Wireless not connecting...

[Liam Proven]

On Thu, 30 May 2019 at 19:58, Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote:

> Well all of my *past* experience with wireless NICs not working are usually of
> the sort where the O/S does not see the device because it does not have a
> driver that recognizes it.

Yes, same here.

> In this case, there is a driver, rtl8188ee, that sees the device, a Realtex
> RT8188ee.  The device *sees* the AP and displays the SSID.  The AP sees and
> logs connection attempts.

Which is one reason I keep asking about the firmware.

> Note: this is an *older* laptop (6 *years* old).  It is not bleeding edge
> hardware.  Actually the driver in question is actually available on my CentOS
> 6 machine, with a *2.6.32* kernel and is in the 3.13.0 kernel of a Ubuntu
> 14.04 VM I have.  It looks like this is anything other than a bleeding edge
> NIC with a still evolving driver.  I realize, that 99% of "Wireless is not
> working" problems are usually with some newbie with a fresh off the boat from
> China laptop with a NIC that was designed only the day before and the Linux
> kernel people are still scratching their collective heads trying to deduce
> what the designer design looks like.  This is most certainly not the case
> here.

Yes, we're aware of that. OTOH sometimes older drivers get bitrot, or
firmware updates on either end cause problems.

(Which gives me another thought: as well as updating the main board
firmware on the laptop, have you checked that the router's firmware is
current, as well?)

> I will scrounge a USB stick

Really?

You said you just installed the machine in the original thread. How?

>  and download Ubuntu 19.04, but I doubt it
> will make the least difference. (I could also fire up 16.04 or even CentOS
> 6.9 or CentOS 7.5, so see if that makes any difference -- I have the PXE boot
> kernels for these and I think I can fire the up in "rescue" mode and can try
> to fire up the wireless from there.)

*Definitely* worth a try with another distro.

A few years ago I went through this exercise. Just before I got a
contract with SUSE, I thought I should try out openSUSE for the first
time in a few years. I used my then-more-than-decade-old testbed
desktop: Core 2 Extreme, 8GB RAM, nVidia graphics, plus a Tenda USB
wifi stick that was bought by my former startup specifically because
it has native FOSS drivers.

openSUSE: no wifi; unrecognised device. There was a driver on
software.opensuse.org but it's only installable from a openSUSE OS
with an Internet connection. D'oh.
Fedora: no wifi -- non-free firmware required for this device.
Ubuntu: just worked.
PC-BSD: wifi, what wifi?

> The more I look at it, the more I am thinking that the wireless is broken,
> maybe the antenna is disconnected or broken or something like that.

Then it wouldn't see the network at all, I think.

I was using wifi in the test above because I was 10+ metres from the
nearest network port, in another room. I had to run a cable in the
end.

My PowerMac G5 couldn't see the wifi either. I discovered this was
because it needed an external wifi antenna and I did not get one with
it. Replacements were US$75 + shipping.

I straightened out a paperclip and inserted in the central hole in the
antenna socket, and lo, I got 4/5 bars and a fast link.

-- 
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