Cannot get WiFi to work

[Member dwg]

As an exercise I decided to see if Linux would be viable on a Pentium III notebook I have. After some research I found antiX, downloaded it and installed it on the machine.

I have been pleasantly surprised, performance is quite reasonable, the machine is no rocket ship, but it never was in its original guise running Windows 2000 either, but it is quite usable.

Think it would make a useful machine for some browsing, a little email and some light word processing I have looked at getting the network side operating, the inbuilt Ethernet is fine, wireless is another story.

Wireless is done via a PCMCIA adapter, a Compaq WL110.

I’m getting some mixed results with none of them being good.

I insert the Adapter and bring the machine up, I was not overly surprised to see that ifconfig only showed eth0 and L0.

running Ceni I saw:

eth0 ethernet e100 Intel 82557/8/9/0/1 Pro 100
eth1 wireless orinoco_cs Texas Instruments PCI1211

To me it looked like that perhaps only configuration was required.

I tried the Scan option in Ceni a message came back “Operation not possible due to RF_kill

An rfkill list command showed Soft block: Yes

rfkill unblock wifi caused the power light to come on the adapter.

ifconfig now showed eth1 with <UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,DYNAMIC>

Back to Ceni and told it to scan and the notebook locked up hard, no mouse movement, the time in the taskbar froze etc, had to drop the power to it.

Start the machine up again and eth0 had disappeared, go through the process again and after a rfkill unblock wifi command adapter power lights and again it locks up.

At one stage I also tried using the Roam setting and then using the WPA GUI tool but although I seem to be able to set configuration parameters I cannot get the thing to work.

I then found a note on using the Connman utility so have also tried this. After turning the wireless on I started seeing some access points around the neighbourhood appearing in the list, to initially make life easier I turned mine back to not being hidden and it also appeared in the list.

Trying to connect to it I set the password and then I receive two messages back:

Connman returns the following error: connect-failed
The agent request failed before a reply was received.

I’m at a loss as to where to go from here.

The notebook is a Compaq Armada M300 with 384MB memory and 30 GB disk. I have installed antiX 19.2 and as stated earlier the Adapter is a Compaq WL110

Any ideas appreciated.

[Member Xecure]

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Many posts in the forum about connman and ceni not being good roommates. You cannot use ceni if connman is installed. You cannot use connman if wifi has been configured in ceni. Your options are:
A. Remove wifi configuration in /etc/network/interfaces and use COnnman.
B. Remove connman, fix /etc/resolvconf symling and use ceni.

I had created a section about this and some working scripts to help you understand things about wifi in antiX 19. It has some buttons to automate some stuff. If you need some help you can test it out. If you know what you are doing, you can ignore this script.

Attachments:

1. antix-network.zip

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member dwg]

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Thanks for the prompt response.

I’m afraid I have had no luck.

As this is a totally new install I ended up doing a fresh install of antiX, logged on went straight to connman, this looks to be the easiest way to set this up, I only used the other as I found it in the menus.

Turned on the wireless, select my access point, select connect, type in the password. Alas I see exactly the same errors of:

Connman returns the following error: connect-failed
The agent request failed before a reply was received.

Some services around the neighbourhood show no security so I tried select those and trying to connect as a test, in each case I receive exactly the same error.

[Member Xecure]

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It may be a driver problem. Please publish
inxi -Fxz

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member dwg]

