USB Portable Wifi setup

[Chris Capesius]

Hello.I am a newbie to Linux.  I recently bought a portable USB Wifi device.
I verified it works on my Windows computer.  I also verified my key/password
works too; as I was able to connect to The Internet wirelessly via Windows
with this device.   How do I get my USB Wifi to work via my Fedora 17
laptop?  In the top corner I see my wifi connection name, however my
password/ key does not work when I try to connect in Fedora?   When I got it
to work via Windows it was plug/play, however the driver disk also came with
an .exe file too if needed.  The disk, with drivers, also has a Linux driver
folder, however I'm guessing I can't connect, because I didn't install any
of these Linux drivers.  How do I install the Linux drivers, because I don't
know how to do it without an .exe file?  I have included what the zip file
looks like that was on the driver disk.  Please help.  The simpler the
instructions the better (I'm a newbie) if you think my problem is missing
drivers??.Thanks!..Chris

[Brian Morrison]

On Thu, 28 Jun 2012 08:30:34 -0700
"Chris Capesius"  wrote:
> Hello.I am a newbie to Linux.  I recently bought a portable USB Wifi
> device. I verified it works on my Windows computer.  I also verified
> my key/password works too; as I was able to connect to The Internet
> wirelessly via Windows with this device.   How do I get my USB Wifi
> to work via my Fedora 17 laptop?  In the top corner I see my wifi
> connection name, however my password/ key does not work when I try to
> connect in Fedora?   When I got it to work via Windows it was
> plug/play, however the driver disk also came with an .exe file too if
> needed.  The disk, with drivers, also has a Linux driver folder,
> however I'm guessing I can't connect, because I didn't install any of
> these Linux drivers.  How do I install the Linux drivers, because I
> don't know how to do it without an .exe file?  I have included what
> the zip file looks like that was on the driver disk.  Please help.
> The simpler the instructions the better (I'm a newbie) if you think
> my problem is missing drivers??.Thanks!..Chris

Did you manage to get your Intel built-in wireless hardware working
Chris? You were asking about that a couple of weeks ago and then it all
went quiet.

The device you have uses the RTL8187 chipset, it should not be a
problem to get it working under Fedora 17 with the 3.x kernel series,
but you do need to have the correct driver packages installed so that
udev recognises the hardware and loads the necessary modules when you
insert the device.

[Brian Morrison]

On Thu, 28 Jun 2012 17:05:19 +0100
Brian Morrison  wrote:
> The device you have uses the RTL8187 chipset, it should not be a
> problem to get it working under Fedora 17 with the 3.x kernel series,
> but you do need to have the correct driver packages installed so that
> udev recognises the hardware and loads the necessary modules when you
> insert the device.

You will also need to have the linux-firmware package installed, but I
would expect that to be installed without needing manual intervention.

Look in

/usr/lib/modules/<kernel-version>/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtl818x/rtl8187/

and in

/lib/firmware/rtlwifi

and see what .ko and .bin files are there, these should be loaded
automatically on insertion of the USB WiFi dongle.

[Chris Capesius]

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Brian Morrison
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 9:44 AM
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: USB Portable Wifi setup

On Thu, 28 Jun 2012 17:05:19 +0100
Brian Morrison  wrote:
> The device you have uses the RTL8187 chipset, it should not be a 
> problem to get it working under Fedora 17 with the 3.x kernel series, 
> but you do need to have the correct driver packages installed so that 
> udev recognises the hardware and loads the necessary modules when you 
> insert the device.

You will also need to have the linux-firmware package installed, but I would expect that to be installed without needing manual intervention.

Look in

/usr/lib/modules/<kernel-version>/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtl818x/rtl8187/

and in

/lib/firmware/rtlwifi

and see what .ko and .bin files are there, these should be loaded automatically on insertion of the USB WiFi dongle.

[Chris Capesius]

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Brian Morrison
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 9:05 AM
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: USB Portable Wifi setup

On Thu, 28 Jun 2012 08:30:34 -0700
"Chris Capesius"  wrote:
> Hello.I am a newbie to Linux.  I recently bought a portable USB Wifi 
> device. I verified it works on my Windows computer.  I also verified 
> my key/password works too; as I was able to connect to The Internet
> wirelessly via Windows with this device.   How do I get my USB Wifi
> to work via my Fedora 17 laptop?  In the top corner I see my wifi 
> connection name, however my password/ key does not work when I try to
> connect in Fedora?   When I got it to work via Windows it was
> plug/play, however the driver disk also came with an .exe file too if 
> needed.  The disk, with drivers, also has a Linux driver folder, 
> however I'm guessing I can't connect, because I didn't install any of 
> these Linux drivers.  How do I install the Linux drivers, because I 
> don't know how to do it without an .exe file?  I have included what 
> the zip file looks like that was on the driver disk.  Please help.
> The simpler the instructions the better (I'm a newbie) if you think my 
> problem is missing drivers??.Thanks!..Chris

Did you manage to get your Intel built-in wireless hardware working Chris? You were asking about that a couple of weeks ago and then it all went quiet.

