Intel WiFi Link 1000BGN does not work

[Ezekeel]

Hi,

I tried Microcore on my Thinkpad and I cannot get the Intel WiFi Link 1000BGN working.

I installed the extensions 'wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore.tcz', 'firmware-iwlwifi.tcz' and 'wpa_supplicant.tcz' and the dependencies.

The problem seems to be that the module 'iwlagn' does not include 'iwlwifi-1000.ucode' as firmware shown in 'modinfo' which might caused by the 'iwlwifi-1000.ucode' installed in '/usr/local/lib/firmware' and not '/lib/firmware'. I also tried copying the firmware to '/lib/firmware' and restarting the module with 'modprobe iwlagn', however still 'iwconfig' does not show the wlan adapter and neither does 'ifconfig'. In 'dmesg' the module seems to load just fine without any error.

Any ideas?

[Arslan S.]

it seems to me your problem is not related to firmware if you cannot see your wlan adapter even if you don't have its firmware installed

what is the output of following commands ?

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iwconfig
sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
in the case that firmware is not installed i have :

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tc@box:~$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

dummy0    no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11abgn  Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated  
          Tx-Power=0 dBm  
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          
tc@box:~$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
ifconfig: SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
last line means the firmware is missing

[curaga]

Please provide dmesg output as well.

[Ezekeel]

iwconfig

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lo        no wireless extensions.

dummy0    no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

ifconfig wlan0 up

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ifconfig: SIOCGIFFLAGS: No such device
ifconfig

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eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr C8:0A:A9:25:65:95 
          UP BROADCAST 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:29 Base address:0xa000

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback 
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  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:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)I guess wlan0 should show up here, right?

dmesg

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squashfs: version 4.0 (2009/01/31) Phillip Lougher
Adding 4192924k swap on /dev/sda6.  Priority:-1 extents:1 across:4192924k
r8169: eth0: link down
cfg80211: Using static regulatory domain info
cfg80211: Regulatory domain: US
(start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
(2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (600 mBi, 2700 mBm)
(5170000 KHz - 5190000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (600 mBi, 2300 mBm)
(5190000 KHz - 5210000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (600 mBi, 2300 mBm)
(5210000 KHz - 5230000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (600 mBi, 2300 mBm)
(5230000 KHz - 5330000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (600 mBi, 2300 mBm)
(5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (600 mBi, 3000 mBm)
cfg80211: Calling CRDA for country: US
iwlagn: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link AGN driver for Linux, 1.3.27k
iwlagn: Copyright(c) 2003-2008 Intel Corporation
lspci | grep WiFi

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03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation WiFi Link 100 Series

[Arslan S.]

for more details can you post the results of following commands ?

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dmesg | grep iwland

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lspci -v (Network controller section only)

[Ezekeel]

dmesg | grep iwl

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iwlagn: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link AGN driver for Linux, 1.3.27k
iwlagn: Copyright(c) 2003-2008 Intel Corporation
lspci -v

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03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation WiFi Link 100 Series
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 1315
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11
Memory at f0500000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
Capabilities: [c8] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [d0] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
Capabilities: [e0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number 00-26-c7-ff-ff-17-75-44

[Arslan S.]

for me "sudo lspci -v" returns

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03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection (rev 61)
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 1101
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 32
        Memory at fe1fe000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
        Capabilities: [c8] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [d0] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [e0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number 00-1d-e0-ff-ff-69-e1-d1
        Kernel driver in use: iwlagn
        Kernel modules: iwlagn
comparing with your results shows that iwlagn module is not loaded

can you try force loading iwlagn module please ? and then check the results of previous commands

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sudo modprobe iwlagn

[Ezekeel]

I have always loaded the iwlagn module manually with modprobe so far since it is not loaded automatically at startup. I thought that was normal, since I have not configured anything yet. Is it supposed to be loaded automatically at boot without any manual configuration?

Anyway, starting iwlagn manually does not change anything with lspci -v.


Maybe I did something stupid when setting up the system, so it might help if I tell you that, too.

I made a bootable USB stick with UNetBootIn using the MC .iso. Then I added tce=sdc1/tctce to the kernel boot options (where sdc1 is first and only partition on the USB stick) and also waitusb=10. Then I installed the above mentioned packages with 'ab' and made a backup with 'filetool.sh backup' (in case some config needs to be backed-up). Everything seems to be fine: The '/tctce/optional' directory on the USB stick contains the .tcz extensions and '/tctce' contains a file 'onboot.lst' including an entry for 'firmware-iwlwifi.tcz'.

[Arslan S.]

it should load automatically on boot

you can try your luck with TC 3.0 alpha7

[Ezekeel]

Yeah, good idea. I will try 3.0.

[curaga]

I have always loaded the iwlagn module manually with modprobe so far since it is not loaded automatically at startup. I thought that was normal, since I have not configured anything yet.

You should've mentioned that in the beginning.

Looks like your chip is newer than what is supported in the driver, and yes, try 3.x. If you wish to stay with the stable release, the -mod wireless extension is somewhat newer than what shipped in 2.6.29.

[Ezekeel]

Alright, with 3.0 everything works fine.

I had some problems connecting to my wifi with hidden SSID at first, but running 'iwconfig wlan0 essid myssid' before starting wpa_supplicant solved that problem.

Thanks for all your help.

Now that I have my basic rescue USB-stick working for my laptop, how do switch of the tce directory? The USB-stick is really old and only has 64MB, so I would like to prevent that new packages are also saved to the stick, but rather reloaded every time. EDIT: Found an alternative way. I simply install the extensions manually using tce-load.

But I have a new problem: The article http://wiki.tinycorelinux.com/Adding+a+Desktop+to+MicroCore is outdated and I need to install Xlibs.gz and Xprogs.gz to setup a window manager, however tce-load does seem to work and unzipping them with gzip only gives me some sort of archive which cannot be extracted using neither tar nor ar. How do I install these files?

[^thehatsrule^]

You might want to start a new thread for that, since this one was effectively "solved"