Wifi and keyboard layouts in openSUSE 11.0

I used this guide again for openSUSE and it worked absolutely perfectly.
The only problem I had was that after the first reboot, openSUSE only picked up my neighbours wifi and not mine (which is about 100 times stronger). But after another reboot, we got over that.
As usual, I tried to insert the keyboard layout icon in the upper panel but had some problems. I've detailed everything, and how I solved it, in this post to openSUSE forums.

Resolved slow wireless d/l speed problem

Yes, wireless d/l and u/l speeds are now typically 6400 kbps and 500 kbps and, additionally are a lot more steady. Plus they seem unaffected by cordless phones, phone lines to TVs or microwave ovens.
How did I do it? I just changed the router. So, it seems the previous one may have had a hardware problem.
More detail is provided in the forum thread I started on this yesterday.

Wireless d/l speed only half that of wired.

Although I'm very pleased with the boost in Internet speeds we got this week, I'm very puzzled as to why the wireless d/l rate in all three of our computers which are wirelessly connected.
I posted this to the MacRumor forums and got a lot of replies. As yet, however, the problem remains unresolved.
Nevertheless, There are very many articles, posts and threads on this topic (including this, this and this) but all without an obvious solution for my situation.

Strengthen wireless signal with Al foil

If your router is somewhat distant from your computer and you would like a stronger signal, it may be quite easy to do.
Here's a video that discusses this topic.
However, I fail to see why the extender needs to be parabolic with the antenna at the focus. Certainly, if we were dealing with a receiver then a parabolic reflector with the receiver at the parabolic focus would be essential.
But in this case, all we want to do is to stop a portion of your wifi signals that may be going from your router, through the walls and out of your house, or into a part of your house where you don't need wifi.
Instead we'd prefer that these lost signals are directed to wherever you can use them.
What I did was ridiculously simple. Just an arc of foil placed part-way around the antenna on my router and set to reflect in the direction of my other computer. See the screenshot (yes, that is a large CRT monitor between the router and to where I'm trying to direct my radio signals. Certainly this is not advisable but it has never caused me any problems). Note that this took me less than 2 minutes to make.
So, how did it perform?
Well, I have a MacBook very close to the router (distance about 70 cms) so the signal strength is already quite high. As the signal level varies continuously, I took 15 readings (just type iwconfig in a terminal) with and a further 15 reading without my al-foil arc in place.

Average signal level WITHOUT arc = -13.1 dBm (range -10 to -17)
Average signal level WITH arc = -11.0 dBm (range -10 to -13)

Now I tried it on a Dell E520 desktop that was situated in a room alongside and at a distance of about 4 meters from the router. Here are the results I got with this (average of 35 readings with and 35 readings without the arc):

Average signal level WITHOUT arc = -58.8 dBm (range -51 to -62)
Average signal level WITH arc = -50.6 dBm (range -44 to -56)

Well, it's not bad for something that took two minutes to set up and cost less than €0.05 to make.

Xirrus Wi-Fi Monitor in Hardy

I had mentioned this recently in the other blog and tried it out in Hardy (Mac) today.
While it's big and looks good if you don't mind having this monster covering up a lot of your desktop (of course, as it is a gDesklet gadget, you can toggle it visibility with Shift-F12), I didn't learn anything more from this than I can see on the much more demure NetworkManager icon.
Perhaps it might be a lot more useful if there are many wifi networks to choose from rather than the one I can access.

Finally -- Wireless in openSUSE on MacBook

My MacBook (C2D, 2.16 GHz) has a Atheros Communications Inc. AR5418 802.11abgn Wireless PCI Express Adapter card.
After I installed openSUSE 11.0 last week, I've made several attempts to get wireless working without success. The madwifi version available in Yast2 don't work for me.
I finally got it working using this guide which actually had helped me out with openSUSE 10.2 some time ago. As the guide hasn't been updated I'm going to outline in step-by-step fashion what's required to get wireless working on the MacBook.

First, make absolutely sure there is no other madwifi stuff on your computer (or more accurately on the partitions associated with openSUSE 11.0). For that do this:
1. Search Yast2 for Madwifi and uninstall everything you find.
2. Run this as root in a terminal

find / -name madwifi

and then

find / -name madwifi*

and delete everything that's found.

