Bug 175666

Please be more verbose. What does that mean? What does happen if you try to configure the card with YaST? Are you using NetworkManager or tradtional networking? What does `hwinfo --wlan' output?

hwinfo --wlan produces a null output.

On reloading Suse 10.01
System Analysis (Expert) detects the card as an Ethernet Conroller not a wirelss card

Network interface 
did not detect the wireless card even though switched on 
Internet Connection Test log showed failure Interface wlan0 is not available

Manual configuration at the Network Connection screen (during the initial set up) does not detect the Wireless Card.

Please have a look at the release notes regarding atheros cards...

The madwifi driver was removed, but I don't see a reason why the card should not at least be detected then. John, what does `hwinfo --network' output?

*** Bug 175532 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Created attachment 83899 [details]
output from hwinfo --network

Not much here!

The comment to read the release notes in most unhelpful.  Network Configuration occurs before the release notes are displayed!  Spending a frustrating 2 hours trying to mend a broken install (when it worked in a previous version) it is no comfort to be told to RTFM when its not available.

After installation where are the release notes stored?

Because I cannot connect to the Internet from SUSE this comment is being sent from Windows!

(In reply to comment #7)
> The comment to read the release notes in most unhelpful.  Network Configuration
> occurs before the release notes are displayed!

You can also view them in the proposal (installation summary) screen, there's a button in the left-bottom corner.

> After installation where are the release notes stored?

/usr/share/doc/release-notes/
 
BTW: Maybe you want to read http://en.opensuse.org/Atheros_madwifi ;-)

Noted the button on reloading the software, thank you.  Have read the madwifi pages and I will try to update and install the new driver onto the system.

Martin, we are getting quite some reports about this. I think we should rather output some message that states the fact that the driver is no longer shipped but not only ignore the device, this confuses users as it worked before.

A thought which may help things.  What if we put a message along the lines of, "SuSE linux has detected that you have some hardware that the manufacturers refuse to make software available for Linux.  Please click here for a list of that hardware and also see this page for a current supported hardware list."  That way we're educating people trying this out that there is a problem, top check the list before buying hardware and probably helping to push the OSS way.  Just a thought.

A thought which may help things.  What if we put a message along the lines of, "SuSE linux has detected that you have some hardware whereby the manufacturers of that hardware refuse to make it properly compatible with Linux.  Please click here for a list of that hardware and also see this page for a current supported hardware list and possible workarounds."  That way we're educating people trying this out that there is a problem, to check the compatibilty list before buying hardware, educating about which brands are supporting OSS and probably helping to push those manufacturers the OSS way as well.  Just a thought.

Sorry, got a 'Mid Air Collision' on comment 11 during changes.  Comment 12 is the correct one.

Reassigning to the new maintainer of yast2-network.

Qentin: I don't know how from hwinfo can I parse information, that this is such case ;-(

Jiri, can you help here?
How to detect whether atheros device is network card or wireless?
Do you know about any plans to solve that (new wifi stack)?

When a driver for the device is not included, there is no way to obtain information whether the device is Ethernet or wireless one from the kernel. That's not a limitation of the wireless stack nor kernel. The problem is there is no PCI class for wireless controllers (in fact, it is, but nobody seems to use it, wireless devices identify themselves as Ethernet controllers or generic network controllers).

You would need to have a custom PCI ids database in YaST to solve this.

>> You would need to have a custom PCI ids database in YaST to solve this.

Steffen, what about have this database in hwinfo? I would suppress situation when hwinfo says netcard and YaST says no, it's wlan

A separate database doesn't really work out.

Currently (as of 10.3) it is the responsibility of the kmp package
to provide modalias entries via spec file, like, eg:

# rpm -qp --supplements madwifi-kmp-default.rpm
modalias(kernel-default:pci:v000010B7d00000013sv*sd*bc*sc*i*)  
modalias(kernel-default:pci:v0000168Cd00000007sv*sd*bc*sc*i*)  
modalias(kernel-default:pci:v0000168Cd0000001[2356789ABCD]sv*sd*bc*sc*i*)  
modalias(kernel-default:pci:v0000168Cd0000101[4A]sv*sd*bc*sc*i*)  
modalias(kernel-default:pci:v0000168Cd00009013sv*sd*bc*sc*i*)  
modalias(kernel-default:pci:v0000A727d00000013sv*sd*bc*sc*i*)  

Then the package gets automatically installed and hwinfo detects the card
correctly.

kernel maintainers: according comment #19 - can you handle this?

How shall we move forward with this bug for 10.3?

Hi John, can you test openSUSE 10.3 with madwifi-kmp-default.rpm package?

Yes, when the stable release becomes available.  I have updated the Atheros Wireless Card to B/G capability rather than a/b.

Ok

John, when you'll testing this, please attach "hwinfo --netcard"

Dear Michal

The updated Atheros wificard works perfectly.  Before installing the drive YAST recognises a network card but it did not report it correctly (sorry I didn't record the output).

If you are looking for the wireless software it takes a few minutes to navigate the SUSE site, and the instructions are not totally idiot proof, particularly to ensure you install the correct version, (default, zen, etc)

Thank for the help.