Networking Issues with HP mini 110

[Hakka]

After installing scientific linux on an HP mini 110, I have successfully managed to get all the features to work except the wireless. I have no idea what kind of wireless card the computer has, or how to find out. I have downloaded and installed what seem like all the wireless drivers available through yum, so is it just a matter of somehow telling the computer to initiate such wireless drivers?

[helikaon]

Hi,
there is big chance, the driver is available, only we need which one it is.

have a look and post here output of:

CODE

lspci -v | grep -i wi cat /var/log/dmesg | grep -i wire cat /var/log/dmesg | grep -i wifi

If you want to know more about your HW on your lappy, install e.g. 'lshw' utility from 'rpmforge' repository.

1. install rpmforge repository (have a look into my sig howto, if need be..)
2. yum --enablerepo=rpmforge install lshw-2.15-1.el6.rf.x86_64
3. lshw > aaa (the output of this commad is quite long, so we put it to file 'aaa'
4. vim aaa (or any other text editor) and look for "network" string there is your HW listed with all cool info



cheers,

This post has been edited by helikaon: Nov 28 2011, 02:34 PM

[Hakka]

I think the wireless card is a Realtek wireless according to information I got about the network. However, I am still unsure how to go about activating it.

[Hakka]

Check that. After preforming those commands on the terminal in Ubuntu (which works for wireless) I came up with the following information.

*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: RT5390 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe
vendor: Ralink corp.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
logical name: wlan0
version: 00
serial: 38:59:f9:69:33:6d
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2800pci driverversion=3.0.0-13-generic firmware=0.34 ip=10.0.1.5 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
resources: irq:17 memory:52000000-5200ffff

I don't know what any of this means, or how I can use this to help me out. I noticed that it says the width is 32 bits. Does this mean I must use a 32 bit version of SL if I am to get it to work?

[helikaon]

QUOTE (Hakka @ Nov 30 2011, 08:48 AM)

Check that.  After preforming those commands on the terminal in Ubuntu (which works for wireless) I came up with the following information. *-network                 description: Wireless interface                 product: RT5390 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe                 vendor: Ralink corp.                 physical id: 0                 bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0                 logical name: wlan0                 version: 00                 serial: 38:59:f9:69:33:6d                 width: 32 bits                 clock: 33MHz                 capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless                 configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2800pci driverversion=3.0.0-13-generic firmware=0.34 ip=10.0.1.5 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn                 resources: irq:17 memory:52000000-5200ffff I don't know what any of this means, or how I can use this to help me out.  I noticed that it says the width is 32 bits.  Does this mean I must use a 32 bit version of SL if I am to get it to work?

Hi,
the chip you have is Ralink ralinktech www

Anyway, you should be able to install it from "elrepo" repository
do:

1. install 'elrepo' repository (read howto treat 3rd party repos, e.g. in my singature link)
yum install elrepo-release.noarch

2. install driver:
yum --enablerepo=elrepo install kmod-rt2860sta.x86_64
yum --enablerepo=elrepo install rt2860-firmware.noarch

This should be all. If it wouldnt work, we'd need to download directly from ralink www and recompile ...



cheers,

This post has been edited by helikaon: Nov 30 2011, 02:55 PM

[Hakka]

Driver still doesn't seem to work. It says it is already installed. I'm not sure how to go about uninstalling it and recompiling it from source.

[helikaon]

Hi,
can be for several reasons. The driver for linux comes divided in 2 parts:
1. driver itself
2. firmware

=> there can be 2 possible errors here - either driver not OK of firmware (or both).

or there can be another things like:
- your wifi is not turned on (some HW switch, in Bios, whatever ...is it working e.g. in windows?) i know stupid Q, but ...
- driver is OK but not loaded try:
"modprobe rt2860sta"
and/or
"lsmod | grep -i rt2860"

- check 'dmesg' for detection of the card
dmesg | grep -i wire


Post here outputs of those commands (first try to load driver, second one tries to list it..)

