When you upgrade to openSUSE 11.0 or install openSUSE 11.0, you may find the Intell 3945 a/b/g Wireless connections may be slow or sluggish or even unreliable. This would worked well on the previous openSUSE 10.x versions. It looks the default drivers iwlwifi is not supported on Linux Kernel 2.6.24 and higher and openSUSE 11.0 comes built with Linux Kernel 2.6.25-1.1
NOTE: Seems to be a problem with Intel PRO/Wireless 4965 AGIntel PRO/Wireless 4965 AG wireless cards and the procedure discussed here should work.
To resolve this problem, install the Compat-Wireless drivers. The latest available drivers at the time of writing are compat-wireless-2.6-2008-07-01 and can be download here
Install Pre-requisites
The drivers needs to compiled and hence the following packages to be installed before trying to download and compile the drivers.
GNU C Compiler (gcc)
Make utility (make)
Kernel Source (kernel-source)
Kernel Headers (kernel-headers)
OPENSUSE:~ # yast2 –install gcc make kernel-source kernel-headers
Download, Unzip & Untar the latest Compat Wireless drivers
Now, we are ready to get the drivers installed.
Download the drivers
OPENSUSE:~ # wget http://linuxwireless.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/compat-wireless-2008-07-01.tar.bz2
The versions earlier to the one used here had a problem in compiling the packages which seems to have gone with this. Always check the latest version available for download here
Unzip & Untar
OPENSUSE:~ # tar -xjf compat-wireless-2008-07-01.tar.bz2
Change Directory & Compile
OPENSUSE:~ # cd compat-wireless-2008-07-01
OPENSUSE:~/compat-wireless-2008-07-01 # make && make install
OPENSUSE:~/compat-wireless-2008-07-01 # make load
This will compile install the drivers, unload the old drivers and install the newer ones.
Reboot
Reboot your computer and you should find your Wireless working much better than what it was.
OPENSUSE:~ # reboot
Me ha funcionado de maravilla excepto por un pequeño detalle, con estos drivers no detecta mi tarjeta Ethernet, lo malo es que también utilizo esta tarjeta en gran parte del tiempo por lo que te pido consejo para correjirlo. GRACIAS.
hi I have a similar issue and being a novice with Linux have tried variants to the command; “download files” >wget -c http:// command instead of ># wget http:// actually downloads the files and it works for me. Furthermore ignored > # cd command, instead > cd created the dir as required.
However when I get to the > # make load command nothing works, does anyonyone have any suggestions?
Thank you for this how to. I tried it with my dell inspiron e1505 with PRO/Wireless 3945ABG. It has suse 11.0 with kde4.1. I followed the procedure exactly, including # make load, rather than trying to load the specific driver. When it ran suseconfig it tried to download repo data, but it couldn’t so I just clicked skip through all of the repos, and suseconfig did finish. After reboot, it could not connect to my wireless router. It also could no longer connect to the internet using a cat5 cable from the router, which was working before. What would be the best thing to do next?
I tried this on a Dell laptop and had the same experience as Steve. It breaks the b44 driver so that you have neither wireless (original problem) nor wired. It seems the b44 driver and the ssb driver (part of the compile?) are not compatible. I could only solve be re-installing SuSE 11.0 from DVD!!
Had more success if I selectively installed the kernel modules … only those needed (eg iwl3945.ko, cfg80211.ko, mac80211.ko, ieee80211.ko). Now wireless works. Also tried it on another Dell with iwl4965.ko but that required a bit more work, (including a depmod -a) before it would work. It seems the driver was restructured so it also needs iwlcore.ko to be installed.
Errol, could you give one example of the command to selectively install just one of the kernel modules, ie iwl3945.ko? Is it just # make load iwl3945.ko ? Then presumably I can install the remaining 3 in the same fashion. I don’t want to have to reinstall again! Thanks, Steve
Fixed mine by compiling a 2.6.26 kernel. Got the source from download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/thoenig/openSUSE_11.0/.
I did the full make but not ‘make install’.
Then one by one I copied the .ko files for use in the running kernel after unloading the individual modules.
modprobe -r iwl3945 # to unload
modprobe iwl3945 # to load
Keep an eye on /var/log/messages to see if the load is happy and if not copy the next module …
Thanks man you are a life saver. I installed openSuSE 11 and it seemed to not even recognize the wireless adapter although it was working fine in previous editions.
I installed all the updates (during the installation) and then got the appropriate version of compat-wireless from their website and it worked beautifully.
Ahh .. if only i hadn’t wasted last night and half of today on this.
But thanks alot for this tip.
THAT SOLUTION DOESN’T WORK FOR ME. MY SPEED HAS FALLEN FROM 1.8MByte/s(OpenSuse 10.3) to 500Kbyte/s – unstable with Opensuse 11.1. That solution does NOT work!
Works well (with 2009 drivers). You sometimes have to go into YAST and scan networks for it kick into life
It’s a lost fast now. Thanks very much for this – I was almost at the point of spending £137 for Vista