11.10 Can't Create An Ad Hoc Network

[demonboy]

With all my dicking around I suspect I HAVE removed the driver, or installed a different one over the top of it. If I have, what's the best procedure?

[tudor117]

...I didn't know that was possible... other than deleting the driver. I'm pretty sure they're automatically assigned.
Check that it is physically turned on, and then try these two commands

nm-tool
sudo lshw -C network

From here and here.
It will tell you what drivers each device is using. You can post that here.

[demonboy]

nm-tool

NetworkManager Tool

State: connected (global)

- Device: eth0 -----------------------------------------------------------------
  Type:              Wired
  Driver:            r8169
  State:             unavailable
  Default:           no
  HW Address:        78:AC:C0:44:AF:0C

  Capabilities:
    Carrier Detect:  yes
    Speed:           10 Mb/s

  Wired Properties
    Carrier:         off


- Device: 00:1E:3A:2B:5F:48 ----------------------------------------------------
  Type:              Bluetooth
  Driver:            bluez
  State:             disconnected
  Default:           no

  Capabilities:


- Device: ttyUSB3  [Tata Docomo 3G Dongle] -------------------------------------
  Type:              Mobile Broadband (GSM)
  Driver:            option1
  State:             connected
  Default:           yes

  Capabilities:

  IPv4 Settings:
    Address:         49.249.141.216
    Prefix:          32 (255.255.255.255)
    Gateway:         10.64.64.64

    DNS:             202.149.208.91
    DNS:             202.149.208.92

sudo lshw -C network

  *-network               
       description: Network controller
       product: BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       version: 01
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=bcma-pci-bridge latency=0
       resources: irq:16 memory:d3400000-d3403fff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 02
       serial: 78:ac:c0:44:af:0c
       size: 10Mbit/s
       capacity: 100Mbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s
       resources: irq:41 ioport:2000(size=256) memory:d1410000-d1410fff memory:d1400000-d140ffff memory:d1420000-d142ffff

[demonboy]

I should point out that it says 'connected' because I had my mobile dongle connected. I'm just working my way through the guides you pointed me to. I'll post up my findings shortly. Thanks, Tudor.

[demonboy]

Right, this is what I have gleaned so far. I think I need help installing from Git, which I haven't a clue about.

My network card is a Broadcom BCM4313.

Using this command 'lspci -vnn | grep 14e4' I get this:

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4727] (rev 01)

If I then use this link I check the table, where third from the bottom it clearly says the b43/b43 legacy drivers do not support my card. Instead it suggests the link wl/brcm80211, which takes me to this page.

That page then suggests that I need firmware and there is a link to a GIT page. At this point I am confused because I don't know how GIT works or what I am supposed to do!

Meanwhile, I read elsewhere that b43 conflicts with the STA drivers, suggesting that I should uninstall STA. Now, this possibly makes sense because I'd already had STA installed and I'd blindly gone ahead and used fwcutter to install b43 whilst STA was still installed. I'm guessing here but this might explain why WLAN0 disappeared: because STA and b43 conflicted.

I have since used Ubuntu Software Centre to uninstall STA driver in the hope I might get WLAN0 back, to no avail. So do I need to uninstall fw-cutter first? If I search Ubuntu Software Centre for Broadcom there are four items: broadcom-sta-common; bcmwl-kernal-source; broadcom-sta-source; b43-fwcutter.

Only the last one is still installed. If I go to uninstall it it comes up with a window 'to remove b43-fwcutter blah blah firmware-b43-installer must also be removed'.

Basically I'm in a pickle. What should be my next move?

[tudor117]

What I find weird is that it was working before... right?
Anyways, I found others complaining about this device on Oneric.

From here, the last post:
"create a one-line file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-bcma
blacklist bcma"

Oh and git is easy to use, you just issue a "git clone [url]" in the terminal. But, the url is nonexistent for that site. Try this instead:

 git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/staging.git

[FokkerCharlie]

The blacklist fix doesn't work for me- according to the bug link below, several others are seeing the same thing. Did you do anything else? Are you using the open or closed source drivers?

Charlie

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/863799

Edit: from that bug report, using the workaround in comment 3, with more lines in the blacklist file works:

blacklist bcma
blacklist brcmsmac
blacklist brcmutil

WEP hex only.

[FokkerCharlie]

By the way, Demonboy- I had a problem that sounds similar to yours, and was directed to this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1870390

Which fixed it for me. At least I have wireless back, no adhoc, though. Look for the post on that thread with the picture attached.

Cheers
Charlie

[HermanAB]

Eeeewww... I would never in good concience recommend Samba to anybody. The easiest way to share files is with SFTP. If you really want a network file system, then use NFS, not Samba.

Anyhow, before messing with a network file system, first get the network to work properly, so that you g=have IP addresses and connectivity everywhere, then look at NFS or FTP or some such.

[demonboy]

Right!

I have managed to get my wireless card working again! Basically I consolidated my blacklist files and played around with commenting out different blacklists. This is what I ended up with, which was to basically comment out everything.

# Wireless problem as shown here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/863799
# blacklist bcma
# blacklist brcmsmac
# blacklist brcmutil

# replaced by b43 and ssb.
# blacklist bcm43xx

# Warning: This file is autogenerated by bcmwl. All changes to this file will be lost.
# blacklist b43
# blacklist b43legacy
# blacklist ssb

# this is taken from the broadcom-sta-common.conf file
# wl module from Broadcom conflicts with ssb
# We must blacklist the following modules:
# blacklist b44
# blacklist b43legacy
# blacklist b43
# blacklist brcm80211
# blacklist brcmsmac
# blacklist ssb
# install wl /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install wl $CMDLINE_OPTS

Firstly I'd like thank you all for getting me back to this point, which included me working through your recommended links.

However I can't mark this thread as SOLVED because I am back to my original problem: I cannot create an ad hoc network.

It sounds like this is not just a problem I'm experiencing though. It looks like it is an 11.10 issue. Not sure where to go from here except to stat going through the bug reports and maybe flag this one up.