Often, a Linux installation will actually be able to use a particular wireless card, but the GUI tools will not be working correctly. While many of these tools are great when they work, as Linux becomes more like Windows, it runs into similar problems--GUI tools that are broken and hiding what the system is doing.
(By request, I've added a brief section for wired connections at the end of the article.) Often, if it seems that you've correctly installed your wireless drivers, it can be worthwhile to troubleshoot from the command line. I will use Fedora as an example, because it is the distribution I know best. I am not sure how to do all of this in Ubuntu, but hopefully, those who are experienced with Ubuntu will be able to adapt.
This article assumes that you have the proper drivers, or at least think you do, but still cannot get wireless working.
If you don't have the drivers or modules (see below) then the best thing to do is post on the forum for your distribution with a thread title like "Can't get <CARD NAME> working.
Many newcomers post something like, "Wireless help," and wonder why they don't get answers. The reason is that many people most likely to be able to help are quite busy and if they see that, they'll simply ignore it. They will also ignore things like Laptop (Model) wireless, because the majority of laptop manufacturers constantly change hardware. For example, the Asus 1000HE sometimes has an Atheros wireless card, but might also have a Realink card. If you post with something like Asus 1000HE, it might be ignored by someone who doesn't want to bother playing 20 questions. If you don't put your wireless card model in the thread title, you are making it much less likely that someone will consider you worth helping. (See How to ask questions the smart way if this isn't clear to you.)
Both Fedora and Ubuntu use Gnome as their default desktop. (So, you KDE users will also have to modify the information below. At some point or another, I hope to make this more complete, but at present, this is a summary of posts I frequently make on Fedora Forums, so it will be rather Fedora/Gnome centric.)
NetworkManager, sometimes called NetworkMangler, is great when it works. However, it often seems to be broken. So, this article is primarily about taking it out of the picture to see if the card is the problem or if the GUI card manager is the problem.
It runs its own versions of DHCP and WPA, so the first thing to do is take it out of the picture. In Ubuntu, I believe you can disable it in the services configuration GUI, in Fedora, it can be done, as root or with root privilege with (in CentOS-6.x and older)
chkconfig NetworkManager off |
With the new systemd, default from Fedora 17, I think, (maybe 16), one should use the systemd command. (I don't know if the chkconfig ones still work--they did for awhile, to give backwards compatibility.)
systemctl disable NetworkManager.service |
Rather than try to determine what other things it might have started, the easiest thing to do at this point is reboot. As mentioned above, Linux is becoming more like Windows.
After reboot, again become root (unless you've setup sudo), to run the various commands.
Hopefully, you know what card you have and what module it uses. For example, my Acer4720z has the AR5007EG card, seen in lspci as AR242x, and uses the ath5k module. First ensure that the module is listed.
lsmod |grep ath |
This should show you that you have module ath5k. (NOTE: The above is for the Atheros 5007EG card, not for every wireless card. You will have to determine your card and what module should be loaded.)
If I see this, great. If not, insert the module.
modprobe ath5k |
Hopefully, you will be returned to a command prompt. If you get something like FATAL, module not found, then you will have to track down the module for your card, and figure out how to get it working. That is beyond the scope of this article, but as mentioned above, there's a good chance that your distrbution's forums might be able to help.
Next, see if the card is up. The chances are that NetworkManager (henceforth referred to as NM) was controlling it, so it may not be up. Run the command
ifconfig wlan0 |
(That is assuming the card is called wlan0. Sometimes it is called eth1, ath0, etc. Hopefully, you know how your system is naming it.)
You should see something similar to
link encap:Ethernet HWaddr XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX UP BROADCAST RUNNING |
and a lot of other information. You are specifically looking for the word UP. If it doesn't appear, (which is likely if it was being controlled by NM), then activate it with
| ifconfig wlan0 up |
Hopefully, you will simply be returned to a command prompt. If you get something like no such device, again, you will have to ask on your distribution's forums.
Once you have run the command, use ifconfig wlan0 once again to make sure that the word UP appears in the configuration. If not, run the ifconfig wlan0 up again. If it still doesn't show as up after that, there is some other hardware issue, again, beyond the scope of this article.
Nowadays, ifconfig is deprecated in favor of the ip command,. In that case, you can use
ip a |
which will list devices. It will also show if wlan0 or whatever the device name may be is up or down. with state UP or state DOWN in the output.
Now to see if your system can actually use the card. Run the following command.
iwlist wlan0 scan |
It should show a list of networks in your area. If it does, then you are almost certainly in good shape and will be able to get the card to work. (Although not always--sometimes, for whatever reason, a particular distribution will simply not work properly with a particular card. However, in my experience, if you do get results from the above command, you can almost always get the card working if you avoid the GUI tools.)
