Installing RHEL6 on Toshiba L675D-7022 Need links or advice on Wireless
Hello!
I so enjoy having RHEL6 on the workstation that I bought a subscription for my laptop and whamo I am needing sound advice on how to get the wireless working.
I have been searching for info and I think I found some advice.
I am limited to using the WiFi at a local Coffee Shop for a while so I am trying to get the wireless working to complete an install of the RHEL6. I hope to afford home internet service soon but not today.
This Toshiba is a replacement for one slightly different model I had which may have died from a power surge.
I wanted to access the encrypted drive and I could not from my WorkStation so I picked up this unit from EBay and am now wishing to go RHEL^ from here on out.
I found that the driver for wifi under Fedora 14 ( yeah I have been running 14 until yesterday ) had to be replaced and then the headphone fails to play now.. I think you all can understand the frustration level.
I then see that what I do for Fedora 14 will not apply to RHEL6.
All that aside...
The resource I found: This is a thread on the CENTROS side of things and I am unsure if this is the way to accomplish getting the (wifi) internet access to work on a fresh install of RHEL6.
https://www.centos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7754
It seems logical to follow along with that thread but is that the correct way to modify the RHEL6 to work?
I've done my best to locate the answers myself first. Perhaps I am not searching this site correctly so I welcome links to and such.
I see that Toshiba is not Linux Friendly in it's support. Perhaps I should plan on a better brand in the future but with the legacy encrypted drive and data I made a choice to do this.
Ernst
Responses
Active Contributor
170 points
I failed to repost that thread not wishing to "spam" here.
I trust that is good manners.
Ernst
Guru
6827 points
Hi Ernst,
Open a ticket with Red Hat - I once had an a-typical wireless card with a laptop that Red Hat support provided with a support case. (Did you get a self-support subscription?). After an sosreport, the lspci results and a small wait, they responded with (in my case, and a different laptop) an rpm that would work for a driver.
That being said, RealTec seems to be non-Linux friendly (see a few lines down), and Toshiba uses that wireless NIC brand a lot.
I checked your source, and did you happen to see at your link where it lead to this bit that resolved your wireless NIC? Hopefully that will work in your case!
I bought a Toshiba about 35 days ago or so.
I returned it because after a bout of very diligent of research, I recognized that Toshiba used a type of NIC that was not immediately supported without using Fedora 20 or RHEL 7.beta. Not sure if your Toshiba wireless driver is the same. In my specific case, even Centos didn't resolve the issue, no drivers there either.
After much digging, I found I could compile my own driver, and also (see this method too) but it would have to be re-done with every kernel.
One other option, perhaps get a usb-based wireless NIC.
I ended up returning my Toshiba Satellite laptop, even though it had very nice specifications, and because of no wireless NIC for Linux and found a laptop that had a nic that was Linux supported.
Kind regaards,
Rem
Guru
6827 points
One other option, check the manual for the laptop you have. See if you can get to the wireless NIC and perhaps replace it with something Linux-friendly. I remember a friend had to replace his wireless NIC card out of a laptop. Some laptops this is possible.
Guru
2404 points
The ELRepo Project provides hardware support for RHEL and its rebuilds. :-)
The FAQ page (see #4) has the details but what you'd like to do first is to find the vendor:device ID pair of your wifi device.
lspci -nn
Then go to DeviceIDs and see if there is a match.
If your device is not listed, then try filing a request at ELRepo's bug tracker.
By the way I have two Toshiba laptops running RHEL/CentOS/SL and found them much better (Linux-support wise) than some Sony laptops I have.
Guru
6827 points
Akemi - thanks for posting that, I do now remember ElRepo had the driver I could compile for my Toshiba, but I returned the system and got a different one. I highly suspect that will work for Ernst based on what I read a month ago in my research on Realtek and drivers there.
Guru
2404 points
If I may be allowed to 'advertize' ELRepo more ... ;-) One of the reasons why you want to use ELRepo's drivers (kmod packages) is that they are kABI-tracking -- meaning they survive kernel updates transparently. Usually, if you build the driver yourself, you'd have to repeat it each time the kernel is updated.
