Re: Debian Etch Install

[James Wiggs <wiggs wiggs net>]

On Sun, 2006-05-07 at 02:32 +0200, Michael Biebl wrote:
> James Wiggs wrote:
> >  Folks,
> > 
> >    I've just upgraded my Toshiba 1750 laptop to Debian Etch from a 
> > recent install of Sarge.  I have a D-Link AirPlus XtremeG DWl-G650
> > adapter which I have previously had working fine with the madwifi
> > driver which I installed under Sarge from the www.backports.org
> > repository.  While I eventually got a combination of wpasupplicant
> > and /etc/network/interfaces to the point where I could reliably
> > connect to my home network, I wanted the ability to roam, and more
> > importantly, I wanted a non-technical user to be able to do so.
> > 
> >    I added unstable to my sources.list file, pinned etch at 600 and
> > sid at 550, and did an install of network-manager.  That install
> > seemed to go fine, but NetworkManager absolutely refuses to work on
> > this box.  I get the following error messages when I run it in a
> > terminal window:
> > 
> > -----begin text-----
> > NetworkManager: <information>   starting...
> > NetworkManager: <information>   Updating allowed wireless network lists.
> > NetworkManager: <WARNING>        nm_dbus_get_networks_cb ():
> > nm-dbus-nmi.c:522 (nm_dbus_get_networks_cb): error received:
> > org.freedesktop.NetworkManagerInfo.NoNetworks - There are no wireless
> > networks stored..
> > ------end text------
> > 
> >    If I manually start wpasupplicant with the original configuration,
> > I can still get a connection to the router, a LinkSys WRT54GS that is
> > configured with WPA-PSK for the local network.  But NetworkManager
> > just sits there; the applet icon in the panel has a little red circle
> > and slash, and the hover tooltip says: "No network connection" even
> > when the wireless card is up and working.  The /usr/share/doc README
> > doesn't provide any insight, and I can't find anything relevant with
> > Google.  So, can someone explain what causes this error and what I can
> > do about it?  Or even, has anyone successfully installed it and gotten
> > it working on Debian etch?
> > 
> 
> Install network-manager-gnome, too. This is the graphical frontend for
> network-manager. If you use KDE, network-manager-kde will soon be
> available for sid.
> If you logout and login, nm-applet, a notification applet will be
> started automatically (You can also start it manually if you want). This
> will prompt you for a password if you connect to a wireless network.
> 
> HTH,
> Michael

   Should have mentioned I already had that installed.  Additional
work last night led to one problem being solved, another identified.
The nm-applet was being started automatically when I logged in, and
promptly filling up .xsession-errors with messages about not being
able to "own" the NetworkManagerInfo service.  This led me to the
security files under /etc/dbus-1/system.d, and I discovered that I
needed to be a member of the netdev group in order to be able to get
NetworkManager to work.  Fine, I added all the users on the laptop
to the netdev group.  Now nm-applet starts and shows up in my panel,
but when I attempt to attach to the wireless router in my house, I
get a popup window with a message about "security capabilities that
your card does not have".

   At this point, I went digging for additional information.  It
seems that the madwifi driver I'm using, CVS20060217, does not use
the "standard" API for communicating information about its
capabilities back to wpa_supplicant.  I think this may be the last
issue to be solved.  It appears that I must upgrade to at least
version 0.5.1 of wpa_supplicant, as well as the latest version of
the "new" madwifi driver "madwifi-ng" in order to get this all to
work.  I will report back with success/failure...

regards,
Jim