striker Posted October 22, 2011 Posted October 22, 2011 Yep, that's what Clutter specifically mentioned, the wired one, not the wifi.(Clutter, did you have your modem/router secured with a MAC tabel? In that case no other machine will be able to get onto the net except those you clearly enabled in that MAC tabel.) Quote
raymac46 Posted October 23, 2011 Posted October 23, 2011 Actually, I went back to Clutter's first posting and he was very specific that it was the *Ethernet* that he was having trouble with. Yes he did but he also mentioned that the wifi was Atheros and I'm not sure it is necessarily. Just alerting the team to a possible Broadcom configuration coming up. I really hope Clutter got Intel or Atheros but..... Quote
Guest LilBambi Posted October 23, 2011 Posted October 23, 2011 Yes he did but he also mentioned that the wifi was Atheros and I'm not sure it is necessarily. Just alerting the team to a possible Broadcom configuration coming up. I really hope Clutter got Intel or Atheros but..... I gotcha! Think I mentioned the three possibilities on the Wireless earlier too. But not that there could be some confusion on that. Nope, was going to but didn't. I just linked to the Lenovo driver page for that model. It lists several Intel Wireless cards, a BCM,Atheros card, or a Broadcom,Atheros,Realtek for that Lenovo model. They allow so many possibilities. A recent purchase from the Lenovo website for a new laptop for a client, and they definitely had about 6 possibilities. I would have thought the preconfigured ones would have the standard more generic Intel Wireless card. But maybe not. Quote
Urmas Posted October 23, 2011 Posted October 23, 2011 Just alerting the team to a possible Broadcom configuration coming up. I really hope Clutter got Intel or Atheros but..... It could be an Atheros, because he says it didn't work out-of-the-box in Ubuntu 10.04, but did work in Bodhi. I did an install for a buddy using a TP-Link wifi dongle (Atheros innards) last year... it was a bit of a hassle to get it up and running in 10.04. Plug-and-play in 10.10. Quote
Guest LilBambi Posted October 23, 2011 Posted October 23, 2011 It could be an Atheros, because he says it didn't work out-of-the-box in Ubuntu 10.04, but did work in Bodhi. I did an install for a buddy using a TP-Link wifi dongle (Atheros innards) last year... it was a bit of a hassle to get it up and running in 10.04. Plug-and-play in 10.10. Yes, it could well be for the Wireless. But his issues were not wireless. He has a wired network. And for that model, the Lenovo G570 for their Ethernet NIC is a Atheros Communications AR81Family Gigabit/Fast Ethernet Driver. The Windows driver is available for Windows of course. And there is a driver for Ubuntu on the link I posted from the Ubuntu forums on my first posting on page 1. Quote
Urmas Posted October 23, 2011 Posted October 23, 2011 True dat. Let's wait for The Great Cluttermeister for more info. Quote
Cluttermagnet Posted October 25, 2011 Author Posted October 25, 2011 (edited) Wow! So many great posts! Thanks, you guys. I'm glad I went slow on this whole thing. No changes have been made yet. You know, the Ethernet has been a little flaky on this machine. For Ubuntu 10.04 it simply never works. For Bodhi 1.1.0 it works. Tonight I just tried Linux Mint 10. It worked right away- well, er- for a while. Then it was gone and I couldn't get it back. I checked, internet was still working on other computers. I had to reboot Mint 10 to get Ethernet back. Hmmmmm... I kind of like this lappy. They put a decent keyboard on it- makes all the difference in the world. Really good keyboard 'feel', keys are the right size. It's a little tinny mechanically, too much cabinet flex, but for the light home use envisioned, I think that would be all right. I understand this has a pretty good feature set for an entry level box. It came out at just under 500 dollars US, but I caught it on sale recently for 380. So the mood here is to find a way to keep it. But- the flaky Ethernet? I dunno... I have yet to try the wifi experiment here, so no idea yet if it is going to work for wireless or not. The second hard drive is a pretty good idea, actually. Envisioned use is full time with Ubuntu or similar distro of the Debian flavor. Generally light duty use, websurfing and emailing, mainly- for her, anyway. For myself, I might be tempted to occasionally press it into service running a scientific program or two. For example, I recently downloaded a free copy of ELSIE, which calculates RF filter component values for radio use. I do have a free OEM copy of WinXP I could put on one of my desktops, however. It would need service pack 3 and need to receive initial blessings from Redmond, but after that it would probably never be allowed to see the internet. So it is not essential that I have access to Win7. Betty doesn't need Windows, I have her switched to Ubuntu and would like to keep it that way. Frankly, I'm impatient and rather grudging to even invest my personal time in learning Win7. My time is precious- I just don't want to get back into the Windows security bozo shuffle again. I don't miss that one bit! I was outraged that they didn't supply the OS software, but not all that surprised. Heck, not even a recovery disk. Nada. Edited October 25, 2011 by Cluttermagnet Quote