Now we can start the compile. Run these commands, one at a time, as root in a terminal:

svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk madwifi
wget http://people.freebsd.org/~sam/ath_hal-20080528.tgz
tar -xvzf ath_hal-20080528.tgz
rm -rf ./madwifi/hal/
cp ath_hal-20080528 madwifi/hal -R
cd madwifi/
make clean
make
make install

Assuming there have been no errors, you can now load up the module with

modprobe ath_pci

Now if you run iwconfig (as root), you should get something like this:

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wifi0 no wireless extensions.

ath0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"essid-of-your-ap" Nickname:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.442 GHz Access Point: 0X:0X:CX:2X:BX:0X
Bit Rate:48 Mb/s Tx-Power:14 dBm Sensitivity=1/1
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key: Security mode:restricted
Power Management:off
Link Quality=77/70 Signal level=-19 dBm Noise level=-96 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:2984 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

This means everything is ready for your wireless connection.
So, unplug your ethernet cable and start connecting wirelessly through NetworkManager

Wireless (MacBook) in openSUSE 11.0

Spent a lot of time today trying to get wireless working in openSUSE with, up to now, a complete lck of success.
I installed madwifi from Yast2 but this didn't seem to recognise my card.
Then I tried both madwifi-0.9.4 and madwifi-0.9.3.3 (from here) but neither worked also. Even though "modprobe ath_pci" works without error, "iwconfig" doesn't see any ath0.
Then I remembered having success with this guide for openSUSE 10.3. However, it hasn't been updated. However I tried it although it didn't work there are quite a few options to try yet.
Some errors in the guide are:
1. The svn line should be

svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk madwifi-ng

2. In these two lines

cp ath_hal-20070428 madwifi/hal -R
cd madwifi/

madwifi needs to be changed to madwifi-ng as this is what I'm using.
A useful site here that provides some further madwifi options.

I'll try again tomorrow.

Rebuilding madwifi driver in Hardy and Foresight.

Today I found that wifi wouldn't work on either Ubuntu or Foresight on the MacBook. This may have been due to an upgraded kernel in both cases.
In any event, I had to rebuild the driver for the new kernels.
In fact, in both cases, this went extremely well and only took less than 5 minutes in either case.
Again, I used this guide but in fact only a very small part of it was necessary.
For Ubuntu, I did this:

sudo apt-get install build-essential subversion automake autoconf
sudo svn co http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk madwifi
cd madwifi
sudo make (Yes, I DID have to use Sudo as without it, got permission errors)
sudo make install

and then rebooted with the ethernet cable disconnected and wifi was connected immediately the desktop appeared.
In Foresight, I used the same command lines other than the first one (apt-get not known in Foresight) and again after a reboot wifi was connected quickly.

Madwifi in Mandriva

Today I installed the madwifi wireless driver in Mandriva 2008 Spring and it was very easy with no surprises.
What I did came from this guide (Guide One) but I don't agree that it was well written as the blurb contends. So, I'm just going to outline the exact steps I took to get wifi up and running in Mandriva on m MacBook.
First, make sure Subversion is installed in Mandriva (from repos) and then use su to get into root on the terminal. Let's go:

1.

urpmi kernel-source gcc cvs

2. Change directory to wherever you want to download madwifi (I just use ~) and then

svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk madwifi

3. Then compile the driver

cd madwifi
make clean
make
make install

4. Now load the driver

modprobe ath_pci

and then reboot.
5. Now go to Menu>Tools.System Tools>Configure your Computer and add your root password.
6. In the Mandriva Control Center that opens, select Network & Internet>Set up a new network>wireless
7. You should now see your wireless card listed as an available interface. Select it.
8. Now, if you see your network SSID, select it. However, if this is the first time you probably won't so just add the information asked for (SSID etc)
9. Next I like to select Auto IP and manually select my DNS servers and hostname
10. Finally, I always choose to start wireless connection at boot and allow roaming
11. Finish and it should connect (assuming your ethernet cable is NOT plugged in.

Wireless now working on PCLOS

Finally got wireless working on PCLOS and despite my earlier desperation (thinking that madwifi drivers just don't work in pclos and almost ready to try ndiswrapper) it really wasn't that difficult.
The secret seems to be that Madwifi just won't tolerate any old unused drivers or driver parts left on the filesystem.
I got this idea after reading the ndiswrapper guide which says that every mention of ndiswrapper must be deleted before installing a new driver.
So, I had two madwifi folders on my Desktop. So, entered EACH one in turn and applied the madwifi script from here.
Uninstalled everything I could until only three archived madwifi rpms and one madwifi-unload module were left.
Then downloaded, compiled and installed the svn trunk madwifi from here
After this I ran "modprobe ath_pci" and then iwconfig showed ath0 as one of the network devices. The rest was easy.
However still can't get the wireless to connect at boot. Apparently I'm using NetApplet which seems to be PClos's version of nm-applet. However, it doesn't seem to connect the wireless automatically at boot as nm-applet does.
I tried installing knetworkmanager. This puts an applet in the tray but the tiptool says its not running and no active devices are registered to it.
I'll have to look into this a bit more.

