have worked (most of them outdated).

I have a an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG, and have also tried using a Linksys Network PC Card WPC11. My Kernel is the latest one directly available through a Gentoo installation, and was compiled with genkernel.  I have tried using wpa_supplicant, but when I try to activate my wifi with it, it points to /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf which doesn't exist. When I reload the iwl3945 driver with modprobe, it changes my card's name from wlp12s0 to wlan0, which tells me it's doing something, I just don't know what yet.

I can get internet to work if I take the Ethernet cable from my Desktop and plug it in to the laptop (Dell Latitude D620). I'd show the results of some code, but I don't know how to get my laptop's results on the forum, since I'm currently using my Desktop PC. Any suggestions?Last edited by lcR0N05 on Thu Jun 27, 2013 12:03 am; edited 1 time in total

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## eccerr0r

You need to create a wpa_supplicant.conf which describes your network.  You can use this for configuring WEP or WPA.  You will need this if you have encryption on your access point - if you don't have encryption you should be able to connect without wpa_supplicant.

If you are using Gnome or some GUI environment you should look into installing NetworkManager and its corresponding applet, nm-applet, which configures wireless automatically for you.  (I don't know about wicd, heard some people like it and some don't...)  NetworkManager will work with wpa_supplicant for you and nm-applet gives a GUI to configure your wireless.

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## lcR0N05

I am using WEP, is there a guide or something that covers what should be in wpa_supplicant.conf for WEP? I saw one for WPA and tried to convert it for my needs, but when I did, nothing in the file showed up as being correct.

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## _______0

oh lord, could you format our post so it can be easily read?

Also provide some logs from dmesg and wpa_supplicant in verbose mode, perhaps lsusb (if the card is usb) lspci.

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## lcR0N05

? Sorry, my Post is showing up correctly on my PC, can you tell me what's not showing up right so I can fix it? Can you tell me how to post the results of dmesg and wpa_supplicant on here without me having to type everything?

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## Ahenobarbi

 *lcR0N05 wrote:*   

> ? Sorry, my Post is showing up correctly on my PC, can you tell me what's not showing up right so I can fix it? Can you tell me how to post the results of dmesg and wpa_supplicant on here without me having to type everything?

 

Break lines, like:

 *lcR0N05 wrote:*   

> I have looked through eight+ threads on the forums, all of them have different answers, and none of them have worked (most of them outdated).
> 
> I have a an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG, and have also tried using a Linksys Network PC Card WPC11. My Kernel is the latest one directly available through a Gentoo installation, and was compiled with genkernel.  I have tried using wpa_supplicant, but when I try to activate my wifi with it, it points to /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf which doesn't exist. When I reload the iwl3945 driver with modprobe, it changes my card's name from wlp12s0 to wlan0, which tells me it's doing something, I just don't know what yet.
> 
> I can get internet to work if I take the Ethernet cable from my Desktop and plug it in to the laptop (Dell Latitude D620). I'd show the results of some code, but I don't know how to get my laptop's results on the forum, since I'm currently using my Desktop PC. Any suggestions?

 

Do you plan to use any desktop environment (KDE, Gnome, ...)? Usually they come with connection manager to make your life easier.

Did you follow http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=4&chap=4 ?

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## TomWij

 *lcR0N05 wrote:*   

> I am using WEP, is there a guide or something that covers what should be in wpa_supplicant.conf for WEP? I saw one for WPA and tried to convert it for my needs, but when I did, nothing in the file showed up as being correct.

 

```
network={

    ssid="YourWirelessSSIDHere"

    key_mgmt=NONE

    wep_key0=YOURWEPKEY

}
```

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## lcR0N05

Okay, I'll fix the spacing, thanks for telling me.

As for using wpa_supplicant.conf, I made the file but then when I ran "/etc/init.d/net.wlan0 start" it returned

```

* Bringing up interface wlan0

*    Starting wpa_supplicant on wlan0 ...

ioctl[SIOCSIWMODE]: Operation not supported

ioctl[SIOCSIWRANGE]: Operation not supported

ioctl[SIOCSIWMODE]: Operation not supported

ioctl[SIOCSIWAP]: Operation not supported

ioctl[SIOCSIWCODEEXT]: Operation not supported

ioctl[SIOCSIWCODE]: Operation not supported

ioctl[SIOCSIWCODEEXT]: Operation not supported

ioctl[SIOCSIWCODE]: Operation not supported

ioctl[SIOCSIWCODEEXT]: Operation not supported

ioctl[SIOCSIWCODE]: Operation not supported

ioctl[SIOCSIWCODEEXT]: Operation not supported

ioctl[SIOCSIWCODE]: Operation not supported

*    Starting wpa_cli on wlan0 ...

*    Backgrounding ...

* WARNING: net.wlan0 has started, but is inactive

```

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## lcR0N05

I haven't yet installed a GUI, I'm planning on adding GNOME soon, I've got some resolution issues to fix first though. I haven't looked much into that yet though, since I would prefer to use WiFi instead of Ethernet to install the GUI, however if it makes both of those easier I may add the GUI first. I'm planning on doing a full reinstall where I compile the kernel without use of genkernel.

As far as the guide, I'll be honest I didn't get that far. When I came across the part in the guide where you set up the network the second time, I thought that it did this.  I'll follow it and let you know if works for me. Thanks for pointing that out.

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## lcR0N05

I received a pm that suggested using nm-applet. As I am already running portage to install Gnome, I was wondering if anyone could further verify that it works, that would be great. I'd try it, but even Gnome-Light has nearly 200 packages to install, it won't finish any time soon.

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## 666threesixes666

ubuntu, and fedora both use network manager & nm-applet as defacto network management.  take a look at the picture of it on wikipedia, im sure you've seen it before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetworkManager

i use nm-applet under xfce4.  gnome is not required, networkmanager has a command line configuration utility also.

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## TomWij

 *lcR0N05 wrote:*   

> Okay, I'll fix the spacing, thanks for telling me.
> 
> As for using wpa_supplicant.conf, I made the file but then when I ran "/etc/init.d/net.wlan0 start" it returned
> 
> ```
> ...

 

You need to 1) build cf80211 support into the kernel, 2) use nl80211 as driver instead of default / wext and 3) use net-wireless/iw instead of net-wireless/wireless-tools.

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/developers/Documentation/nl80211

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Documentation/iw

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## lcR0N05

It's been a while since I've been on sorry, I've switched to Sabayon Linux for now. I'm thinking I'll give it a couple months or so and I'll try Gentoo again. Thanks for trying to help, I think the best solution would have been to get more recent hardware, but that isn't a possibility at the moment.

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