Cluttermagnet Posted October 25, 2011 Author Posted October 25, 2011 Well, this is the second time in less than an hour I have lost Ethernet on this laptop, running Mint 10. Had to reboot again. The aplet claimed I still had internet, but clearly I didn't. It just kind of stops working without warning. Quote
Cluttermagnet Posted October 25, 2011 Author Posted October 25, 2011 Or as Onederer wisely mentioned ... using an external hard drive might be wise. BTW: I would call Lenovo and have them send you the OEM install disks that will work if you have to replace the hard drive. Don't let them talk you into not worrying about it because there's a secondary partition with the system restore on it. Tell them you need the DVD restore disks. They will send them for free or a nominal fee plus S&H. It's WELL WORTH IT!!! I'm glad you made this point, Fran. If we do keep the laptop (likely) I'll definitely lean on them to try to get the DVD's. BTW from reading some of your links, I'm starting to get the sense that Ubuntu doesn't have needed drivers. Somehow Ethernet works in Mint 10, but apparently only marginally. Quote
Guest LilBambi Posted October 25, 2011 Posted October 25, 2011 Yes, I don't think Ubuntu has the driver by default either based on the links. I did find that Qualcomm bought Atheros and screwed everyone apparently. They have a page with info about the card but no drivers at all for any OS. But I did find a solved situation at the Ubuntu forums for this card on Ubuntu 10.04 here. Hope it helps. You are very welcome about the OEM restore DVDs from Lenovo. All the OEMs have them, some are more forthcoming than others. Some repeatedly put you on hold for a while (hoping you will get tired of waiting and hang up, I think). ;-) But if you hang in there, you will get satisfaction for free plus S&H or a nominal fee plus S&H. Quote
Urmas Posted October 25, 2011 Posted October 25, 2011 Well, this is the second time in less than an hour I have lost Ethernet on this laptop, running Mint 10. Had to reboot again. The aplet claimed I still had internet, but clearly I didn't. It just kind of stops working without warning. OK... we need more info. clutter@clutterlappy:~$ lspci | grep Ethernet (You can do "plain" lspci as well, but it displays a lot of stuff. "The pipe grep thing" is "only" a filter; it is case sensitive too -- i.e. if you type lspci | grep ethernet [lowercase "e"], it will pick up every item that has the string "ethernet" -- it won't include items with "Ethernet" or "eThernet".) Also of interest here: clutter@clutterlappy:~$ lspci | grep Wireless Quote
V.T. Eric Layton Posted October 25, 2011 Posted October 25, 2011 Next time it dies on you, a copy of the output of this might be helpful also: clutter_root@clutterlappy:~# ifconfig Quote
Cluttermagnet Posted October 26, 2011 Author Posted October 26, 2011 OK... we need more info. clutter@clutterlappy:~$ lspci | grep Ethernet (You can do "plain" lspci as well, but it displays a lot of stuff. "The pipe grep thing" is "only" a filter; it is case sensitive too -- i.e. if you type lspci | grep ethernet [lowercase "e"], it will pick up every item that has the string "ethernet" -- it won't include items with "Ethernet" or "eThernet".) Also of interest here: clutter@clutterlappy:~$ lspci | grep Wireless Because it is such an enormous hassle to move graphics from a screenshot on a new, unfamiliar computer- with unreliable Ethernet- I'm manually reproducing the Terminal info below for you: mint@mint ~ $ lspci | grep Ethernet 01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications AR8152 v2.0 Fast Ethernet (rev c1) And the second item: mint@mint ~ $ lspci | grep Wireless produced no output. Quote
Cluttermagnet Posted October 26, 2011 Author Posted October 26, 2011 (edited) Next time it dies on you, a copy of the output of this might be helpful also: clutter_root@clutterlappy:~# ifconfig I'll grab that info if- or should I say when- Ethernet fails again, Eric. But since I am running from live CD session, I have to write it down by hand and copy it into a post upon reboot, assuming it does successfully grab internet again. Edit: OK, Eric- Mint 10 finally lost Ethernet after about 6-7 hours of running. I saved the Terminal results of ifconfig for you on a flash drive: mint@mint ~ $ ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr b8:70:f4:46:9b:10 inet addr:192.168.0.106 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::ba70:f4ff:fe46:9b10/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:22714 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:18231 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:26452611 (26.4 MB) TX bytes:2703983 (2.7 MB) Interrupt:44 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:121 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:121 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:15143 (15.1 KB) TX bytes:15143 (15.1 KB) Edited October 26, 2011 by Cluttermagnet Quote
