[gentoo-user] Re: Noob WiFi question (yes-or-no answer will suffice)

[walt]

On 10/02/2014 09:39 PM, J. Roeleveld wrote:
>
> On Thursday, October 02, 2014 10:24:51 PM Alec Ten Harmsel wrote:
>> On 10/02/2014 10:05 PM, walt wrote:
>>> I did some googling and enabled the "appropriate" kernel drivers, then
>>> rebooted and now the output from ifconfig includes this interface:
>>>
>>> wlan0: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
>>>
>>>         ether b8:a3:86:99:a8:d8  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
>>>         RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
>>>         RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
>>>         TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
>>>         TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
>>>
>>> My yes-or-no question:  does the appearance of "wlan0" imply that
>>> my new kernel drivers are the right ones for this particular D-Link
>>> WiFi adapter?
>>
>> It's certainly a great sign, but it may or may not be enough. I'm by no
>> means an expert, but I believe I have to install some extra firmware
>> (b43-firmware) to use on my laptop as it's not in the kernel (unless I'm
>> clueless with kernel config). Without b43-firmware, the interface shows
>> up and is recognized, but can't be used iirc.
>
> In my experience, when it shows in "ifconfig", it is loaded.
> You might want to check the "dmesg" output to see if it is missing firmware
> somewhere.
> Did you try "dhcpcd wlan0" to see if it gets an IP-address?

That doesn't work (yet).  An error message said that /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
was missing, so I copied this example from a man page:

#cat /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf 
ctrl_interface=DIR=/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=wheel

network={
	ssid="myhomewireless"
	scan_ssid=1
	key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
	psk="mypsk"
}

#dhcpcd wlan0
dhcpcd[1415]: version 6.4.7 starting
dhcpcd[1415]: wlan0: adding address fe80::f45c:642e:a392:f47c
dhcpcd[1415]: if_addaddress6: Permission denied
dhcpcd[1423]: wlan0: starting wpa_supplicant
dhcpcd[1415]: wlan0: waiting for carrier
dhcpcd[1415]: timed out
dhcpcd[1415]: allowing 8 seconds for IPv4LL timeout
dhcpcd[1415]: timed out
dhcpcd[1415]: exited

NetworkManager gets wlan0 working normally, but the problem is the
network doesn't come up until I log in and use the NetworkManager
panel applet to enter the psk manually.  Ugh.

So, the hardware works but I need to configure the network properly.
Anyone have an idea how I can get the connection working automatically
during boot?

Thanks.

BTW, this is ifconfig after NetworkManager brings wlan0 up:

wlan0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.1.75  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.1.255
        inet6 fe80::baa3:86ff:fe99:a8d8  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        inet6 2602:306:c4d4:cf40:baa3:86ff:fe99:a8d8  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x0<global>
        ether b8:a3:86:99:a8:d8  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 317  bytes 18320 (17.8 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 82  bytes 38743 (37.8 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0