Network Manager not picking up wireless

[LowHP]

Hi all,

A newbie here trying to figure out why GNOME Network Manager isn't picking up my rtl8191SE.
My device pairing is 10EC:8172, which is listed in El Repo's kmod-r8192se package. I downloaded it and just double-clicked on the rpm file to install.
After restart, my Network Manager shows a Wireless Networks section, but it's all greyed out:


My lspci lspci -nn | grep -i net:

CODE

02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [10ec:8136] (rev 02) 03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller [10ec:8172] (rev 10)

My iwconfig wlan0:

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wlan0     802.11bgn  Nickname:"rtl8191SEVA2"          Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.457 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated            Bit Rate:130 Mb/s            Retry:on   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off          Encryption key:off          Power Management:off          Link Quality=10/100  Signal level=0 dBm  Noise level=-100 dBm          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

My ifconfig wlan0:

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wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr B4:82:FE:6E:EA:3E            UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)          Interrupt:17 Memory:f8e38000-f8e38100

Anyone knows why this happens?

[AndrewSerk]

Hi LowHP and welcome to SLF,

Check The physical on/off switch if you have one and/or try to turn on the card with the appropriate Fn + keys for your model laptop.

[LowHP]

Just an update (after a long holiday break):
My laptop doesn't have physical wireless switch and Fn key switch doesn't work (brightness switch works, though).
I started a fresh install from scratch with SL 6.3 and this time I followed El Repo's instructions properly by adding it into yum's repository. After that, it's just a simple

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yum install kmod-r8192se

Works like a charm after restart., so it's just a matter of me not properly RTFM. Apology for that.

I do have a question, however:
Why is the repository added using rpm command instead of yum (especially since the driver gets installed through yum)? Is there a specific reason for doing this?

[redman]

QUOTE (LowHP @ Sep 11 2012, 05:46 AM)

Why is the repository added using rpm command instead of yum (especially since the driver gets installed through yum)? Is there a specific reason for doing this?

Yum is used to install software from one or more configured repos.
RPM is used to install specific packages (for example to enable a new repo).

RPM to install the repo and yum afterwards to add software from the new repo