topic title: [SOLVED] Lost wireless after dist-upgrade
Posts: 903
plvera
Joined: 11 Oct 2008
#1
Hello:
I did a dist-upgrade (stable repos) with the wireless connection working fine. Dist-upgrade went fine, everthing seemed to work fine. After reboot, wireless is not working, wicd does not detect it, ceni does not see the card and neither does iwconfig from terminal. Mnetwork also does not work.

Tried M8.2-pt1 live cd and wireless worked like a charm. Any ideas on how to fix this? I guess something got deleted from my original (pre-dist-upgrade) system, but I'm not sure how to get it back.

thanks.

Pedro

P.S. Forgot to mention that ethernet works fine (with wcid).
Last edited by plvera on 15 Jul 2009, 00:12, edited 1 time in total.
Posts: 1,520
eriefisher
Joined: 07 Oct 2007
#2
What chip does the system use? Need a little more info then it's broke Pedro.
Posts: 903
plvera
Joined: 11 Oct 2008
#3
Yes, sorry. It's a Broadcom card. It had worked fine from the beginning so I haven't messed with it much.

thanks.
Posts: 1,520
eriefisher
Joined: 07 Oct 2007
#4
Are you using the b43 driver now or the bcm43xx?
anticapitalista
Posts: 5,955
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
#5
You could try deleting the /etc/network/interfaces file and using ceni or wicd to create another one.
(Make a backup just in case you need it)
Posts: 903
plvera
Joined: 11 Oct 2008
#6
Anti:
thanks for the suggestion. I'll try that later on tonight.

Pedro
Posts: 903
plvera
Joined: 11 Oct 2008
#7
I tried Anti's suggestion and that didn't work. Also tried installing a debian kernel and neither wireless nor ethernet worked. Inxi -F showed the cards but had no driver listed.

Back in Mepis Kernel, here's what inxi -F shows:

System: Host mepis1 Kernel 2.6.27-1-mepis-smp i686 (32 bit) Distro antiX-M8 Intifada! 12 February 2009
CPU: Dual core AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile TL-60 (SMP) cache 1024 KB flags (sse3 nx lm svm) bmips 3192.96
Clock Speeds: (1) 800.00 MHz (2) 800.00 MHz
Graphics: Card ATI RS690M [Radeon X1200 Series] X.Org 1.6.1.901 Res: 1440x900@60.0hz
GLX Renderer Mesa DRI R300 20060815 x86/MMX+/3DNow!+/SSE2 NO-TCL GLX Version 1.3 Mesa 7.4.1 Direct Rendering Yes
Audio: Card ATI SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) driver HDA Intel
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.17
Network: Card-1 Broadcom BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n driver b43-pci-bridge
Card-2 Broadcom BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX driver b44 v: 2.0
Disks: HDD Total Size: 250.1GB (5.3% used) 1: /dev/sda SAMSUNG HM250JI 250.1GB
Partition: ID:/ size: 9.7G used: 4.7G (51%) ID:/home size: 219G used: 7.9G (4%) ID:swap-1 size: 1.05GB used: 0.00GB (0%)
Info: Processes 87 Uptime 1 min Memory 89.9/1897.6MB Client Shell inxi 1.0.17

So, at least with this kernel, there appears to be a driver associated with the card. While ethernet does work with this Mepis kernel, wireless does not (wicd or ceni).

Not quite sure what to do next. I did notice that when I did the dist-upgrade last night, there was an update to the Mepis kernel. Don't really know if that's what messed up wireless or not.

thanks.

Pedro
Posts: 1,520
eriefisher
Joined: 07 Oct 2007
#8
Try as root:

Code: Select all

/etc/init.d/networking stop
rmmod b43
modprobe b43
/etc/init.d/networking start
See if you get any errors. Post them if you do.
Posts: 903
plvera
Joined: 11 Oct 2008
#9
Erie:
thanks for the suggestion.

For: rmmod b43, I got:
ERROR: Module b43 does not exist in /proc/modules

then for modprobe b43, I got a WHOLE lot of warnings about all config fiels need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/*(whole bunch of files here).

So, does this mean that I do not have b43?

thanks
eriefisher
Posts: 1,520
eriefisher
Joined: 07 Oct 2007
#10
If all you got back were warnings about config files then it's probably loaded. Try :

Code: Select all

lsmod
to verify b43 is loaded. If it is try:

Code: Select all

dhclient
or try wicd/ceni again.