Cluttermagnet Posted October 26, 2011 Author Posted October 26, 2011 (edited) Now that I'm getting a sense of what will need to be fixed to make Ethernet and wireless work on this platform, I'm starting to think seriously that it may be best if I were to wrap this thing up and just send it back to NewEgg. It's not that I don't care for the occasional challenge that needs to be overcome- but if it's going to mean going through the same darned hassle each and every time the makers of whatever distro I'm using hand me a new kernel, that is positively going to drive me nuts! Is that the future I'm facing here as a user of a Lenovo G570 who doesn't care for Windows and prefers Linux? BTW I tried Mandriva 2010 Gnome and it utterly failed to grab internet via Ethernet connection. I'm working on getting a copy of Mandriva 2011 64 bit but many of my DVD drives are not working on various Ubuntu platforms. I'll get a DVD burned eventually... Edited October 26, 2011 by Cluttermagnet Quote
Cluttermagnet Posted October 26, 2011 Author Posted October 26, 2011 (edited) The above leads to another very relevant question (mods, feel free to move this to a separate topic if you prefer)- I notice that my CD/DVD burner drives are constantly 'breaking' under mainly Ubuntu, and I'm suspecting that the kernel updates are doing the breaking. I also suspect that some distro upgrades are installing with certain permissions I had previously now missing (not default granted). I've seen at least several different kinds of breakdown, such as * Drive doesn't work, acts dead. eject button press is ignored * k3b can't find images so I can't burn a CD/DVD (when I am sure I have put an image where I ask k3b to look) * Drive opens, ejects, pretends to work, but doesn't really I guess I would like to find a good, general purpose checklist of what to look for, what Terminal commands to try, etc. I do know the obvious step of opening a machine to check cable physical connections. Main problem I seem to have is I can never figure out how to set up a drive, using Terminal, when that is called for. Permissions under Linux always have been a struggle for me, for some reason. Edited October 26, 2011 by Cluttermagnet Quote
securitybreach Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 If this were not occurring on multiple machines, then I would say it is a hardware issue as that is what it sounds like to me. Quote
Cluttermagnet Posted October 26, 2011 Author Posted October 26, 2011 (edited) If this were not occurring on multiple machines, then I would say it is a hardware issue as that is what it sounds like to me. Referring to the CD/DVD issues? Or do you mean the Ethernet/wifi? BTW and FWIW, tonight Mint 10 has held onto Ethernet connectivity for several hours now- a new record for this laptop. Mint 10 is able to do Ethernet, at least. Maybe I install Mint instead of Ubuntu? But then Betty has to completely relearn the desktop. I've got to say, Clem and crew have been doing a terrific job cleaning/ polishing up Ubuntu in recent years. Edited October 26, 2011 by Cluttermagnet Quote
securitybreach Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 I was referring to the dvd drive but the ethernet seems buggy as well. Quote
Urmas Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 BTW and FWIW, tonight Mint 10 has held onto Ethernet connectivity for several hours now- a new record for this laptop. Mint 10 is able to do Ethernet, at least. Maybe I install Mint instead of Ubuntu? Clutter, If it is not too much of a hassle, download, burn and try Mint 11 (and maybe Ubuntu 11.10 as well). A brief search brought results like this one... http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=82526 ... where "original problems" have nothing to do with wired/wireless, yet "your" AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01) is listed in lspci ⇒ it seems to be working [cf. The Dog That Did Not Bark (Holmes, Watson et al.) ] But then Betty has to completely relearn the desktop. If you replace the "Mint Menu" with the more traditional "Gnome Menu" (there are two versions of those, actually), it's almost the same. And, if you go by Ubuntu 11.10: http://www.liberiangeek.net/2011/08/return...n-ubuntu-11-10/ And the second item: mint@mint ~ $ lspci | grep Wireless produced no output. OK, try this: mint@mint ~ $ lspci | grep Network Quote
Cluttermagnet Posted October 26, 2011 Author Posted October 26, 2011 (edited) Great idea on the Ubuntu 11 and Mint 11. I will do that later this morning at home, then try them on the lappy tomorrow evening. Regarding the Network thing, here are my Terminal results: mint@mint ~ $ lspci | grep Network 02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01) Uh oh! Yuck! Broadcom. I was mislead, BTW, from reading a review of a different Lenovo G570 than the version I got from NewEgg. In the review, the author had the wifi as being Atheros. Edited October 26, 2011 by Cluttermagnet Quote
Cluttermagnet Posted October 26, 2011 Author Posted October 26, 2011 (edited) Clutter, If you replace the "Mint Menu" with the more traditional "Gnome Menu" (there are two versions of those, actually), it's almost the same. And, if you go by Ubuntu 11.10: http://www.liberiangeek.net/2011/08/return...n-ubuntu-11-10/ I looked at this link. Wow! Great! This (theoretically) would do it for Betty IMO. I'll get on the Ubuntu & Mint 11 thing tomorrow. Thanks! Edited October 26, 2011 by Cluttermagnet Quote