If this does nothing, we need to check (just paste those commands to command line and post outputs here)

1. ls -al /lib/firmware/rt2860.bin
(to find out if we have firmware in right place)
2. ls -al /lib/modules/2.6.32-71.el6.x86_64/extra/rt2860sta/rt2860sta.ko
3. ls -al /lib/modules/`uname -r`/extra/rt2860sta/rt2860sta.ko
(to find out if we have module compiled against current kernel)

cheers,

[Hakka]

Here are the inputs and outputs I got for the following commands:

modprobe rt2860sta: Nothing happened.

lsmod | grep -i rt2860: rt2860sta 903156 0

dmesg | grep -i wire: Nothing happened.

ls -al /lib/firmware/rt2860.bin: -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 8192 Jan 27 2010 /lib/firmware/rt2860.bin

ls -al /lib/modules/2.6.32-71.el6.x86_64/extra/rt2860sta/rt2860sta.ko: -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1313024 Mar 12 2011 /lib/modules/2.6.32-71.el6.x86_64/extra/rt2860sta/rt2860sta.ko

ls -al /lib/modules/`uname -r`/extra/rt2860sta/rt2860sta.ko: ls: cannot access /lib/modules/2.6.32-131.6.1.el6.x86_64/extra/rt2860sta/rt2860sta.ko: No such file or directory

[helikaon]

QUOTE (Hakka @ Dec 1 2011, 11:17 PM)

Here are the inputs and outputs I got for the following commands:

Ok, i will comment:

CODE

modprobe rt2860sta:  Nothing happened.

this is because you successfully loaded the driver

CODE

lsmod | grep -i rt2860:  rt2860sta             903156  0

this show us the driver is listed as loaded

CODE

dmesg | grep -i wire:  Nothing happened.

probably we look for bad string

CODE

ls -al /lib/firmware/rt2860.bin:  -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 8192 Jan 27  2010 /lib/firmware/rt2860.bin

this show us the firmware is in right place

CODE

ls -al /lib/modules/2.6.32-71.el6.x86_64/extra/rt2860sta/rt2860sta.ko:  -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1313024 Mar 12  2011 /lib/modules/2.6.32-71.el6.x86_64/extra/rt2860sta/rt2860sta.ko ls -al /lib/modules/`uname -r`/extra/rt2860sta/rt2860sta.ko:  ls: cannot access /lib/modules/2.6.32-131.6.1.el6.x86_64/extra/rt2860sta/rt2860sta.ko: No such file or directory[/QUOTE]

this show us that the driver from installed rpm package was compiled against kernel "2.6.32-71.el6.x86_64" and not against your current version which is "2.6.32-131.6.1.el6.x86_64", which is already very old btw (we need to updated it)


Do a few things:

1. update kernel - run (and install all kernel updates ... also, make sure you have all kernel packages installed -like you see below, if not, install it via "yum install ....")

CODE

yum update (1/5): kernel-2.6.32-131.21.1.el6.x86_64.rpm                                                                             |  23 MB     00:45 (2/5): kernel-devel-2.6.32-131.21.1.el6.x86_64.rpm                                                                       | 6.9 MB     00:13 (3/5): kernel-doc-2.6.32-131.21.1.el6.noarch.rpm                                                                         | 8.8 MB     00:16 (4/5): kernel-firmware-2.6.32-131.21.1.el6.noarch.rpm                                                                    | 2.6 MB     00:04 (5/5): kernel-headers-2.6.32-131.21.1.el6.x86_64.rpm

2. after kernel update, reboot laptop (to load newest kernel) and run:

CODE

dmesg | more

and look for any mention of you wireless card, what it says and post

Also, check, if your wifi is working, bear in mind, that the new drivers come with new kernels, so old kernel => no new drivers

3. if wifi doesnt work, load the module by hand (like you already did) with

CODE

lsmod | grep -i rt2860

to check, if driver loaded automatically and if it did not, then load it (and check again with lsmod):

