Problems wireless connection on 32-bit linux mint 12

[The silver cord]

Hey guys. I just made the switch the Linux a few days ago and have been really loving it. However, I somehow lost the ability to connect to the wireless internet in my house. I use a Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet card and I am running the 32-bit desktop Gnome Linux Mint 12 Lisa. My computer picks up a few networks, but every time I try and connect to the proper network I get a notification that says "activation failed" or "disconnected-you are now offline". Any help would be really appreciated!

[remoulder]

Please see http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=1085

[The silver cord]

* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
-- Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01)
==> PCI ID = 14e4:4727 (rev 01)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=19 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 3c:4a:92:05:ce:d5
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:41 Base address:0x2000

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:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:40 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:40 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:2888 (2.8 KB) TX bytes:2888 (2.8 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr ac:81:12:30:22:8c
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)

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

[remoulder]

Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n

You are using this wifi chip, not a Realtek. The one you mentioned is your 'cabled' ethernet card.

Can you also post the output of

Code: Select all

lsmod

[AlbertP]

I suppose you installed the "Broadcom STA" driver as offered by the Additional Drivers program?

BCM4313 is from Mint 11 on also somehow supported out-of-the-box, so you don't really need the STA driver unless you have problems with wireless. Sometimes this driver does not even work - this is most common on BCM431x chips.
If you installed the driver, then please uninstall it again, and your wifi will probably be working again.

By the way, if you find the long lsmod output confusing, running inxi -N usually also shows the driver that's currently in use for your Broadcom card. In this output you should of course ignore the Realtek chip which is used for wired internet.

[remoulder]

BCM4313 is from Mint 11 on also somehow supported out-of-the-box

Albert, I believe in 11.10 the kernel loads brcmsamc for this chip, there are several posts about similar problems on the buntu forums. The solution proffered is to blacklist brcmsmac and force the wl driver.

[AlbertP]

In my experience STA is more problematic than brcmsmac. Sometimes using STA instead of brcmsmac solves problems (and also, the STA driver supports more features) but it may also create new problems.

[The silver cord]

Since I could not use my package manager to download the bcm driver, I downloaded this and installed it but to no avail. Did i downloaded the wrong driver? How does one go about uninstalling a program on Linux?

meyer@meyer-HP-G72-Notebook-PC ~ $ lsmod
Module Size Used by
nls_iso8859_1 12617 1
nls_cp437 12751 1
vfat 17308 1
fat 55577 1 vfat
bnep 17923 2
rfcomm 38408 0
bluetooth 148839 10 bnep,rfcomm
joydev 17393 0
parport_pc 32114 0
ppdev 12849 0
binfmt_misc 17292 1
snd_hda_codec_hdmi 31426 1
snd_hda_codec_realtek 254125 1
bcma 19571 0
arc4 12473 2
snd_hda_intel 24262 2
snd_hda_codec 91754 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep 13276 1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm 80468 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
hp_wmi 13652 0
sparse_keymap 13658 1 hp_wmi
snd_seq_midi 13132 0
snd_rawmidi 25241 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 14475 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 51567 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer 28932 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 14172 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
brcmsmac 591864 0
wmi 18744 1 hp_wmi
brcmutil 16885 1 brcmsmac
mac80211 272785 1 brcmsmac
i915 505108 3
snd 55902 14 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
drm_kms_helper 32889 1 i915
cfg80211 172392 2 brcmsmac,mac80211
drm 192226 4 i915,drm_kms_helper
uvcvideo 67271 0
videodev 85626 1 uvcvideo
psmouse 73673 0
i2c_algo_bit 13199 1 i915
mei 36466 0
serio_raw 12990 0
video 18908 1 i915
soundcore 12600 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 14115 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
crc_ccitt 12595 1 brcmsmac
lp 17455 0
parport 40930 3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp
usb_storage 44173 1
uas 17699 0
ahci 21634 2
libahci 25727 1 ahci
r8169 43104 0

[AlbertP]

You can just get the "STA driver" from System Settings>Additional Drivers instead of manually installing the package.

[remoulder]

As AlbertP says, you can just install the correct driver via the Additional Drivers applet, however you may also need to blacklist the existing driver to stop it loading by adding to the end of /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf as root (use gksu gedit in a terminal or Alt+F2 run window)

Code: Select all

blacklist bcma
blacklist brcmsmac

[AlbertP]

@ remoulder: in most cases the driver creates its own blacklist file, blacklisting bcma, ssb, brcmsmac, b43, etc. I'd use manual blacklists only in case it fails to blacklist.

[The silver cord]

I tried to install the driver using the Additional Drivers application, but a message was displayed that read "Sorry, installation of this driver failed. Please have a look at the log file for details: /var/log/jockey.log". I do not know hot to interpret log files and every time I try to post it here, I am told that my "message contains too few characters" (which seems odd since the log file is quite long).

@remoulder: Could you provide me with more detailed instructions on how to blacklist a driver? I am not sure i understand what you posted earlier.

Thanks a bunch for all of your help so far!

[animaguy]

I am having problems, not just connecting to random coffee shop wireless networks, but understanding how to locate and install a driver and ndiswrapper.

I really want to understand the inner workings so that I can do this with other computers.

I have a Dell Inspiron E1405 laptop.

lspci -nn
Ethernet controller [0200] : Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-BO 100Base-TX [14e4:170c] (rev 02)

iwconfig

lo
no wireless extensions.

Eth0
no wireless extensions.

I can provide more info and I can even reinstall Linux Mint 12 from scratch if I have to.

I just want to learn how to get the wifi to work.

Any help would be appreciated.

[AlbertP]

@animaguy: Please open a new topic. This BCM4401 is your wired network, not the wifi.

[animaguy]

I opened a new topic. Thanks for the info about the 4401. That is a piece of information that helps.

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