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As requested

System:
  Host: m300 Kernel: 4.9.212-antix.1-486-smp i686 bits: 32 compiler: gcc 
  v: 8.3.0 Desktop: IceWM 1.6.5 
  Distro: antiX-19.2_386-full Hannie Schaft 27 March 2020 
  base: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Compaq product: Armada M300 v: N/A serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: Compaq model: 053C serial: <filter> BIOS: Compaq v: 1.35 
  date: 08/08/2000 
Battery:
  ID-1: C123 charge: 35.0 Wh condition: 35.0/35.0 Wh (100%) 
  model: COMPAQ Primary Battery status: Full 
CPU:
  Topology: Single Core model: Pentium III (Coppermine) bits: 32 type: MCP 
  arch: P6 III Coppermine rev: 6 L2 cache: 256 KiB 
  flags: pae sse bogomips: 996 
  Speed: 498 MHz min/max: N/A Core speed (MHz): 1: 498 
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD 3D Rage LT PRO PCI vendor: Compaq driver: N/A 
  bus ID: 00:05.0 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: ati,mach64 
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa resolution: 1024x768~87Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.6 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: ESS ES1978 Maestro 2E vendor: Compaq Armada M700/E500 
  driver: snd_es1968 v: kernel bus ID: 00:08.0 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.9.212-antix.1-486-smp 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA type: network bridge driver: N/A 
  port: 3000 bus ID: 00:07.0 
  Device-2: Intel 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI type: network bridge 
  driver: piix4_smbus v: N/A port: 3800 bus ID: 00:07.3 
  Device-3: Intel 82557/8/9/0/1 Ethernet Pro 100 driver: e100 
  v: 3.5.24-k2-NAPI port: 2000 bus ID: 00:09.0 
  IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  IF-ID-1: eth1 state: down mac: <filter> 
  IF-ID-2: irda0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 42.40 GiB used: 3.70 GiB (8.7%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Hitachi model: IC25N030ATCS04-0 size: 27.95 GiB 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB vendor: Verbatim model: STORE N GO 
  size: 14.46 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 27.38 GiB used: 3.22 GiB (11.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 39.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:
  Processes: 148 Uptime: 2h 24m Memory: 304.3 MiB used: 147.1 MiB (48.3%) 
  Init: SysVinit runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 8.3.0 Shell: bash v: 5.0.3 
  inxi: 3.0.36

[Member Xecure]

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I don’t know if inxi has a problem with PCMCIA cards, as it doesn’t display any information about it.
Your first post informs us that the driver used is orinoco. I have confirmed it is the only driver compatible with your card:
http://linux-wless.passys.nl/query_hostif.php?hostif=PCMCIA

manufacturer 	wlan type 	product ID 	vendor & product code 	chipset 	driver 	works with Linux 	comments
Compaq 	        802.11b 	WL 110 		                        Orinoco 	Wavelan 	green 	http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Orinoco.html

Check to see if the orinoco module is loaded (if it is on the list, then it is loaded)
lsmod | grep orinoco

If it is, check to see if there are any error messages spit out by the kernel:
sudo dmesg | grep orinoco

Next step is to check what the system is able to recognize as wireless (in your first post it seems to believe it is eth1):

ifconfig
iwconfig

The worst possible case is a problem with the driver for the PCMCIA port. Another user with a Compaq armada M300 had some problems with his here (https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/wait-it-does-not-work-right-okay-that-was-aimed-at-the-wireless-driver/). Try to find the card reader in:
sudo lspci -k
It should say something like:

00:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1211
        Subsystem: Compaq Computer Corporation PCI1211
        Kernel driver in use: yenta_cardbus
        Kernel modules: yenta_socket

If everything seems to be OK, maybe the problem is connman. We will proceed to remove it. Try to see if my script (attached in previous message) will work for you to Remove connman and set the correct symlink for /etc/resolv.conf
Then you can again try to get wifi to work with ceni.
If the script doesn’t work, try:

anticapitalista wrote:

1. Remove connman and cmst

sudo apt-get remove --purge connman cmst connman-bluetooth-firmware-antix

2. Delete the resolv.conf sym link in /etc/
3. Create a new symlink in etc like this (in a terminal)

sudo ln -s /etc/resolvconf/run/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf

4. Try ceni again

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member dwg]

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I have been pressed for time today so have only managed to do some of the basics. I am not seeing anything untoward in this so far. I’m down to seeing if it sees the card reader and it does. I originally had Windows 2000 on the system and then tried Windows XP (which performed like a dog) and the wireless was working at that stage.