Edit: (25-02-08)
I booted to pclos today but this time typing "modprobe ath_pci" gave me a "command not found" error. Also iwconfig and ifconfig gave the same errors. That sounds to me like the madwifi driver is not working.
So, I went about re-installing it from the same source as I described here. But the "make" was very short and showed some "nothing to do" statements. Don't understand this.
In addition I went to System>Administartion>Configure your computer>Networks&Internet>Reconfigure a Network Interface.
Here I found under the wireless tab, that no essid was present. So I entered "eircom1073 4700" and applied etc.
Then I rebooted and this time the wireless connected at boot.
I'm very surprised at this as it really doesn't seem like I did anything extraordinarily different. Nevertheless, it works fine and I shouldn't complain.

Wireless in PCLOS on MacBook

I thought I was becoming very expert at installing wireless drivers for the Mac atheros card. That is, until today.
I did all the usual things like download the trunk madwifi source from here and then install the driver according to this guide.
Everything seemed to go well in that no error messages were received. But when it came to loading the ath0 module with

modprobe ath_pci

I get a "command not found" error. Similarly with "iwconfig".
I'm puzzled about this.
If I can't get this to work, I might just try a ndiswrapper driver as I'd at least like to have some experience with it.

Pclos is running fine on the MacBook

After much endeavour, I finally got PCLOS working well on the MacBook. The secret was that Pclos calls the External HDD not sda, as most other OSes do, but sdb.
So, I had to change the /boot/grub/menu.lst on the Ubuntu root partition to reflect this.
Also, I found that /etc/fstab on the Pclos root partition was equally all mixed up and I had to make many changes manually.
After this practically verything worked fine. Fusion-icon and AWN were available from the repositories and easy to install. Yakuake too was in the repos. However, I can't get it to run as it keeps crashing. Posted to the Pclos forums about this but no reply.
Haven't yet got wireless working here but can't imagine it should be too difficult.

Linux Mint 4.0 KDE Daryna

OK, today I had intended to try to see if I could encourage Mandriva 2008 to boot from the Seagate ext drive to my MacBook with the only thing I could think of trying was to increase the "sleep" function in mkinitrd from the default 8 to 20 seconds.
Honestly, I'm not at all confident this is going to do the trick. Other than that it might just be that some usb drivers are missing from the kernel. Might look at this soon.

I also tried to see if the dell 9200 would allow me to install WinXP (modified for usb support) to an external drive. However, once again I get the same BSoD I got on the E520.
The Stop: error (0x000007b) seems to be attributable to a number of things but the most likely here is that the usb drivers are missing and the installer sees a HDD it cannot install to.
However, I had though that the ngine hack had got over this but apparently not.The next thing to try might be to try to get the drivers for the Seagate ext drive and pt them on floppy and use F6 during the install to install these.

Anyway, I decided to try Linux Mint -- new version 4.0 Daryna (still in Beta) with KDE.
This is a 1 GB download which I put on DVD. Thereafter, absolutely everything went extremely well.
Installation was very quick (~10 mins) and getting it to boot from the Seagate was totally straightforward -- worked first time.

Compiz-fusion is already installed but its default settings are such that wobbly windows and cube rotation are disabled by default. So you have to go into ccsm to make changes before you see anything.
Also, the fusion-icon is not included but you can get that very easily from here

Madwifi I installed from the Ubuntu MacBook wiki and again this worked first time.

Then I got AWN installed very easily from here.

All-in-all a very pleasant first-time experience with Linux Mint.

Fusion-icon blue cube icon

I had a problem yesterday which meant I had to re-install gutsy on my MacBook. So, although I have a /home, I still lost a few things like, Opera 9.50, madwifi, Compiz-Fusion +Icon, all of the /OS directories in /boot where I store the kernel files for OSes I want to boot from an external drive.
The only one I had any problem with was fusion-icon which I installed from here.
However, amazingly I had exactly the same problem only 2 weeks ago and forgot all about it.
The solution is here.
I got wireless back very easily following this guide although I didn't do any of this stuff:

sudo sed -i~ 's/^exit 0/modprobe ath_pci\nexit 0/' /etc/rc.local
sudo sed -i~ 's/^exit 0/modprobe wlan_scan_sta\nexit 0/' /etc/rc.local
sudo sed -i~ 's/^exit 0/iwpriv ath0 bgscan 0\nexit 0/' /etc/rc.local

although I did some of the usual madwifi command line stuff.
Actually, however, I believe I should just have rebooted without the Ethernet cable plugged in and wireless would have start up by itself.

