search

FreedomBen / rtl8188ce-linux-driver

This modified version of the RealTek WiFi driver fixes some issues with RealTek cards on Linux.
GNU General Public License v2.0
487 stars 107 forks source link

No signal at all midway through build #10

Closed Farnham1 closed 10 years ago

Farnham1 commented 10 years ago

Hi FreedomBen

I tried building the driver but it looks like I have cooked my wifi driver altogether (having to compose this message from a wired connection).

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 3.11 with rtl8192ce. I have experienced a significantly worse internet connection since updating from 3.5

I found your driver through a link on Askubuntu and followed the readme but step 3 'make' had no target. So I downloaded the zip and ran all steps from the downloaded folder. Lost wifi connections (nothing registering at all) from step 6: sudo modprobe rtl8192ce .

I think I might have to start from scratch... I know your instructions were straight forward, but I seem to have missed something between step 2 and 3. Did I need to open another directory to run make? Following the steps from the downloaded folder seems to have cooked my signal.

FreedomBen commented 10 years ago

It sounds like you unloaded your existing kernel modules but weren't able to load in the newly built ones since they never built. It's probably not as bad as you're thinking.

So your kernel is 3.11 on Ubuntu 12.04?

Farnham1 commented 10 years ago

Yep, 3.11 on Ubuntu 12.04 with rtl8192ce. Any tips?

FreedomBen commented 10 years ago

I just tried downloading the zip file, and I noticed that it doesn't contain any branch information. I'm currently writing an install script to help with just this situation in case people download the zip in the future. I don't think it will take too much longer to complete, if you would like to wait. Otherwise, if you type ls from the driver directory, do you see a file called Makefile?

Farnham1 commented 10 years ago

ThinkPad-W530:~/Downloads$ cd rtl8188ce-linux-driver-master does contain a Makefile file. When I type make I get:

[code] Verifying a sane branch for your kernel version... fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git No (Current branch ). Should I switch it to fedora-20 for you? (y/n): [/code]

At this point I choose 'n'.

FreedomBen commented 10 years ago

Ok, I'm working on a fix for that. It will try to set up a git repo for you if one isn't set up already, and it won't try to switch you to an impossible and wrong branch. I hope to have it done within the next 30 mins or so

Farnham1 commented 10 years ago

Really appreciate your help!

FreedomBen commented 10 years ago

OK, you should be able to download the zip again and have better luck. Since you are on kernel 3.11 it will probably tell you that it wants to switch you to the ubuntu-13.10 branch. Don't be thrown off by that. The branch is based on kernel version rather than release number, but release numbers are usually easier for people to relate to.

It might tell you that the build failed when it really didn't. Sorry that's a bug I still need to fix but I'm tired and headed to bed soon :-)

Ultimately you ran into this problem because you downloaded a zip file instead of cloning the repo, which is the non-traditional route. It would have actually been ok had you switched to the ubuntu-13.10 branch and then downloaded the zip, but who would know that?

Later I'll have the script be a little smarter before it offers to set up the repo for you, but that should at least get you through the build. After doing the sudo make install you might have to reboot for your wireless to come back up.

Let me know how it goes, and good luck.

Farnham1 commented 10 years ago

The build went through some hiccups and exited:

[code] -linux-driver' ./verify_branch.sh: 102: ./verify_branch.sh: 0: not found -e Build exited with failure status (Exit code 127). [/code]

Prior to this the build recommended:

[code] Recommended branch is fedora-20 based on your kernel version (3.11.0-18-generic) Should I switch it to fedora-20 for you? (y/n): y Branch fedora-20 set up to track remote branch fedora-20 from origin. Switched to a new branch 'fedora-20' [/code]

FreedomBen commented 10 years ago

Holy cow. What do you get when you run the commands uname -a and uname -r?

