[Debian-eeepc-devel] Having problems with wifi on Debian EEE

Kevin H kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com
Fri Jan 16 05:52:09 UTC 2009


Hello everyone:

First, I just want to thank those who have contributed to the EEE port of
Debian.  I've never used Debian before, and I've just bought an Asus EEE PC
2G Surf.  I started with the default Xandros desktop and had no problem
getting setup with wifi, but there's very limited software available and if
you added the Debian repositories to the Xandros system there is, according
to the wiki, a good chance of breaking your system pretty badly. Someone on
IRC recommended using the Debian EEE install on my Asus EEE.  So downloaded
the customized installation program that is imaged directly onto my
flashdrive.

The installation went pretty smooth, it would have went a lot smoother if I
would have read more of the documents to learn not to select "Desktop
Environment" during the installation, which kept wiping out my meager 2 GB
disk.  I first tried installing over Wifi but I was having connection
problems until I plugged in an ethernet cable.  But I think this is what
might have caused the problems I'm now having as I can log into Debian just
fine and have internet access with an ethernet cable, but now I can't get
Wifi up and running.  Maybe some drivers weren't installed or some
configuration file wasn't set up properly?

I've already tried the GNOME network manager to no avail, and I've tried
just setting up through the interfaces file as described on the wiki.
Here's my /etc/network/interfaces:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
#auto lo
#iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
#allow-hotplug eth0
#iface eth0 inet dhcp

#allow-hotplug ath0
#iface ath0 inet dhcp

auto ath0
iface ath0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid router linksys
-----

As you can see I've commented out something else I was trying.  I don't
really understand what the commands in this file do, slowly I'll eventually
figure it out.

But here's the result when I try the network restart command (which I found
in a post somewhere on the web).  I piped this to a text file so I can post
it here, but I see the same issue when I boot up:

Reconfiguring network interfaces...There is already a pid file
/var/run/dhclient.ath0.pid with pid 16133
killed old client process, removed PID file
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.1
Copyright 2004-2008 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/

wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
Listening on LPF/ath0/00:15:af:75:a3:7e
Sending on   LPF/ath0/00:15:af:75:a3:7e
Sending on   Socket/fallback
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.1
Copyright 2004-2008 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.

For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/

wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
wifi0: unknown hardware address type 801
Listening on LPF/ath0/00:15:af:75:a3:7e
Sending on   LPF/ath0/00:15:af:75:a3:7e
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPDISCOVER on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 13
DHCPDISCOVER on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
DHCPDISCOVER on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 20
DHCPDISCOVER on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 6
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
done.
-----

I don't know why it's not detecting wifi0, maybe I missed something in my
configurations.  I just went into the BIOS setup and found that WLAN was
disabled.  I enabled it but found it had no effect.  In fact, the menu on
the GNOME network monitor has even less options when I enable it, so I think
that it's supposed to be disabled.

Anyway, can anyone here help set me in the right direction?  I'd love to at
least be able to connect to open wifi hotspots, and then later I'll see if I
can connect to my home/secured network.  I've read the WiFi wiki and if I
missed something there I'm really sorry.  I haven't had a whole lot of
experience with GNU/Linux mainly because I always end up having trouble
getting internet, in one fashion or another, working the way it's supposed
to.  One of the main reasons I bought the Asus EEE was in the assumption
that since it's preinstalled with linux I wouldn't have the driver problems
I've had before.  Anyway, this time I really want to have a working
GNU/Linux OS and Debian is really nice.  I just have the feeling that it's
something simple that I've forgotten or overlooked or simply don't know
about.

Any help would be truly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Kevin
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