The device you have uses the RTL8187 chipset, it should not be a problem to get it working under Fedora 17 with the 3.x kernel series, but you do need to have the correct driver packages installed so that udev recognises the hardware and loads the necessary modules when you insert the device.

[Brian Morrison]

On Thu, 28 Jun 2012 11:09:18 -0700
"Chris Capesius"  wrote:
> No, I was never able to get the Intel built-in wireless working,
> which is why I gave up and thought a USB Wifi would solve the
> problem, yet here I am again.  I downloaded the driver for the Intel,
> but it wouldn't open, because I didn't have the software for it to
> read the driver to open it.  In Windows you download the driver and
> open it and it works..Linux (for me anyway)..not so easy

Having looked at your previous description of the yum update command not
being able to identify the Fedora repository I think you either have a
major problem with your installation or you are trying to perform these
updates when you are not the root user and are thus unprivileged. You
won't be able to install packages unless are root, and any package you
download which is something.rpm needs to be installed using rpm or
using yum. Naturally you need internet connectivity to do this

Can you tell us what the contents of the .repo files in /etc/yum.repos.d
are? In particular the fedora.repo and fedora-updates.repo files.

The error you were seeing with the missing metalink can happen if yum
cannot connect to any mirrors, you may need to comment out the mirrors
line and uncomment the baseurl lines.

And can you run:

rpm -qa | grep release

and provide the output.

This is fixable, but you need to get to the point where the updating
process will work or you will be unable to get the packages you need
installed.

[Chris Capesius]

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Brian Morrison
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 11:51 AM
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: USB Portable Wifi setup

On Thu, 28 Jun 2012 11:09:18 -0700
"Chris Capesius"  wrote:
> No, I was never able to get the Intel built-in wireless working, which 
> is why I gave up and thought a USB Wifi would solve the problem, yet 
> here I am again.  I downloaded the driver for the Intel, but it 
> wouldn't open, because I didn't have the software for it to read the 
> driver to open it.  In Windows you download the driver and open it and 
> it works..Linux (for me anyway)..not so easy

Having looked at your previous description of the yum update command not being able to identify the Fedora repository I think you either have a major problem with your installation or you are trying to perform these updates when you are not the root user and are thus unprivileged. You won't be able to install packages unless are root, and any package you download which is something.rpm needs to be installed using rpm or using yum. Naturally you need internet connectivity to do this

Can you tell us what the contents of the .repo files in /etc/yum.repos.d are? In particular the fedora.repo and fedora-updates.repo files.

The error you were seeing with the missing metalink can happen if yum cannot connect to any mirrors, you may need to comment out the mirrors line and uncomment the baseurl lines.

And can you run:

rpm -qa | grep release

and provide the output.

This is fixable, but you need to get to the point where the updating process will work or you will be unable to get the packages you need installed.

[Brian Morrison]

On Thu, 28 Jun 2012 13:19:42 -0700
"Chris Capesius"  wrote:
> Here are my results:
>
> /usr/lib/modules/3.3.4-5fc17.x86-64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtl818x/rtl8187/
>
> Output: 
> rtl8187.ko
>
> /lib/firmware/rtlwifi
>
> Output:
> rtl8192cfw.bin rtl8192cufw.bin rtl8192defw.bin rtl8192sefw.bin rtl8712u.bin
>
> /etc/yum.repos.d
>
> Output:
> Fedora.repo
> Fedora-updates.repo
> Fedora-updates-testing.repo
>
> rpm -qa | grep release
>
> Output: fedora-release-notes-17.0.1-1.fe17.noarch
> Fedora-release-17-1.noarch

Right, well both of those look OK.

I suspect that you don't have any network access when you try the yum
check-update step as root, if this is the case then there is no way of
getting the updates.

Do you have the ability to plug in a network cable and use a wired
connection? If you do then I believe that you should be OK once the
3.4.x kernels are installed, and you repeat the installation of the
iwl2030 firmware from the updates-testing repository.

[Chris Capesius]

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Brian Morrison
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 5:12 PM
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: USB Portable Wifi setup

On Thu, 28 Jun 2012 13:19:42 -0700
"Chris Capesius"  wrote:
> Here are my results:
>
> /usr/lib/modules/3.3.4-5fc17.x86-64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtl818
> x/rtl8187/
>
> Output: 
> rtl8187.ko
>
> /lib/firmware/rtlwifi
>
> Output:
> rtl8192cfw.bin rtl8192cufw.bin rtl8192defw.bin rtl8192sefw.bin 
> rtl8712u.bin
>
> /etc/yum.repos.d
>
> Output:
> Fedora.repo
> Fedora-updates.repo
> Fedora-updates-testing.repo
>
> rpm -qa | grep release
>
> Output: fedora-release-notes-17.0.1-1.fe17.noarch
> Fedora-release-17-1.noarch

Right, well both of those look OK.

I suspect that you don't have any network access when you try the yum check-update step as root, if this is the case then there is no way of getting the updates.

Do you have the ability to plug in a network cable and use a wired connection? If you do then I believe that you should be OK once the 3.4.x kernels are installed, and you repeat the installation of the
iwl2030 firmware from the updates-testing repository.