Linux Mint 14 Xfce not finding my home wireless network

[mykec]

Hi. I just installed LM 14 Xfce for the first time just to see what it was all about. And I am unable to install the updates because my home wireless network does not appear as an option in the connection manager thingy in my indicator applet. I am going through the motions of installing all 5 versions of Mint 14 alongside a nicely running installation of Mint 11. So far, the Xfce version is the only one that has not been able to detect my wireless network and, thus, give me a connection to the outside world. It connected just fine during installation, obviously. Just not after I've booted into the OS proper.

Any help solving this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[jungle_boy]

Do you installed the wireless card driver?

Open a terminal and:

Code: Select all

inxi -N

Post here the output.

[mykec]

Things had to go quickly over the weekend while I was attempting that installation and, unfortunately, in no longer exists. I never did get it to work. I attempted to install all 6 versions of Mint 14 *and* Ubuntu 12.10 on the same drive just for the sake of experience and to see which one(s) work best for me and my current hardware configuration. I'd grown tired of only using 1 version of Mint and not knowing what the others had and/or didn't have to offer. I also needed to know which ones work best with my aging nVidia GeForce FX 5200 video card. I have a more recent GeForce 210 sitting here in a box beside me but no PCI Express slot on my aging motherboard into which it will fit, so... Until I can afford to replace my motherboard, dot dot dot...

Of all the installations I attempted, Mint 14 Xfce was the only one that didn't automatically find and allow me to connect to my wireless network. I am using one of the few USB wireless adapters I've ever found on the 'net which is designed to "just work" with both Linux and Windows "out-of-the-box", btw. Funny thing, the Xfce *installer* didn't have the same problem the actual OS itself had.

I have since opted for a Linux 14 MATE installation with a stock version of Xfce manually installed along with it via synaptic. No problem with it finding my wireless network that way! Dunno, why Linux 14 Xfce itself couldn't find it like all the others.

[mykec]

Meanwhile, to correctly respond to your response, here's what I have right now under MATE:

Network: Card-1: Ralink RT2500 Wireless 802.11bg driver: rt2500pci
Card-2: ADMtek NC100 Network Everywhere Fast Ethernet 10/100 driver: tulip
Card-3: NVIDIA CK8S Ethernet Controller driver: forcedeth
Card-4: Atheros TP-Link TL-WN821N v2 802.11n [Atheros AR9170] driver: carl9170

I'm not exactly sure why 4 drivers appear to be installed. I'm only aware of my USB wireless adapter and my internal Ethernet adapter for wired connections which is currently not in use. I might also have Ethernet "onboard" but I don't think so. Why would I have a card for that installed if it was already "onboard" too? )

I didn't understand much about PC hardware when I bought this machine in April 2005 and what I do know today is the result of a gradual learning process from having to replace one-part-at-a-time as they've failed me gradually over the years. I'm a software guy who's never cared to know much about hardware except what it's forced me to learn!

[mykec]

Something I've just stumbled upon...

In MATE's "Menu > Preferences > Startup Applications" there is an option for "Network" which has a comment of "Manage your network connections" and reveals "nm-applet" as its command after clicking the "edit" button next to it.

In a terminal, entering "man nm-applet" reveals:

"nm-applet shows a list of available networks and allows you to easily
switch between them. For encrypted networks it will prompt you for the
key/passphrase and you can optionally store them in the gnome-keyring
so you don't have to type them again."

...but no information regarding how to encourage it to "look again" once it's decided to say there aren't any wireless networks available in the area.

[mykec]

In the "SEE ALSO" section at the bottom of the "nm-applet" manpage, I found reference to this:

NM-TOOL(1) NM-TOOL(1)

NAME
nm-tool - utility to report NetworkManager state and devices

SYNOPSIS
nm-tool

DESCRIPTION
The nm-tool utility provides information about NetworkManager, device,
and wireless networks.

SEE ALSO
NetworkManager(8),

[mykec]

Check out "man nmcli" too - and peruse the comman line examples for how to use it.

nmcli – command‐line tool for controlling NetworkManager

EXAMPLES:

nmcli -p con list

lists all connections NetworkManager has.

nmcli dev wifi con "Cafe Hotspot 1" password caffeine name "My cafe"

creates a new connection named "My cafe" and then connects it to
"Cafe Hotspot 1" SSID using "caffeine" password. This is mainly
useful when connecting to "Cafe Hotspot 1" for the first time.
Next time, it is better to use 'nmcli con up id "My cafe"' so
that the existing connection profile can be used and no addi‐
tional is created.

nmcli dev status

shows the status for all devices.

On my machine right now, I get:

$ nmcli dev status
DEVICE TYPE STATE
eth0 802-3-ethernet unavailable
wlan0 802-11-wireless disconnected
eth1 802-3-ethernet unavailable
wlan1 802-11-wireless connected

Which hearkens back to my previous wondering about having 4 drivers...