wireless adapter in desktop (NOT laptop) sort of working...

[Ranger6]

I'm a bit of a newbie with Linux and this seems like the correct forum for my topic (hardware maybe?), but if there is a better one, please let me know. Here's what I'm trying to figure out:

I installed MintKDE 17.2 onto an old desktop. At the time of installation, eth0 was the active net connection. I decided to install a spare D-Link DWA-552 wireless adapter I had. Adapter installed and when I check my network icon the "Wired connection 1" (eth0) is listed as active and a bunch of wireless "Available connections" are listed, including my wireless network. When I select "Connect" my wireless network I am prompted for a password (which I assume is the pass-phrase). I enter the pass-phrase but the prompt for a password is displayed again, it never connects. After a short while the window closes and I get two notification messages:

- Connection '[my wireless network]' deactivated, followed by
- No secrets were provided

The DWA-552 (like most desktop wireless adapters) has a light that indicates the adapter is working. This light is not blinking, so it seems to me that an appropriate driver has not been installed. This would also explain why entering the correct pass-phrase isn't working. However, Linux is listing 5 - 12 available wireless connections, so it seems like the adapter is functioning. The ifconfig command displays both eth0 and wlan0, but there are no IPv4 addresses for wlan0. I can enter IPv4 info, but it still never connects. Again, that little activity light is not blinking, so I think the issue is that a DWA-552 driver has not been installed.

I checked the hardware database and there should not be any issues with the DWA-552. What I can't figure out is how to find and install a package that has a DWA-552 driver. Actually, I don't know for sure that I need a driver as the adapter is clearly detecting wireless networks. Anyway, I'm a newbie and I'm confused. I know it's difficult to help with such cryptic information, but does anyone see anything that might help me out? Any ideas will be most welcome and here are the results of mintWifi:

[*linux-desktop edg # sudo /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintWifi/mintWifi.py
-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
-- Qualcomm Atheros AR5416 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5008 802.11(a)bgn] (rev 01)
==> PCI ID = 168c:0023 (rev 01)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=27 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:2c:04:6a:4f
inet addr:192.168.0.188 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::250:2cff:fe04:6a4f/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2984 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:3149 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1741114 (1.7 MB) TX bytes:362861 (362.8 KB)

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:886 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:886 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:89295 (89.2 KB) TX bytes:89295 (89.2 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1c:f0:be:b3:66
inet6 addr: fe80::21c:f0ff:febe:b366/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:226 (226.0 B) TX bytes:310 (310.0 B)

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
RTNETLINK answers: File exists
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
Server: 192.168.0.1
Address: 192.168.0.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: google.com
Address: 216.58.192.46

]

Thanks again!
Ranger6

[Pjotr]

Things to check:
- the adapter should be connected to a USB 2.0 port (or 3), not 1.1
- the SSID should be unhidden (hiding is bad for everything, including security)
- in the router, fix the wireless channel (not on automatic channel selection)
- in the router: set encryption to WPA2 Personal with AES only (no TKIP)
- try a simplified wireless key for testing purposes: only letters and ciphers, no special signs, no spaces
- disable IPv6:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... onnection-
(item 8, right column)

[Ranger6]

Thanks for the suggestions Pjotr. If you're interested, I've commented on each bullet below. The short version is I've decided to skip getting wireless working for now. This is mostly due to the fact that the more I changed and tried different settings, the more unstable and slower my computer became. Now this is an old computer so I'm not expecting screaming performance. Even so, some of the changes brought even this computer to a noticeable crawl. Maybe I'll try wireless again in the future (when I'm a bit more Linux savvy), but for now I'm staying wired. Again tho, thanks for the suggestions.

- the DWA-552 is a PCI card, so USB is not an option here
- SSID was already visible
- wireless channel was already fixed
- encryption was already WPA2 Personal AES only
- simplifying the key is something I should try....it's mostly letters (no spaces) but there are a few special characters
- I disabled IPv6 per the instructions on the link and it was after this that my computer went to a monumental crawl. Reversing the edits I had made got my computer back to "normal".....for this computer, anyway.

One last time - thanks for the help. I might be back when I'm feeling adventurous!!
Ranger6

[Ranger6]

Well, I got adventurous sooner than I thought I would!! I decided to try changing my network key....I was using a few special characters and I feared one of them might be the cause of my inability to connect issue. So I changed the key, removed 2 special characters and made the whole key a bit shorter (fewer total characters), and just for grins I changed the channel as well. After typing in the new key, my linux computer connected to wlan0 immediately. So, apparently one (or both) of the 2 special characters I removed from my network key was (were) the problem. Pretty simple really

There is still something that I can't figure out tho - the activity light on the DWA-552 is not blinking.......at all, and it should be (or so I thought). The light on the exact same adapter in my windows computer blinks about once a second. In fact, my linux computer was a windows computer and the light on this same DWA-552 blinked about once a second when it was windows. Odd that it doesn't blink when running linux. It's not a big deal, but anyone know why this is?

A couple final questions (for now) - does linux give priority to wlan connections over eth? And, does linux treat wlan connections as if they're on a different subnet from eth connections? I ask because my linux computer was connected thru eth0 only until I got wlan0 working. The second I got wlan0 connected, the IP address for my linux computer switched to the wlan0 IP address, even tho both eth0 & wlan0 are connected. In simpler words, the IP was the eth0 IP until wlan0 connected, and then the IP was the wlan0 IP, even tho the eth0 IP is still active. Furthermore, when the IP "switched" to the wlan0 IP, my linux computer could no longer "see" any samba shares that it could see before wlan0 connected. These samba shares were using ethernet IPs which are on the same subnet as the wlan IPs, so there should not have been any issues "seeing" each other. The windows computer had to be switched to wlan and ethernet had to be disabled (on the windows computer) before the linux computer could see these shares again.

So I guess the simpler question would be - can linux wlan connections share with windows ethernet connections? (apologies if this is a question better asked in a different forum)

[Pjotr]

There is still something that I can't figure out tho - the activity light on the DWA-552 is not blinking.......at all, and it should be (or so I thought). The light on the exact same adapter in my windows computer blinks about once a second. In fact, my linux computer was a windows computer and the light on this same DWA-552 blinked about once a second when it was windows. Odd that it doesn't blink when running linux. It's not a big deal, but anyone know why this is?

Good to hear that it works now!

Don't worry about the light. That's simply a matter of how the driver is programmed.