Trouble with WG111v2 USB Wireless.

["The JUGList Team" <juglist gmail com>]

I have just finished installing openSUSE 11.0 (x86_64) on my new desktop. I have a Netgear WG111v2 USB Wireless card (rtl8187). I have always had a bit of trouble with this on openSUSE. It would never connect if I chose to configure the network with the traditional "ifup", but even when I use the Network Manager, it's pretty hit and miss. Sometimes it connects, sometimes it won't, and when it does, it doesn't usually last very long. On every other Linux flavor, the following series of commands get's me connected to my home network with this card:

# ifconfig wlan0 down
# modprobe rtl8187
# ifconfig wlan0 up
# iwconfig wlan0 essid 'myEssid' key 'myHexWEPKey' enc 'myHexWEPKey'

(if dhcpd was already running):
# rm /var/run/dhcpd-wlan0.pid 
# dhcpd wlan0

This has always worked on every modern distro except openSUSE (Gentoo, Ubuntu, Debian, LFS LiveCD, Fedora, etc). Everything goes fine (iwconfig lists wlan0 as associated with the access point, the correct keys are listed), but the dhcpd command times out, and bingo, no internet. I have also tried various other wifi utilities, such as WFIF-Radar and Wicd. I read something on another thread that suggested installing compat-wireless-kmp from schmolle1980's repo (I threw in rt*-cvs-kmp from there for good measure), but it made no difference.

Here's some dmesg output:

After a failed attempt to connect via KNetworkManager:

wlan0: Initial auth_alg=1
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
wlan0: RX authentication from 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx (alg=1 transaction=2 status=13)
wlan0: AP denied authentication (auth_alg=1 code=13)
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
wlan0: RX authentication from 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx (alg=1 transaction=2 status=13)
wlan0: AP denied authentication (auth_alg=1 code=13)
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
wlan0: RX authentication from 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx (alg=1 transaction=2 status=13)
wlan0: AP denied authentication (auth_alg=1 code=13)
wlan0: authentication with AP 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx timed out

Interestingly, I do not get any dmesg output while trying to manually connect with iwconfig.

After a succesful attempt to connect via KNetworkManager:

wlan0: Initial auth_alg=1                                                        
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
                                    
wlan0: Initial auth_alg=1                                                        
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
                                    
wlan0: RX authentication from 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
 (alg=1 transaction=2 status=13)  
wlan0: AP denied authentication (auth_alg=1 code=13)                             
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:18:01:81:a1:1a                                    
wlan0: RX authentication from 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
 (alg=1 transaction=2 status=13)  
wlan0: AP denied authentication (auth_alg=1 code=13)                             
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:18:01:81:a1:1a                                    
wlan0: RX authentication from 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
 (alg=1 transaction=2 status=13)
wlan0: AP denied authentication (auth_alg=1 code=13)
wlan0: authentication with AP 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
 timed out
wlan0: Initial auth_alg=1
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx

wlan0: RX authentication from 00:18:01:81:a1:1a (alg=1 transaction=2 status=13)
wlan0: AP denied authentication (auth_alg=1 code=13)
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx

wlan0: RX authentication from 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
 (alg=1 transaction=2 status=13)
wlan0: AP denied authentication (auth_alg=1 code=13)
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx

wlan0: RX authentication from 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
 (alg=1 transaction=2 status=13)
wlan0: AP denied authentication (auth_alg=1 code=13)
wlan0: authentication with AP 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
 timed out
wlan0: Initial auth_alg=0
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx

wlan0: Initial auth_alg=0
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx

wlan0: RX authentication from 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
 (alg=0 transaction=2 status=0)
wlan0: authenticated
wlan0: associate with AP 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx

wlan0: authentication frame received from 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
, but not in authenticate state - ignored
wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
 (capab=0x471 status=0 aid=1)
wlan0: associated
wlan0: CTS protection enabled (BSSID=00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
)
wlan0: switched to short barker preamble (BSSID=00:My:He:x:Ke:yx
)
ip6_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team

It appears to be trying several times before it connects.

And after losing the connection:

                                                               
usb 3-3: USB disconnect, address 2                                               
usb 3-3.2: USB disconnect, address 5                                             
usb 3-3.2.1: USB disconnect, address 7                                           
usb 3-3.2.3: USB disconnect, address 8                                           
usb 3-3.4: USB disconnect, address 6                                             
usb 3-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9                  
usb 3-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice                                   
hub 3-3:1.0: USB hub found                                                       
hub 3-3:1.0: 4 ports detected                                                    
usb 3-3: New USB device found, idVendor=0424, idProduct=2504                     
usb 3-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=0                
usb 3-3.2: new full speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 10               
usb 3-3.2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice                                 
hub 3-3.2:1.0: USB hub found                                                     
hub 3-3.2:1.0: 4 ports detected                                                  
 
...
  
usb 3-3.4: Product: NETGEAR WG111v2                                              
usb 3-3.4: Manufacturer: NETGEAR WG111v2                                         

...
                      
usb-storage: device scan complete

And now the KNetworkManager applet says "NetworkManager is not running." It appears that the kernel decided to rescan all my hardware and lost the connection. This is driving me insane! What is the problem?