Red Hat
Guru
7257 points
From what I could find, this model of laptop has a Realtek RTL8191SE wireless card, with PCI ID 10EC:8191.
You can confirm this with lspci -nn. You'll see output something like:
Network controller: Brand Model Wireless Network Adapter [XXXX:YYYY]
where XXXX is the PCI Vendor ID, and YYYY is the PCI Device ID.
If you do have the aforementioned Realtek card, follow Akemi's advice and install the kmod-based driver from ELRepo.
We currently have an RFE to add the entire Realtek wireless driver suite to RHEL6, although it has encountered various problems over the life of the release. Work is progressing, albeit slowly. The reference for this feature request is Bug 761525.
Guru
2404 points
Thanks for the detailed instructions. Using Jamie's ID pairng as an example, I'll describe how to find and install the driver. According to the DeviceIDs page, this card uses the r8192ce_pci kernel module which is provided by the kmod-r8192ce package.
Set up the ELRepo repository:
rpm --import https://www.elrepo.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-elrepo.org
rpm -Uvh http://www.elrepo.org/elrepo-release-6-6.el6.elrepo.noarch.rpm
Then install the driver:
yum install kmod-r8192ce
It will indeed be nice if those Realtek drivers are incorporated in RHEL.
Guru
6827 points
I had asked Red Hat if those Realtek drivers could be incorporated into RHEL with a Case with support - they did not have it now, but in RHEL 7 the ones for my Toshiba were available. Might be the same in this case.
Guru
2404 points
Yes, I see at least 7 rtlXX modules in RHEL 7 beta. Details in this KB article.
Active Contributor
170 points
Wow friends! Wonderful help.
I will now read through carefully and see what can be done. Again Thanks for the great replies.. Makes me wonder if I should explore RHEL7 :)
The data on the card, and I appreciate the cut and paste commands is :
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller [10ec:8172] (rev 10)
Okay! Now to get to work on the solution!
Guru
6827 points
Ernst,
The beta of RHEL 7 may be just fine - on that note, it is a beta and keep that in mind for what you might use it for, but people are apparently using it. I believe Fedora 20 (free, updates free too) the realtek drivers ought to work. I've heard some strong rumors that rhel 7 will be released probably this summer or so, depending on winds, etc...
Kind Regards,
Remmele
Active Contributor
170 points
I just popped in to get a fresh copy of the instructions.
I shall know soon when I pop on over to a friends house to hard-connect to the Internet and execute.
About RHEL7 .. The warning on install was enough to dissuade me for the time being. No fear to try it on an external drive but I will follow through with RHEL6.x
I hope to complete the install today so I will update this thread.
Active Contributor
170 points
Well, I feel I followed instructions by cut and paste but, I don't see the Wireless. yum reported success so I believe all went well. It reported the DataBase being modified outside of yum so yum is functioning okay.
Experience suggests it would have shown if that was the correct action.
I will now try the RHEL7 and see if that can be used. I can afford to experiment to be honest. I will want a stable system before I set up gcc and the ilk but this is for personal and I can take a small risk.
I'll share my experiences soon. I simply report what occurred.
Guru
2404 points
Ernst,
Your output of lspci indicates that the device ID pairing is [10ec:8172]. According to the ELRepo's DeviceIDs page, that device is supported by the kmod-r8192se driver package. Please note that the earlier example was kmod-r8192ce.
Active Contributor
170 points
Oh, my...
I'm back at the coffee shop LOL
I need to head back to my friends house then and try again.
Thanks. I was about to wipe out the installation of both Windows 7 and RHEL6.5 and start over. I would rather not spend two days re-updating Windows 7. Phew...
Okay then.. I am on my way. By the way I did see the wireless working with the RHEL7 install disk.
I am hoping to take classes at the local college covering Linux in the future but at this time I appreciate the hand-holding assistance.
Active Contributor
170 points
Again Thank You all.
I now have the wireless working. I will now install the packages I need and want.
Funny thing too about this CE blunder, when researching for a driver for Fedora 14 I knew the proper one was the SE one but I didn't catch that when I cut and pasted.
It feels wonderful to be a part of the Enterprise Linux Community. Well worth the subscription price for the peace of mind it brings.
Ernst
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