Robert Parker wrote: > Bob Proulx wrote: > > Robert Parker wrote: > > > But now when I connect to my wirelees access point it gives me a > > > 'connecting' message and finally connects only to immediately drop > > > out and start connecting all over again. > > > > What configuration are you using to connect to it? Are there any > > clues to the problem in /var/log/syslog around the problem? Basically > > unless we see something it isn't going to be possible to help. (And > > unfortunately since you are the one seeing the problem it may not be > > possible for us to guess correctly at the reason anyway.) > > Thanks Bob for your help on this. I'm going to paste your writings into a > file called 'wifihints I think. More important if when you actually figure out what the problems you were having were if you would write back to the list and share what you learned. Then we will all learn from it. :-) > After a fair bit of mucking about I managed to get some syslog content into > a file on my net ready laptop. Did it show any useful clues? > Next trick was to boot with and without the usb dongle installed and direct > the output of lsmod into 2 different files and diff them to show me the > module or modules that I had to restart. That works. Usually there is one main one for a wifi device. Any others are dependent. What modules did you learn were used in you device? Also if you would include the id numbers from lsusb so that we would be able to match up the particular device. For example I am using this one: $ lsusb Bus 001 Device 014: ID 148f:3072 Ralink Technology, Corp. RT3072 Wireless Adapter That uses the rt2800usb module and loads the rt2870.bin firmware. The "148f:3072" is the device id that is used to determine what driver will operate it. At some point there is a table where device ids map to the driver to use for it. If you search the web for the device id it will usually turn up information about the driver pretty quickly. The way you did it by booting with and without will definitely work but is more effort and patience than most of us have available. :-) You can get some useful module information from the modinfo command. For the above rt2800usb: $ modinfo rt2800usb license: GPL firmware: rt2870.bin description: Ralink RT2800 USB Wireless LAN driver. version: 2.3.0 author: http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com ...other useful information... In Debian I can 'apt-file search rt2870.bin' and turn up the firmware-ralink package that contains that file. $ apt-file search rt2870.bin firmware-ralink: /lib/firmware/rt2870.bin apt-file is an additional package that would need to be installed in order to have available. I find it very useful for such things. However the same functionality is available on the web site: http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages Scroll down to "Search the contents of packages" section and type in your query in the form there. Same thing as 'apt-file search'. > The second boot was without the dongle so when I plugged it in to prepare > for another boot the wifi just connected no problem at all. Just to clarify. You booted without. Then you inserted the usb wifi device. Upon insertion everything just worked. And so at this point everything is all good and working? That is great! Even if it came as a surprise. > I take from this that in effect I've really just done a module restart. Pretty much yes. :-) Bob
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