Intel Centrino WiMax 6150

[jtombs]

Hi I have a Dell XPS L502x with an internal intel centrino Wireless -N + WiMax 6150 card.
I downloaded the firmware from http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/w ... 034398.htm and put that into my /lib/firmware folder. When I go to select a wireless network it says that the wimax cable is unplugged. It is internal. Also my wireless is working just fine. I know that when I use windows i have to turn off wireless in order to use wimax, is there a way to get that interface in linux mint? when i run rfkill list I get

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0: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
1: i2400m-usb:2-1.5:1.0: WiMAX
	Soft blocked: yes
	Hard blocked: no

Ive tried sudo rfkill unblock 1 and that didnt work.

How can i get this wimax to work on my linux partition? thanks

[PatH57]

Hi,

stupid question but do you have a wimax station (802.16) to accommodate this? (it will enable itself if a receiver if detected)
If you have a standard wifi router it will not work or will be disabled as default.

[jtombs]

I don't personally have a WiMAX station but at school that's one of the primary methods of
getting internet access. I should still be able to turn the WiMAX on even if there isn't a WiMAX signal available.

Also I think regardless of whether or not there was a signal I don't think the WiMAX is working properly as it says that the software is blocked.

[PatH57]

the thing is you have either one or the other (wifi or wimax), if the router allows mixed mode the easiest will be used (wifi).
Set the router to strict wimax and the driver will enable it on your PC (it's software so the driver does manage it), but then be aware that other PCs or devices not wimax compliant will not be able to connect.
You decide.

[jtombs]

Im not so sure that it is a problem with my router... I know that obviously I will not be able to connect to a router that is not wimax. I am talking about when I go to college in a week there is the option to connect to EITHER WiMAX or WIFI. depending on where I am sometimes the wifi is stronger, and some places the wifi is not available and I have to use Wimax. I am not trying to use both at the same time.

My question is pertaining to the installation of the drivers and firmware, and I would like to know why it says that the cable is unplugged. How do I toggle them on my linux computer? When in windows there was software that i could chose which one i wanted to connect to. Is there something like this for linux?

[PatH57]

again it says unplugged because it can't see a wimax router. There is no cable it's an emulation done over 802.11 so once you are in range you will be able to connect to the wimax router and the software will enable the emulation (no need for a physical cable, where would you put it in anyway?)

[JeremyB]

It might be that WiMax is still unsupported in Ubuntu/Linux Mint as I cannot find a way to enable the WiMax on my Intel 6250. I used rfkill to block wifi, then unblock wimax and it didn't work. I even rebooted into Windows 7 and enabled wimax, then booted into Linux Mint and wasn't able to get it to go

Here is some info from dmesg

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dmesg | grep i2400
[   10.922185] i2400m_usb 1-1.6:1.0: WiMAX interface wmx0 (64:d4:da:03:a0:08) ready
[   14.674218] i2400m_usb 1-1.6:1.0: firmware interface version 9.3.2
[   14.682483] usbcore: registered new interface driver i2400m_usb
[  187.400212] i2400m_usb 1-1.6:1.0: 'RF Control' (0x4602) command failed: -84 - invalid state (3)
[  206.236259] i2400m_usb 1-1.6:1.0: 'RF Control' (0x4602) command failed: -84 - invalid state (3)
[  218.082285] i2400m_usb 1-1.6:1.0: 'RF Control' (0x4602) command failed: -84 - invalid state (3)

I am thinking that the command failed message is the result of my rfkill unblock all or unblock wimax commands

And the wimax shouldn't be showing up in the wired part of network manager, I could probably install Ubuntu 14.04 on the laptop with wimax and file a bug report on Ubuntu but it would likely end up being very low priority and there is no wimax nearby as far as I know to even test

[PatH57]

the intel driver is pretty old anyway (2010), not sure how it would work on kernel 3.13
try this

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dmesg | grep 6150

to check what is loaded.
Also wimax uses pppoe so it should be seen as a modem or broadband interface, do you see something like this in network manager? when you right click on it what options are in there?