CODE

modprobe rt2860sta

After the module is loaded, do:

CODE

service network restart service NetworkManager restart

and try your wifi, if it works - you should see in the 'network icon' in the systemtray (NM icon) and you should be able to configure wireless networks

cheers,

This post has been edited by helikaon: Dec 2 2011, 05:54 AM

[Hakka]

When I tried to update the kernels it said that they were already the newest versions. I did, however, have to install kernel-doc-2.6.32-131.21.1.el6.noarch.rpm, but that seemed to be the only one missing. After rebooting I tried the command dmesg | more, but yet it yielded no information on the wireless. Loading them by hand and restarting the network didn't do the trick, either.

[helikaon]

Hi,
are you sure about your kernel? And is this kernel loaded?
I'm asking because in your previous post, after running this command:

ls -al /lib/modules/`uname -r`/extra/rt2860sta/rt2860sta.ko
you got this 'answer':
ls: cannot access /lib/modules/2.6.32-131.6.1.el6.x86_64/extra/rt2860sta/rt2860sta.ko: No such file or directory

Note pls, that there is "uname -r" in the command - this returns the version of currently loaded kernel and in your case, it returned "2.6.32-131.6.1.el6.x86_64" which is older kernel, than recent.

I mean for whatever reason, you can have newest kernel installed, but not loaded e.g. because it's statated badly in grub.

Check please, if you really have newest kernel by running "uname -a"
We need to be sure about this thing first, before we do any driver compilation or anything else ..

cheers,

[Hakka]

When I entered uname -r, it returned saying: 2.6.32-131.21.1.el6.x86_64

When I entered uname -a, it returned saying: Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.32-131.21.1.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Nov 22 14:15:09 CST 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I am using grub2 as the bootloader for SL, which came with Ubuntu. Should I install the bootloader that came with SL on the SL parition? (Ubuntu is on /dev/sda1, SL is on /dev/sda2)

[helikaon]

QUOTE (Hakka @ Dec 3 2011, 12:36 AM)

When I entered uname -r, it returned saying:  2.6.32-131.21.1.el6.x86_64 When I entered uname -a, it returned saying:  Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.32-131.21.1.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Nov 22 14:15:09 CST 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux I am using grub2 as the bootloader for SL, which came with Ubuntu.  Should I install the bootloader that came with SL on the SL parition?  (Ubuntu is on /dev/sda1, SL is on /dev/sda2)

Hi hakka,
no, the bootloader is not necessary to change.

Ok, we'll try the stuff, they have for download at the ralink www.

1.
we'll try to download firmware and see:
goto: rt firmware
and download and save it.
you get saved:
RT2860_Firmware_V26.zip
then run:
unzip RT2860_Firmware_V26.zip
cd RT2860_Firmware_V26
cp rt2860.bin /lib/firmware/rt2860.bin
(overwrite)

reboot laptop to see if the firware helped

if not, then

2.
goto:
RT539x PCIe driver
and download and save
2011_0406_RT5390_RT5392_Linux_STA_V2.5.0.3_DPO_GPL.bz2

then run:
tar -xjvf 2011_0406_RT5390_RT5392_Linux_STA_V2.5.0.3_DPO_GPL.bz2
cd 2011_0406_RT5390_RT5392_Linux_STA_V2.5.0.3_DPO
vi ./os/linux/config.mk
in this file look for and set 'HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y' and 'HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y'

make (you'll see lots of text on screen for a while)
make install
modprobe rt5390sta.ko

reboot laptop

This is it, now it has to work

cheers,

[Hakka]

Wireless is working now. Seems that last part did the trick. Thanks!

[helikaon]

QUOTE (Hakka @ Dec 6 2011, 02:58 AM)

Wireless is working now.  Seems that last part did the trick.  Thanks!

Great.
I've been checking the rpm package and noticed, there is not listed the newest 53xx driver. The 53xx (particularly rt5390sta) driver wasn't packaged yet, so we have to recompile manually...

cheers,