Urmas Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 Uh oh! Yuck! Broadcom. Could be worse, apparently: (posted 2011-10-18) Hi, this solution works on my Lenovo B570: sudo -s [asks for your [sudo] password] rmmod acer_wmi && echo “blacklist acer_wmi” >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf http://fakkelbrigade.eu/chris/blog/2010/12...vo-ideapad-s12/ Quote
striker Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 I don't like to spoil the fun, however I have read some posts and articles about the Ubuntu 11 being not so good. Here's one example of it - and have a good laugh at it, maybe recognizing something we as linux users have had one time or another : http://www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/why-ubunt...with-rage/19103 Now, I'm not using it but being an old linux nutcase I'm asking myself: can it really be that bad??? If I had a spare machine I would load it up and see what gives, but alas I haven't one. Anyway, something inside of me whispers 'it can't be that bad', or can it? I just don't believe it. From past experiences I know it takes some thinkering, tweaking and therefore some time to get it up and running, so what? Isn't that what makes all the fun? I thought I just pass on the link above. Maybe the local Ubuntu gurus can comment on this one, and may be - just may be - it's not the right distro for Clutter to start thinkering with yet on this notebook. But I don't know. I'm too long out of it. Quote
Urmas Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 Anyway, something inside of me whispers 'it can't be that bad', or can it? I just don't believe it. From past experiences I know it takes some thinkering, tweaking and therefore some time to get it up and running, so what? Isn't that what makes all the fun? I am using Ubuntu 11.10. I am NOT using Unity -- I did try it, but... naah. Ditto with Gnome 3... naah. What I AM using is KDE 4, and I am pleasantly surprised. I could still be using Gnome 2 (which I do like vewwy, VEWWY much), but I decided to give KDE 4 a chance... and here we are. Anyway, "good old" Gnome 2 is no problem: $ sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback. That's it. I have been using 11.10 since Beta 1, and it has been just as boringly stable as the previous versions. I am a happy camper. Regarding Unity (and KDE's "Rosa", and-and-and): I understand the necessity to create solutions for smaller devices (e.g. netbooks), but isn't this "total focusing" a wee bit too much? I mean, I actually know one or two people besides myself who still use desktop computers with full sized displays. The other point that Perlow makes... this isn't the first time Ubuntu devs have gotten "creative" with file system. Which may lead to borked upgrades (here would be a good place to remind that distribution upgrading via package manager is always prone to snafus and should be used as a last-resort-means) -- but the bigger issue to me is, what is the point? Quote
raymac46 Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 Could be worse, apparently: http://fakkelbrigade.eu/chris/blog/2010/12...vo-ideapad-s12/ I think that refers to blacklisting an Acer module which can screw up wireless on non-Acer machines. The more recent kernels will provide a Broadcom driver for the BCM 4313 which may work out of the box. I'd keep my wired connection handy though. Quote
raymac46 Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 I am using Ubuntu 11.10. I am NOT using Unity -- I did try it, but... naah. Ditto with Gnome 3... naah. Another possibility is Xubuntu which gives you Xfce in a fairly nice desktop. Quote
Urmas Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 I think that refers to blacklisting an Acer module which can screw up wireless on non-Acer machines. The more recent kernels will provide a Broadcom driver for the BCM 4313 which may work out of the box. Yes. Seems to be a common curse. I'd keep my wired connection handy though. Never a bad idea with a Broadcom chip. But if the linky is right, Clutter'll be all right. Another possibility is Xubuntu which gives you Xfce in a fairly nice desktop. If you already have Ubuntu/Kubuntu installed: $ sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop (full) or $ sudo apt-get install xfce-desktop (just the essentials) Quote
raymac46 Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 (edited) Unity is OK now that it has a 2D fallback. Earlier on if you happened to have slightly older ATi (or even Nvidia) graphics that were no longer supported, you had to rely on basically 2D FOSS drivers. Since Unity required 3D acceleration your video essentially blew up when you tried to run Ubuntu. That problem has been fixed now but Unity is still a totally brain dead interface. I just want a menu, not a Dashboard or "Rosa Panel" that requires a search and typing. How is that a step forward? Edited October 26, 2011 by raymac46 Quote
Urmas Posted October 26, 2011 Posted October 26, 2011 How is that a step forward? Hey! I can answer that! “Friends, yesterday we stood on the edge of the abyss but today we have taken a giant step forward!” That's how. Quote
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