Those warnings about config file can be ignored for now.
Posts: 903
plvera
Joined: 11 Oct 2008
#11
Thanks, erie.

Not sure what lsmod is supposed to show, but I don't think it's being loaded. Here's the ouput of lsmod. I dont see the broadcom driver. I do see ndiswrapper. Maybe it's a conflict with ndiswrapper?

Module Size Used by
radeon 126240 2
drm 63144 3 radeon
binfmt_misc 9224 1
ppdev 8452 0
parport_pc 24228 0
lp 10116 0
parport 29804 3 ppdev,parport_pc,lp
vboxnetflt 71176 0
vboxdrv 93736 1 vboxnetflt
ipv6 231940 18
powernow_k8 13956 1
cpufreq_userspace 4996 0
cpufreq_conservative 7688 0
cpufreq_stats 5764 0
cpufreq_ondemand 8204 1
freq_table 5248 3 powernow_k8,cpufreq_stats,cpufreq_ondemand
cpufreq_powersave 3584 0
fuse 46236 1
ndiswrapper 158620 0
dm_crypt 13188 0
crypto_blkcipher 15876 1 dm_crypt
snd_hda_intel 336912 0
snd_pcm_oss 34720 0
snd_mixer_oss 14208 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 58756 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_dummy 4484 0
snd_seq_oss 26880 0
snd_seq_midi 7584 0
snd_rawmidi 18592 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 7552 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 41968 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
uvcvideo 47624 0
snd_timer 18440 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 7564 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
compat_ioctl32 3072 1 uvcvideo
snd 42660 9 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
joydev 10304 0
videodev 30208 1 uvcvideo
soundcore 7648 1 snd
rtc_cmos 10400 0
i2c_piix4 9232 0
k8temp 6016 0
v4l1_compat 13956 2 uvcvideo,videodev
usbhid 24832 0
rtc_core 14620 1 rtc_cmos
snd_page_alloc 8584 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
shpchp 27028 0
hid 34560 1 usbhid
i2c_core 19604 1 i2c_piix4
pci_hotplug 24736 1 shpchp
hci_usb 13976 0
rtc_lib 4352 1 rtc_core
bluetooth 48356 1 hci_usb
serio_raw 6660 0
video 18704 0
backlight 5636 1 video
psmouse 34704 0
output 4480 1 video
ac 5120 0
battery 8192 0
wmi 7720 0
button 7952 0
evdev 10144 8
b44 24848 0
sdhci_pci 8576 0
sdhci 15108 1 sdhci_pci
mmc_core 39452 1 sdhci
mii 6016 1 b44
ohci_hcd 21520 0
ssb 34052 1 b44
pcmcia 30380 1 ssb
pcmcia_core 29972 2 ssb,pcmcia
ati_agp 8204 0
thermal 17436 0
processor 34860 2 powernow_k8,thermal
fan 6276 0
thermal_sys 11944 4 video,thermal,processor,fan
dm_mirror 17024 0
dm_log 9988 1 dm_mirror
dm_mod 46280 3 dm_crypt,dm_mirror,dm_log
anticapitalista
Posts: 5,955
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
#12
apt-get install b43-fwcutter (if installed alreadt, remove and reinstall)

then go through the modprobe routine.
Posts: 1,520
eriefisher
Joined: 07 Oct 2007
#13
lsmod shows the loaded drivers. b43 is not on the list so it's not loaded. Make sure it's installed.
Posts: 903
plvera
Joined: 11 Oct 2008
#14
Hello:
I removed b43, and installed it and ran the commands that erie suggested above, and wireless still does not work. I rebooted it and still nothing.

I reinstalled b43, and said it was already installed. I noticed that dhclient does attempt to open eth1 but I'm pretty sure that the wireless is eth0.

Here's my /etc/network/interfaces

# /etc/network/interfaces -- configuration file for ifup(8), ifdown(8)
#
# If you are using the MEPIS Network Assistant
# then DO NOT use this file to define wireless/wpa options
#

#mapping hotplug
#script echo

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface default inet dhcp

iface eth0 inet dhcp

allow-hotplug eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp

Oh, and neither wicd nor ceni see the wireless card (just the eh1 card).

thanks.
Posts: 1,520
eriefisher
Joined: 07 Oct 2007
#15
Can you post /etc/modprobe.d/b43. I want to see if it's trying to load ndis wrapper or the b43 module.