Re: Problems connecting to open (unsecured) WiFi networks from Ubuntu

[Daniel Gnoutcheff <daniel gnoutcheff name>]

On 07/09/2010 01:17 PM, mike wrote:
> I have no problem with my wireless network at home, or visiting friends,
> but it won't connect to public, open, unsecured WiFi networks, eg
> hotels, trains, ships.
<snip>
> I've run out of things to stab at blindly. Can anyone help in an
> informed way??

My guess would be that this is some kind of bug in the wireless driver,
but it's hard to tell for sure. I know I have an Atheros wireless card
on my laptop, and I seem to remember that the Atheros drivers shipped
with Ubuntu 9.10 also had problems connecting to unsecured networks.
(Fortunately, the drivers in Ubuntu 10.04 work much better.)

I think our best bet is to take a look at the log messages that
NetworkManager puts out. On Ubuntu, these should all end up in
/var/log/syslog.

So try making another attempt to connect to an unsecured network, and
take a look at what shows up in /var/log/syslog.

It would also be helpful to find out what wireless card you're using
(lspci should tell us that), so we can determine if there are any known
bugs in the driver that would cause this.

HTH!

Have a good one,
Daniel