An interesting thing is that the available wireless services list keeps changing, which in itself may not be considered all that odd, however my access point which is sitting less then 2 feet away is one of the devices that disappears.

I did try to paste in some of the command results but the forum software seems to be somewhat over zealous and thinks the data is somehow threatening.

I did read the other post, interesting. A big difference I see is that he is using a PCMCIA to USB 2.0 card, whereas I am using a Compaq branded wireless PCMCIA card.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by dwg.

[Member Xecure]

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dwg wrote:

I did try to paste in some of the command results but the forum software seems to be somewhat over zealous and thinks the data is somehow threatening.

You can always upload it to another site and link it (or add it as an attachment here, for me uploading a .zip works).

Not long ago I learnt from armando a very cool way to watch live what is happening with the wifi. You could try it out and see if you can spot any strange errors.

armando wrote:

…

I just can provide you with 4 realtime useful commands:

ip monitor
sudo dmesg --follow -T
wpa_cli
iwevent

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member dwg]

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I did get further using ceni.

It was asking for a DHCP address but not getting one.

This problem caused me to sort of go off on a tangent since and I believe I have found a solution. My access point is a 802.11n which should be compatible with 802.11b.

I have an older router which also supports 802.11n but has 2 separate networks for the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. I set this up as a wireless access point, and I was able to connect to this over wireless on the 2.4 band with ceni.

So it looks like the problem may be some sort of network incompatibility.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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dwg wrote:

I did get further using ceni.

It was asking for a DHCP address but not getting one.

This problem caused me to sort of go off on a tangent since and I believe I have found a solution. My access point is a 802.11n which should be compatible with 802.11b.

I have an older router which also supports 802.11n but has 2 separate networks for the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. I set this up as a wireless access point, and I was able to connect to this over wireless on the 2.4 band with ceni.

So it looks like the problem may be some sort of network incompatibility.

dwg wrote:

I did get further using ceni.

It was asking for a DHCP address but not getting one.

This problem caused me to sort of go off on a tangent since and I believe I have found a solution. My access point is a 802.11n which should be compatible with 802.11b.

I have an older router which also supports 802.11n but has 2 separate networks for the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. I set this up as a wireless access point, and I was able to connect to this over wireless on the 2.4 band with ceni.

So it looks like the problem may be some sort of network incompatibility.

Based on your description your conclusion seems reasonable to me.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member ex_Koo]

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@ Xecure Re post #38949
I had trouble with wifi on my T430 using ceni just would not pickup wifi card was telling me to delete run/wpa_supplicant/wlan0 did this made no difference.
Followed your post only there was no (2. Delete the resolv.conf sym link in /etc/) file present. Just moved on to the next step #3.
Ceni now works just fine Thanks for your help

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by ex_Koo.

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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ex_Koo wrote:

@ Xecure Re post #38949
I had trouble with wifi on my T430 using ceni just would not pickup wifi card was telling me to delete run/wpa_supplicant/wlan0 did this made no difference.
Followed your post only there was no (2. Delete the resolv.conf sym link in /etc/) file present. Just moved on to the next step #3.
Ceni now works just fine Thanks for your help

Kinda did the same on My new install on M&A atom clamshell netbook.
My fix also incorporated telling conman not to start on boot.
I can still start it in antixcc. If I wish.

My problem now. Weird connection. Here is hoping the rfkill thread on the forum is reading my posts.

Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

Linux Registered User # 475019
How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problems

[Member HankStarr]

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Hi….By and by I had a similar issue in the wake of dissasembling and updating Hp Pavilion G6 D. Regardless I did the wifi would remain obstructed.

Wifi Soft Blocked. No

Wifi Hard Blocked Yes

The manner in which I tackled it was by unblocking all linux drivers squeezing the a Dedicated Wifi button on console on and off. This fixed by issue.

Likewise give making an effort and once again embedding Wifi PCIE space.

[Author]

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