If you get a message such as interface doesn't support scanning, then there's a good chance there's a hardware switch or hotkey on the machine that is turned off. In most cases, the LEDs indicating that your wireless is on don't work with Linux. As many machines (such as most Acers) don't have a switch with a set on/off position, you may have to press the key or hit the switch a few times to make sure that it is on. For example, the 4720z has a little button above the keyboard. Press it and run the command again. You may have to do it more than once, but hopefully, if you do it a few times, eventually the iwlist line will give you results.
Now that we've determined the card is working and recognized by the system, try to connect. For purposes of this article, we will say your SSID (the name you set on your wireless access point or wireless router) is MYNETWORK. For purposes of testing, if you have it set to be a hidden network, unhide it. (Most Linksys wireless routers hide the network name by default.)
If your network has no encryption, that is, if it is an open network, you should be able to connect to the wireless router with
iwconfig wlan0 essid mynetwork |
There should be some information and eventually, it should show that it is connected. Open another terminal and see if you can get an address for it.
dhclient wlan0 |
You should soon see that it has an address.
(Some distributions use dhcpcd rather than dhclient. Use the command for your distribution.)
If you use wep encryption and have a password of 1234 then the command would be
iwconfig wlan0 essid mynetwork key s:1234 |
The s: indicates that you're using an ASCII string rather than the hex key (which would be a series of letters and numbers, probably separated by hyphens.) Otherwise, the procedure is the same as above.
If using wpa or wpa2, the procedure is slightly different. You don't have to unhide a hidden network to try the following. Again, using an SSID of mynetwork and password of 1234, first run the following command.
wpa_passphrase mynetwork 1234 > wpa.conf |
You should now have a file called wpa.conf that looks like
network={
ssid="mynetwork"
#psk="1234"
psk=ee9a5cd2e36d4056464787fdb24c7b9168fea5d9050711c5fc44cf322569e4e
}
|
If you have a hidden network then add a line above the ssid line so that it reads
network={
scan_ssid=1
ssid="mynetwork"
#psk="1234"
psk=ee9a5cd2e36d4056464787fdb24c7b9168fea5d9050711c5fc44cf322569e4e
}
|
Then try to connect with
wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -cwpa.conf |
The -i is for the card. If your card is eth1 rather than wlan0, use that for the -i portion. The -c refers to the configuration file that you just created.
Again, the hope is that you will see you are connected. If so, then once again, try to get an address with dhclient.
If these tests work, then you know that the trouble isn't with the distribution identifying your card, and that the trouble is more likely to be with its GUI configuration tools.
If that's the case, you can try to fix that. Often, an update will fix what is broken, but not always. The other option is to continue to use command line tools to activate and use your wireless. For RedHat based systems, I have a page on using wpa_supplicant, that has a link to a more detailed page on it. The information, while RH system-centric, should be applicable to most distributions.
If some of these tests fail, then, to repeat myself, the problem is more likely to be with the drivers for the card, and you are most likely to get help by posting on your distribution's forums, remembering to put the card model in the subject line of your post.
chkconfig NetworkManager off |
Reboot and see if you can bring up your card. Fedora is, I believe, planning to change the name from the familar eth0 to something like pci0 or the like, a solution which a slashdot comment called overcomplicated and unnecessary, which, IMNSHO, describes a great many Fedora decisions. However, let us assume for the moment that the card is called eth0. We'll do this in a series of commands, which gives us more of a chance to see if anything's wrong. That is, rather than ifup, which will, in theory bring up the card and give it a dhcp address, we'll separate the steps.
ifconfig up eth0 |
If your card normally gets its address through a DHCP server, now run
dhclient -v eth0 |
The -v is for verbose. (It's not mentioned in the man page, but this is a Linux man page so one doesn't expect it to be done well), and may give you a hint about what, if anything is going wrong.
If you don't use DHCP but give it a static IP address, you can use the ip command, which is supposed to replace ifconfig. I have a page about it, but the syntax is quite simple. It's probably necessary to first bring up eth0 with ifconfig eth0 up. Then, assuming you have a 192.168.1.x network, with a router of 192.168.1.1, and plan to give the machine the address of 192.168.1.20
ip addr add 192.168.1.20/24 dev eth0 ip route add 192.168.1.0/24 dev eth0 ip route add default via 192.168.1.1 |
If you've been using a static address, your /etc/resolv.conf probably already has entries, otherwise, add a DNS server. You can always use opendns. If you need to add an entry, the syntax is
nameserver 208.67.222.222 |
(That entry is for opendns' server.)