Wireless problems with free software compatible hardware
The story goes something like this. I wanted to move to a completely Free Software distro, and when I tried a Trisquel image on my PC I couldn't get my wireless hardware to work (the problem resulted to be privative firmware dependant hardware), so I bought a card that was supposed to work without any privative firmware, a TL-WN851ND (Qualcomm Atheros AR9227 chipset), but it didn't work either, and even more strange, instead of not being able to even scan networks, as with the previous one, with this one I could scan networks without any problems, but when I tried to connect to them the connection just timed out (and yes, I did check the password).
Right now I'm running Fedora 25 and the card works just fine, but I would really like to move to any 100% Free Software distro, I have already tried with Parabola, GuixSD, Trisquel and Debian (without contrib and non-free repos), but non of them worked.
Any ideas of what the problem could be or how to solve it?
The problem is that your Wifi card isn't compatible with free software (frimware) because the manufacturer decided to only provide a binary blob (propietary, of course) without the source code. Trisquel nor another FSF-endorsed distribution don't provide propietary firmware
If you have money, you can buy a portable Wireless adapter compatible with free software: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-wireless-n-usb-adapter-gnu-linux-tpe-n150usb
The original card was not compatible but the card I'm using now is:
https://h-node.org/wifi/catalogue/en/1/1/undef/undef/undef/undef/wifi-works/undef?search_string=ar9227&submit=Search
And still, while I'm able to scan for networks, when i connect to one, it just times out
I had the same issue with a usb-wifi dongle purchased at Tehnoetic. Tiberiu gave me the helpful advice to log out and in again - not rebooting, log out, then in
Excuse me! I haven't read correctly the card name. Most Qualcomm cards are freedom friendly, with exception of a few models.
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Your card should work. Indeed the very same fact you are able to "scan" for networks means the card works AFAIK. I had this behavior with a card once in Debian and the solution for me was to not write the password when the popup window requesting for it came out but instead add it in network-manager-gnome. Just right click the icon in your tray in the panel, then select "edit connections" - "wifi security", write the psswd there and retry.
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Well, I have just tried to do what you told me to in both Parabola (Mate iso) and Trisquel and it still didn't work,
it continued timing out and sometimes asked again for the password, and I'm pretty sure I typed it correctly because I checked it at least twice. Is it possible that my router it's blocking my computer?, not sure how it could detect my OS, but it's just an idea.
It should work. Maybe there is an issue with NetworkManager.
Yeah, but with three different distros each one with different versions of NetworkManager? And Parabola for example uses wifi-menu which also does not work
I agree if it can scan it should work. Maybe it is on the router side, like WPS enabled? But I don't imagine it cares what OS you are using.
Have you tried rebooting the router to clear it's cache?
We assign IPs manually on my LAN and recently changed the IP of one computer. The router wouldn't let that computer back on the network until we had rebooted the router effectively clearing the cache. I guess one IP for one mac is enforced.
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try also:
sudo service network-manager restart
Just tried out and did not work either. Could there be any differences between the ath9k module of linux and the one that linux-libre has? After all, the only distros not working are those with linux-libre (even when they are supposed to)
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A brief use of searx gave me this command, can you try it and see?
echo 'options ath9k nohwcrypt=1' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/ath9k.conf
reboot the OS and try connecting ag'in
Yeah, sorry for the delay, I tried the command but did not work either
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Sorry to hear that. I ran out the tips on this one :(
Thanks for all your help. At the end I bought a repeater and I now use it as an external antenna so I can connect to Internet using a ethernet cable connected to it. I installed Parabola (I do like trisquel but I prefer to always have the latest packages) and everything is working now