Mepis still improving

Sunday morning, when I booted to Mepis 7.0, the wireless started all by itself (just asking for kWllaet password). Since then, in about 5-7 reboots, the same thing has always happened so I think we can say that this problem is solved.
However, I still can't figure out why it didn't work like that on Saturday night when I made the changes to /etc/network/interfaces.
Actually, it might be worth while making the same change in /etc/network/interfaces on Sabayon as this one still won't start wireless by itself.
Basically everything going well in M7 with only 2.4GB in / and less than 0.5GB in /home. I'm thinking about putting this on Killians old computer as it's light and should be fast in spite of his very slow PIII 550MHz processor.
The only unresolved problem with Mepis is the fact that if I rotate the CF cube, the whole computer freezes. I haven't got any replies from anybody in a number of postings on this. So it seems it's not a common problem.
All-in-all, there's a lot to like about Mepis.

Wireless in Mepis 7.0

Today I finally got wireless working in Mepis 7.0 and it really wasn't that difficult.
According to Synaptic, Mepis already had madwifi 0.9.3.2 installed but this simply didn't work.
Then I downloaded and compiled 0.9.3.3 but that too didn't work.
Actually at this point i noticed that lspci didn't id the Atheros wireless card correctly and I posted to the mepis forums on this.
All I had to do to rectify this was to type "update pciids" (as root) and that got it right.
Unfortunateley, that didn't fix the problem.
So I downloaded and compiled the svn trunk madwifi and this worked perfectly, first time.
However, kNetworkmanager still wasn't picking up any devices at all so this meant that I had to go through quite a rigmarole in a terminal to get ath0 to connect afetr every boot.
To get the knm-applet to work better I had to take EVERYTHING out of /etc/network/interfaces and just replace this with

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

Now, knetworkmanager sees the devices but i still have to pick the one I want, enter the wallet password and then it connects.
This is exactly what happens in Sabayon which is also kde.
In the Gnome-based OSes, wireless connects directly at boot with no intervention from me.
Nevertheless, this is a major advance.
Actually, I'm very impressed with Mepis and the only problem I have is that I can't rotate the CF cube. Strangely, I can't get anybody to even reply to me on this problem which usually suggests it's not a widspread problem.

Progress on Mepis

Made a lot of progress in getting Mepis 7.0 up to shape today. So, I got CompizFusion-Icon up and running using this post #7 here although it was a bit of a gambiarra.
In particular, I had some problems with some of the dependencies mentioned were not available in the Mepis repos.
Nevertheless, it did work fine but only after I made some changes to /etc/X11/xorg.conf as outlined here for AIGLX compositor and (as I have very often found in Linux) after a reboot.
Also of importance in getting things to work properly was getting fusion-icon to autostart on boot (see here for howto).
Nevertheless, after I had gotten AWN working, then when I started to rotate the cube, the whole computer would freeze and the only way to unfreeze it was to shut it down completely. I don't know why this is happening but will certainly investigate.

AWN is also working well using this (somewhat half-assed) guide. The two avant-window-navigator tarballs I got from this chinese site . Also, the AWN applets don't show up in the AWN-manager because of missing dependencies, but you can get all of the dependencies here. (see debian-based distros including Ubuntu).

Still have to get wireless working so that's the next big challenge.

Wireless in Sabayon

Getting wireless to work on any Linux OS on my MacBook always takes at least a day.
In Sabayon, it worked very quickly (OOTB as they like to say) but I still can't get the bloody wireless to start up on boot.
I have posted on this but was only provided with the Gentoo wiki to check out.
What's surprising is that wireless starts very easily just by clicking on the kNM tray icon and supplying the kWallet password (Incidentally bringing in the kWallet made the wireless turn-on much smoother -- now always starts on first try; before it would almost always fail on the first attempt).
So, I'm not sure what I'm missing here but I had thought that NetworkManager (or the kde version in this case) was supposed to look for wifi networks and connect automatically to the strongest one).
But that's not happening for me.
Nevertheless, I'll be surprised if I don't solve this by end-January.