# Trying to get IPW2200 to work the last time...

## Sunnz

I have a HP Pavilion dv4000 seris laptop that come with Centrino Wireless. I had tried to ask people for help here but I couldn't get it to work...

I like to try again, but if I still can't get it to work then I guess I have to give up Linux entirely and just use Windows. :Sad: 

Anyway, installed ipw2200 via Portage, and loaded it module or something... here's the previous thread: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-377968-highlight-.html

The thing seems to be on, however it doesn't connect to anything and the lightbulb never turns on under Linux...

Under iwconfig it ususually says radio off, untill I press the wireless button on the keyboard, then iwconfig says IEEE802.11g for eth1; so I think it does acts on the press of the button.

Here's some error message from dmesg, hope it helps:

ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.0.6

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:06:05.0[A] -> GSI 20 (level, low) -> IRQ 20

ipw2200: Detected IntelPRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection

...

...

ipw2200: failed to send WEP_KEY command

ipw2200: failed to send CARD_DISABLE command

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## Sunnz

I contacted HP and they give the usual Linux is not supported response, along with a link to a Windows driver: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?dlc=en&lc=en&os=228&product=467854&lang=en&cc=us&softwareitem=ob-31557-1

However it had the exact laptop model I have, does that mean the wireless device is really Broadcom, NOT Intel IPW2200? Is that even a driver, I mean, that wouldn't work with LinuxAnt or any Windows driver wrapper, right?

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## Sunnz

I have been told that Ubuntu will just work with the wireless, right out of the box... but if Ubuntu can do it, Gentoo should be able too do it too, they are both Linux.

But I'll have to try Ubuntu soon if I can't get it to work in Gentoo... I am still learning and I can't really dig into the kernel and do fancy stuff, unless someone can help.

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## remi2402

If you do have a boardcom wifi card, you will need to use ndiswrapper which seems to work quite well. Look at http://gentoo-wiki.com/ for installation inscructions.

Hope that helps

Rémi

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## Sunnz

I will just try Ubuntu first to see how it goes...

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## withoutclass

 *remi2402 wrote:*   

> If you do have a boardcom wifi card, you will need to use ndiswrapper which seems to work quite well. Look at http://gentoo-wiki.com/ for installation inscructions.
> 
> Hope that helps
> 
> Rémi

 

ubuntu does in fact work right out of the box with ipw2200, as i use one, all i had to do is a simple setting it to dchp and activating it through a gui, and bam, works all the time, to be honest it works better than the normal windows driver/software that i used to use for windows.

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## remi2402

In my case, setting up wifi in gentoo was just as easy as in ubuntu (gui less)

ipw2200

ipw2200-firmware

ieee80211

wireless-utils

iwconfig eth1 essid <your_network> and that's it.  :Smile: 

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## withoutclass

[quote="remi2402"]In my case, setting up wifi in gentoo was just as easy as in ubuntu (gui less)

ipw2200

ipw2200-firmware

ieee80211

wireless-utils

iwconfig eth1 essid <your_network> and that's it.  :Smile: [/quote

how did u grab each of those sections/install, im really new  :Sad: 

for each did u emerge? i.e.  emerge ipw2200   etc?

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## jakep_82

emerge ipw2200 will automatically install all of the dependencies (ieee80211, firmware, etc.).  

emerge wireless-tools will install the tools you need to configure the card for your network.  You also need to run modprobe ipw2200 to start the driver.  You also have to edit config files to automate startup at boot.  Long story short you may want to stick with Ubuntu unless you're pretty familiar with Linux.  Gentoo is a great distro, but it's not for the faint of heart.

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## xbmodder

You might have a bad card.

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## remi2402

All those tools are properly installed on the minimal gentoo livecd. So if you can get it to work using the livecd, then there's a 99.99% chance (you never know ...) of getting it to work on your own install.

The gentoo livecd is a nice test bed tool for these kinds of things. Give it a go before messing up your gentoo install if you don't feel confident enough  :Smile: 

The only advice I can give you is that the livecd will try and detect your wifi card ... and that's never worked for me. So just to be sure, once you get to the root shell on the livecd, rmmod ipw2200 and then modprobe ipw2200 and you'll be good to go.

Rémi

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## withoutclass

how do i acquire the essid? is there  a way to make it always be searching unless connected, so that if i come in range of a wireless hub it auto matically connects to it?

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## remi2402

ipw2200 will automatically connect to the best unecrypted network around. However it's only going to get into managed mode, you will still need to get an ip somewhere (dhcp or manually).

If you want to look around and see what networks are available, use this command

```
iwlist ethX scan
```

This will display all the APs that the card has picked up. Try it a few times, because some AP don't broadcast that often and the card will "forget" them.

The only tool that will kind of do what you're looking for is NetworkManager but it's not yet in portage, I had to get the ebuilds from gentopia (had to hack around to get it to work properly). The only way I know of doing what you're looking for is to do it by hand in a root shell using iwlist and iwconfig.

Maybe someone in the forum wrote a script or something that will this in a more user friendly manner, but I don't know any.  :Smile: 

Rémi

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## withoutclass

thank you

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## rajman

I had been having problems getting my wireless card working (gateway 4535gz with centrino). Then I saw this post, synced portage and upgraded to the latest verions of the following packages. Only after upgrading to the listed versions did it start working, althought i had them all installed before and i ended up just plugging eth0 into the wall   :Confused: 

 *Quote:*   

> - ipw2200 1.0.8
> 
> - ipw2200-firmware 2.3
> 
> - ieee80211 1.1.6
> ...

 

I'm not sure what combinations of these work, but i dont really care at this point. finally i can sit at a hotspot running linux. and though i dont have numbers on this, it seems to run better (at least more consistantly) than under windows.

so thanks to everyone whose advice led to my freedom of wires.

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