How to get usb wifi card auto load

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thtstalker
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Iscritto: 08/08/2013

I have problem with Trisquel 6.0. My usb wifi card wlan0

Bus 002 Device 005: ID 0bda:8189 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B Wireless 802.11g 54Mbps Network Adapter

don't run automatically during boot. Sometimes I must plug it out and in to make it run. Please help me.

Legimet
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Iscritto: 12/10/2013

Post the output of dmesg (in an attachment)

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

There is no free firmware for that Wifi chipset. You should acquire another card... and that is close to impossible to know the chipset you get before trying the card. Besides second-hand cards (with an owner giving the info), the only way I know is to buy from ThinkPenguin, the only seller that guarantees that all its hardware is compatible with Linux-libre (hence with the 100% free GNU/Linux distributions such as Trisquel): http://libre.thinkpenguin.com

Notice that by using the link I gave you 25% of the benefits on your purchase will be donated o the Trisquel project. :-)

Legimet
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Iscritto: 12/10/2013

Actually, that chipset doesn't require any firmware, from what I've read.

Chris

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Iscritto: 04/23/2011

Your correct in that there isn't any non-free firmware required for that chipset. Even when a particular chipset is supported it does not mean that all wifi adapters with that chipset are supported. Not all RTL8187X adapters will necessarily work or work well. I know there are a number of different adapters on the market which I would not recommend for one reason or another even though they have free software friendly chipsets.

That said if this is a laptop you might want to check if it has an on/off switch. Sometimes this is also an issue an its unrelated to the card itself- so your card may in fact work after all (either on the system you have or another). Sometimes nothing will work on the system if the switch is permanently in an off state and can't be turned on. Special drivers are needed for the machine in that case and those almost certainly don't exist or they'd have been included in the kernel already.

In any event there is usually an FN key you can try (find your FN key and then find the little wifi symbol on one of the F1-F12 keys). There are also commands you can try running. Ultimately the best thing to do is a buy a laptop / desktop with free software support from the start. If you don't at least avoid the models with digital restrictions of the mini pcie card slot so you can swap out the wifi card. Dell, HP, Toshiba, Lenovo/IBM, Sony, and Apple at a minimum should be avoided.

Try this guide to see if it'll fix your problem:

https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-mini-pcie-and-half-height-cards

* Note: I haven't been watching the forums. Too much work to do, but if you want to respond to me specifically feel free to send a message. Just click my user name to make contact by email.

Magic Banana

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Iscritto: 07/24/2010

My bad. I thought Wifi cards that do not require firmware were something of the past and I knew Realtek's firmware are nonfree (even if their drivers are distributed under the GNU GPL: sad).

Chris

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Iscritto: 04/23/2011

Yea- your correct, but keep in mind the RTL8187B chipset is extremely old at this point. It hasn't been readily available on the market in years. We're [ThinkPenguin] probably the only place you can still readily find a USB adapter with it. There is nothing wrong with the chipset. In fact it's a great chipset. The main problem with it is its not got all the features AR9271 or AR7010+AR280 have (ie no master mode support, etc). But for most people that doesn't matter and since it works great with free software and isn't dependent on any non-free blobs it's the best supported adapter on the market. And most people still don't have an internet connection that'll even be able to take advantage of the speed. If I'm not mistaken most people are still on a measly 3-8mbps connection in the United States and the top speeds (readily available) are close to 25mbps. Still significant less than what a good G adapter can handle (provided your not too far away and other issues aren't factoring in). It may be an issue shortly mind you... in some places. ***** Fiber is being deployed in a handful of areas and another major ISP has deployed it as well in some areas. I think the places you would be more likely to find that the adapter is the bottleneck are more in Europe, Japan, Korea, and similar. Still- I know there are lots of places in Europe that aren't getting anywhere near 100mbps and much closer to what the US is getting.

thtstalker
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Iscritto: 08/08/2013

Here you have dmesg content taken while my card no load automatically (norun.txt). It's strange, one time it run during boot, one time not. run.txt is taken while card loaded automatically.

AllegatoDimensione
norun.txt 66.13 KB
run.txt 66.58 KB
Chris

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Iscritto: 04/23/2011

Your computer's wifi switch isn't working right or is at least in the off position by default (or similar):

rtl8187: wireless switch is off

You need to follow the directions I linked to in order to see if you can get it to work again. Otherwise you're in need of a system that works properly with GNU/Linux and free software.