[SOLVED] Wi-fi Not Connecting

[isadora]

Greetings to all Mageians!

This is my first post and it comes only a couple days after first learning of Mageia when I happened to do a search to find possible derivatives of Mandriva. I'm accustomed to PCLinuxOS which also is based on Mandriva so I am used to Drake tools and would prefer not to be without them. I'm also accustomed to GNOME so I downloaded Mageia with GNOME in 64-bit and have been giving the DVD a whirl in live sessions. I can see GNOME 3 will take some getting used to but it looks very nice. Is there any known problems with connecting by wi-fi? I have a fairly generic ZyDAS wi-fi dongle that has no problem connecting using either of the other 4 or 5 OS' on my PC at the moment. Mageia is seeing the connection and I've entered the encryption key but it just fails to connect. If no one has seen a similar problem, I'll get down to more specific details.

[Edit - I should add that before posting I did a search for anything about wi-fi and found zero posts. Then I noticed there were many in the Networking section but none spelled wi-fi with the hyphen. Still, I see no answer. The fact that I can see my AP as well as others in the area listed in the Network Center confuses me as to why it won't connect.]

Thanks,
azziam

[sander85]

You might have problems with NetworkManager conflicting with Mageia tools. If you are using Gnome then I would suggest you to use NetworkManager. Open MCC and configure your network device to be controlled by NetworkManager. Reboot your system. And then use NM applet from the top right corner to create the connection. Does it work this way?

[azziam]

Well, I have only tried in Live DVD sessions so configuring and rebooting won't work. NM recognizes my wi-fi dongle and it sees the many wi-fi connections that exist in my area and shows signal strength. I enter my passcode for my hotspot and it should connect but fails. In fact, I can select another wide open wi-fi router here and it won't even connect to that. I thought maybe it would work if I just took the leap and installed the OS to a hard drive. Unfortunately it seems it will not install unless I give it the / for my whole system unless I missed something. I tried a few times mounting it under /media or /mount or /mnt but had no luck. I don't care to have my MBR taken over and would really like it if the OS asked if I'd prefer to have it listed in an existing Grub menu.lst. Knoppix does that for example. This is probably a simpler matter for those who demo a lot of distros but for me it can turn into work I don't always have time for.

azziam

[doktor5000]

Bootloader can be changed to be installed in / partition, and not in MBR. Check http://doc.mageia.org/installer/3/en/co ... oader.html
But that is a separate topic, best create a separate thread for that.

[azziam]

Bootloader can be changed to be installed in / partition, and not in MBR. Check http://doc.mageia.org/installer/3/en/co ... oader.html
But that is a separate topic, best create a separate thread for that.

Thanks, I tried going through with the install and I will post to a separate thread.

azziam

[azziam]

I did get installed and found wi-fi will not work on the installed Mageia either. After using my Win7 laptop to burn a new disk I booted from the disk and tried the wi-fi in my laptop. It's a Realtek chip and it is not working for Mageia either. Again, it sees all the local connections and shows signal strengths and stuff but will not connect. If not for successful MD5 match, I'd think I got a corrupt download.

[azziam]

You might have problems with NetworkManager conflicting with Mageia tools. If you are using Gnome then I would suggest you to use NetworkManager. Open MCC and configure your network device to be controlled by NetworkManager. Reboot your system. And then use NM applet from the top right corner to create the connection. Does it work this way?

Sorry it took a while for me to figure out what Network Manager was. I guess I didn't read carefully enough at first. I've done as you described and in MCC checked the box for the device to be controlled by NM. I opened NM then and reconfigured. I've even manually entered ip address, gateway, and MAC address and still get the same failure to connect. I did however try handing control off to the NM using the Live DVD in my laptop again and this time it connected. My desktop, OTOH, acts as though something is interfering.

[Tried the desktop again, went in MCC and deleted any manual entries, selected to have NM control my interface as before, and this time selected No instead of Yes to whether I wanted to start the connection "now". I exited, rebooted, opened NM, clicked on my AP and it connected right away. I'm amazed at how badly I failed to follow instructions while actually thinking I had. It is so similar to network setup I'm used to seeing but slightly different.]