Farnham1 commented 10 years ago

ThinkPad-W530 3.11.0-18-generic #32~precise1-Ubuntu SMP Thu Feb 20 17:52:10 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

FreedomBen commented 10 years ago

It is so strange that it wants to switch you to fedora-20. I'm going to install 12.04 in a VM and see if I can reproduce this. Now that you have a git checkout, can you browse to the directory that it made for you called "rtl8188ce-linux-driver" and run git checkout -f ubuntu-13.10, then make. If it asks you to switch branches, say no.

Farnham1 commented 10 years ago

Also unable to switch to the correct branch:

[code] ThinkPad-W530:~$ git checkout ubuntu-13.10 fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git [/code]

Farnham1 commented 10 years ago

[code] ThinkPad-W530:~/rtl8188ce-linux-driver-master$ git checkout -f ubuntu-13.10 fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git [/code]

FreedomBen commented 10 years ago

Is there a directory inside of rlt8188ce-linux-driver-master that is called rtl8188ce-linux-driver? That is the one with the git repository in it where you should type that command

Farnham1 commented 10 years ago

[code] ThinkPad-W530:/proc/23037/cwd/rtl8188ce-linux-driver$ sudo git checkout -f ubuntu-13.10 Branch ubuntu-13.10 set up to track remote branch ubuntu-13.10 from origin. Switched to a new branch 'ubuntu-13.10' ThinkPad-W530:/proc/23037/cwd/rtl8188ce-linux-driver$ make if [ -e verify_branch.sh ] ; \ then \ ./verify_branch.sh ; \ fi; Verifying a sane branch for your kernel version... No (Current branch ubuntu-13.10) Recommended branch is fedora-20 based on your kernel version (3.11.0-18-generic) Should I switch it to fedora-20 for you? (y/n): n OK, but if the build fails come back here and try again. make -C /lib/modules/3.11.0-18-generic/build M=/home/rtl8188ce-linux-driver-master/rtl8188ce-linux-driver modules make[1]: Entering directory /usr/src/linux-headers-3.11.0-18-generic' /usr/src/linux-headers-3.11.0-18-generic/arch/x86/Makefile:113: CONFIG_X86_X32 enabled but no binutils support rm: cannot remove/home/rtl8188ce-linux-driver-master/rtl8188ce-linux-driver/.tmp_versions/rtlwifi.mod': Permission denied make[1]: * [crmodverdir] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.11.0-18-generic' make: * [all] Error 2

[/code]

Farnham1 commented 10 years ago

silly me - I have now performed 'sudo make' to build the driver and encountered no errors. Rebooted the machine and have encountered no errors.

But unfortunately the wifi signal strength is constantly fluttering between 10 and 100% and intermittently dropping out. :(

Farnham1 commented 10 years ago

iwconfig:

[code] eth0 no wireless extensions.

lo no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"BAZD_MEG_LOCAL_EXT"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 32:46:9A:FF:E2:ED
Bit Rate=150 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr:off Power Management:off Link Quality=18/70 Signal level=-92 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:491 Missed beacon:0 [/code]

lspci:

[code] 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller (rev 09) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor PCI Express Root Port (rev 09) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09) 00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Host Controller (rev 04) 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 04) 00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev c4) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev c4) 00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev c4) 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation QM77 Express Chipset LPC Controller (rev 04) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller [AHCI mode](rev 04) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 04) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107GLM [Quadro K1000M](rev a1) 02:00.0 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd MMC/SD Host Controller (rev 08) 02:00.3 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 PCIe IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 04) 03:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (rev 01) [/code]

FreedomBen commented 10 years ago

The fluctuations in power is a known issue, though typically it is more of an annoyance than a problem as long as you're close enough to the router. Make sure your Tx power is set high enough. sudo iw reg set BO (sets your CRDA to Bolivia, useful for testing but possibly illegal depending on where you are) sudo iwconfig wlan0 txpower 30 . Don't be sitting right next to your router when you crank the power up that high. Also turn it back down to around 20 if you're going to get really close to the router.