[SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

schmattka · 2023-08-09 01:10

Hi, I recently installed Q4OS Aquarius 32bit running the Trinity desktop environment on my Dell Inspiron 1300 (very old, I know) alongside Windows XP. So far, everything runs like a charm and I really like the look and feel of the whole OS. Just as the title says, I'm having some trouble connecting the laptop to wireless networks.

So far, I've tried connecting to the following devices:

- Mikrotik RB951G-2HnD RouterBoard (my main router)
- D-Link DIR-605L router
- TP-Link TL-WR841N
- My NokiaG20 phone running Android 13's Wi-FI Hotspot with WPA2 Personal encryption
- Same phone's Wi-Fi Hotspot, but WITHOUT encryption
- Same phone's USB tethering Hotspot

Note that connecting to any and all of the mentioned devices in Windows XP was no trouble, although I have not attempted with other Linux distributions (mostly because there's barely anything that supports a live system on a 32-bit machine). I experimented a bit and some devices yielded different results. For further reference, my WLAN controller is a Broadcom BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g

First, let's start with the RouterBoard and my phone's wireless Hotspot with WPA2 as those two behaved more or less the same. I would open the "Edit connections" on the TDE Network Manager, add a new connection, select the network, input the correct password and then click "Connect and save". After ~10 seconds an error message next to the Connections menu on the panel appears, saying that the connection attempt failed and that "Secrets were required to establish a connection, but no secrets were available". I tried to connect via nmtui in the terminal, but instead of an error message, the program kept repeatedly asking for the password, just as if the one I input was wrong.

I then realized the "secrets" were referring to the network's password encryption. In an attempt to determine the issue, I disabled the WPA2 Personal security on my phone's Hotspot, which resulted in a successful connection to the network - if you can call less than 1 KB/s successful. The exact same occurred when connecting to the D-Link and TP-Link routers - the difference being both of the routers HAD THEIR WPA2 ENCRYPTION ON - no missing secrets this time. The speed between the laptop and the phone/routers was greatly diminished, leading to websites simply timing out.

The only success I had was with the phone's USB tethering. The phone connects to the RouterBoard's Wi-Fi and creates a sort of NAT, which the laptop stays behind. Still, there are some problems with this method, but I suspect they are caused by or related to the computer's old USB controller. Those problems being the "IP configuration unavailable" error which appears after the laptop is closed and opened, repeating until I reconnect the USB and the decreased network speed (from ~40Mbps up/down to ~15).

TL;DR
- Attempting to connect to Mikrotik RouterBoard and phone Hotspot with WPA2 gives "no secrets available" error
- Connection to D-Link and TP-Link router with WPA2 is successful, but unusably slow
- Phone's USB tethering fails after suspending, gives "IP configuration unavailable" error, needs reconnection to fix

Last edited by schmattka (2023-08-15 11:35)

Rademes · 2023-08-10 16:30

Connect your notebook to the Internet using Ethernet cable, then install Network Manager from Q4OS Software Centre. The default TDE network manager works really badly with WiFi network.
Also please read these topics:
https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3699
https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4590

Last edited by Rademes (2023-08-10 18:18)

schmattka · 2023-08-10 17:45

Installed it, rebooted the machine - instead of "no secrets were available" it just keeps asking for a password after I write the correct one and hit "Connect". Uninstalled the TDE Network Manager from the Synaptic Package Manager, rebooted again - no effect.

Last edited by schmattka (2023-08-10 17:46)

Rademes · 2023-08-10 18:24

You do not need to uninstall TDE Network manager after installing Q4OS Network manager. TDE Network Manager will became inactive automatically. Anyway, if it still does not working properly, I can only advice you to perform complete OS re-installation. Then, after clean OS installation, install Network manager from Q4OS Software Centre and try again to connect to your WiFi network. Maybe other forum members could help you more. I am not an expert with Linux networks.

Riccardo62 · 2023-08-11 13:49

Rademes wrote:

You do not need to uninstall TDE Network manager after installing Q4OS Network manager. TDE Network Manager will became inactive automatically. Anyway, if it still does not working properly, I can only advice you to perform complete OS re-installation. Then, after clean OS installation, install Network manager from Q4OS Software Centre and try again to connect to your WiFi network. Maybe other forum members could help you more. I am not an expert with Linux networks.

If you are using an old WiFi USB stick, change it, it may be faulty.
On Amazon you can find them for 9 Euros...
Search "Yizhet USB Network Card Adapter" on Amazon.
Also install Network Manager.

schmattka · 2023-08-11 18:02

If you are using an old WiFi USB stick, change it, it may be faulty.
On Amazon you can find them for 9 Euros...
Search "Yizhet USB Network Card Adapter" on Amazon.
Also install Network Manager.

I'm using the built-in WLAN adapter, model is written in my post. Also it works fine in Windows XP so I don't think that's the source of the problem.

Rademes · 2023-08-11 18:39

Please run in Terminal command inxi -Fx and post the output here. I need to know, which driver the OS is using for your WiFi Adapter.
Also, next time, before asking for help please read this topic: https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3502

Last edited by Rademes (2023-08-11 18:40)

schmattka · 2023-08-11 19:33

Here's the output to inxi -Fx:

System:
Host: q4os-desktop Kernel: 6.1.0-10-686-pae arch: i686 bits: 32
compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0 Desktop: Trinity v: R14.1.1 Distro: Q4OS 5.2.1-n1
base: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Machine:
Type: Portable System: Dell product: ME051 v: N/A
serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: Dell model: 0RJ272 serial: <superuser required> BIOS: Dell v: A10
date: 11/07/2006
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 0% condition: 1.4/31.0 Wh (4.6%) volts: 8.2 min: 14.4
model: Panasonic DELL XD1856 status: not charging
CPU:
Info: single core model: Intel Pentium M bits: 32 arch: M Dothan rev: 8
cache: 2 MiB note: check
Speed (MHz): 600 min/max: 600/1700 core: 1: 600 bogomips: 3391
Flags: nx pae sse sse2
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics vendor: Dell
driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-3 bus-ID: 00:02.0
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 driver: X: loaded: intel
unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa dri: i915 gpu: i915
resolution: 1280x800~61Hz
API: OpenGL v: 2.1 Mesa 22.3.6 renderer: i915 (: 915GM) direct-render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: Intel 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW High Definition Audio vendor: Dell
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-10-686-pae status: kernel-api
Server-1: PulseAudio v: 16.1 status: active
Network:
Device-1: Broadcom BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX vendor: Dell driver: b44 v: kernel
port: N/A bus-ID: 02:00.0
Device-2: Broadcom BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN
vendor: Dell driver: b43-pci-bridge v: N/A bus-ID: 02:03.0
IF-ID-1: enx520dde7c28b3 state: unknown speed: -1 duplex: half
mac: 52:0d:de:7c:28:b3
IF-ID-2: eth0 state: down mac: 00:15:c5:6b:ff:74
IF-ID-3: wlan0 state: down mac: 00:16:cf:55:b2:40
Bluetooth:
Device-1: MediaTek Nokia G20 type: USB driver: rndis_host v: kernel
bus-ID: 1-5:3
Report: This feature requires one of these tools: hciconfig/bt-adapter
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 74.53 GiB used: 6.09 GiB (8.2%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: MP0804H size: 74.53 GiB
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 8.81 GiB used: 6.09 GiB (69.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 976 MiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/sda6
Sensors:
Src: lm-sensors+/sys Message: No sensor data found using /sys/class/hwmon
or lm-sensors.
Info:
Processes: 137 Uptime: 12m Memory: 1.96 GiB used: 992.5 MiB (49.5%)
Init: systemd target: graphical (5) Compilers: N/A Packages: 1270
Shell: Bash v: 5.2.15 inxi: 3.3.26

q4osteam · 2023-08-11 19:49

Trinity desktop:
Right click on the network manager icon in system tray > edit connections > select wireless connection > click edit connection button > go through all steps of the guide and enter proper values > confirm Ok
The Trinity network manager applet is just a frontend to the Debian network manager. We didn't notice issues with it, however some users report issues. We are not sure about a nature of these issues, so we keep it as a default.

You could also try to bypass TDE network manager and use lower level utility "nmtui", what is desktop environment independent. Just run in terminal as a user:
$ nmtui
and setup your wifi. You even don't need to login to any desktop environment, just run nmtui from console.

Rademes · 2023-08-11 21:28

These topics may help you:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/339097/ … ot-connect
https://askubuntu.com/questions/55868/i … ss-drivers
Important! Please install Timeshift from Q4OS Software Centre and make full system backup before starting to test the solutions, described in those topics.

Last edited by Rademes (2023-08-11 21:29)

schmattka · 2023-08-15 11:34

Rademes wrote:

These topics may help you:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/339097/ … ot-connect
https://askubuntu.com/questions/55868/i … ss-drivers
Important! Please install Timeshift from Q4OS Software Centre and make full system backup before starting to test the solutions, described in those topics.

Installing the b43 drivers worked! Turns out, drivers for some specific devices are not always automatically detected during OS installation. Also, the TDE network manager works fine now, so the problem clearly wasn't there.

q4osteam · 2023-08-15 11:56

Thanks for reporting and sharing the solution. What way did you install b43 drivers ?

schmattka · 2023-08-15 12:01

The exact commands I executed were:

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

sudo modprobe b43

Then rebooted the PC.

Rademes · 2023-08-16 15:34

I am pleased to hear, that you have solved your problem. Hardware related problems are often not easy to solve.

Q4OS Forum

#1 2023-08-09 01:10

[SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

#2 2023-08-10 16:30

Re: [SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

#3 2023-08-10 17:45

Re: [SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

#4 2023-08-10 18:24

Re: [SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

#5 2023-08-11 13:49

Re: [SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

#6 2023-08-11 18:02

Re: [SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

#7 2023-08-11 18:39

Re: [SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

#8 2023-08-11 19:33

Re: [SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

#9 2023-08-11 19:49

Re: [SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

#10 2023-08-11 21:28

Re: [SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

#11 2023-08-15 11:34

Re: [SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

#12 2023-08-15 11:56

Re: [SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

#13 2023-08-15 12:01

Re: [SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

#14 2023-08-16 15:34

Re: [SOLVED] Problems connecting/maintaining a stable connection to Wi-Fi

Board footer