[Bizarro181]

Hey

I recently got XBMC live installed on my acer aspirerevo, but I'm having some trouble configuring the wireless settings.

I tried following some instructions I found around here on the forums, but I have a really big problem. It appears that my wireless card isn't being identified.

there is no wlan in ifconfig and iwconfig brings up nothing as well.

I know for a fact this thing has wireless, but I'm stumped

Also as an aside, how can I set my box to have a static network ip, say 192.168.1.111?

Thanks for any help!

[alexpigment]

You said you're for sure that it has wireless, but most of the Revos don't. Which model is it?

[Bizarro181]

Its an Acer AspireRevo AR3610-U2002...and it has wireless, that's not something I would overlook.

-Rob

[Bizarro181]

Turns out it's a Ralink 3090, which ubuntu doesnt recognize, I had to manually add the package found here

https://launchpad.net/~markus-tisoft/+archive/rt3090

to get xbmc live to recognize it. Now I am having some problems getting it to connect to my network, so far it just sits there and never gets an address or anything.

[Driver 944]

I had the same problem with my 3610. I read and tried everything I could find and never got it working.
I installed Mint 9 (Isadora) and then installed XBMC-standalone and now it works fine. Mint 9 is like "Linux for Dummies" and it won't take long to get the hang of it. All the information I needed was on the linuxmint website. I had trouble getting my head wrapped around Linux, especially with all the commands in Terminal, but Mint is pretty easy to understand for a beginner. It will require reading and installing everything yourself, but it's worth it. I have been running it for 3 months now and I must say it won't be long till I say good-bye to ever using Windows again. Now that I start to understand a little about Linux, I'm a believer. Look into it, maybe it will work for you.

[GeorgeStark]

Getting WiFi to work on the Revo is a nightmare but it's doable and there are instructions in this forum detailing how but they differ slightly, depending on how your WiFi is configured.

Try this to start you off: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=58975&page=2

...and this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=318539

My interfaces file looks like this:

Code:

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
# auto eth0
# iface eth0 inet dhcp

# The primary wireless interface
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid SSID

...where SSID is your WiFi SSID...that example doesn't include the lines needed if your network is encrypted (mine isn't). Having said all that, I found that the antenna inside the Revo is very poor and even when I got mine working, it just wasn't getting a sufficient signal (my router is a loooong way from the TV) so I ended up plugging a WiFi bridge into the ETH0 port of the Revo. This way, I didn't have to fanny around with all the wireless settings.

Hope that helps a little.

Oh, the easist way to give the Revo a static IP is to keep the interfaces file set to DHCP and make the static reservation on your router (based on the WLAN MAC address). The other way is to set it directly in the interfaces file...you'll need to change the part in my example where it says "inet dhcp" to something else, but I can't remember specifically what the syntax is.

[GeorgeStark]

Oh, almost forgot...you can't have both WLAN and ETH0 active at the same time. Wasted a lot of time before realising this.

[Bizarro181]

I eventually got wireless working by installing and running wicd but I have further issues.

When I power on my revo with the ethernet cable unplugged, and then go into a terminal, I can ping google and everything just fine, but once I try to play anything in my library (its all on storage on the network) it tells me the file no longer exists or that it cant connect.

So I am connected to the internet, but one I go into XBMC and try to play anything, it isnt connected

Everything works with a wired connection though

Any Ideas?

[GeorgeStark]

When you go into XBMC, can you access updated weather info, etc?

[edicius]

I've been having the same issues myself. Was up until 2am last night trying to figure things out and it was a small victory when I finally got the drivers installed for the card. My router is about 10 feet away (around a corner) from my Revo, so thankfully, I can connect via Cat5 in a pinch, but I'd really like to get the wireless working (and 10 feet away shouldn't be too far, I'd think, poor antenna or not). In case a little bit of info helps, I have a Belkin Pre-N router, WEP security. I've added the SSID and WEP key into the interfaces file, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. I'm glad I found this place though, since it kept me from going completely nuts last night.

I'm at work, so it's killing me that I can't be at home working on it right now. Last thing that happened last night was the DHCP connection not happening (don't remember the exact message and sadly, networking isn't my forte).

[aeiah]

I eventually got wireless working by installing and running wicd but I have further issues.

When I power on my revo with the ethernet cable unplugged, and then go into a terminal, I can ping google and everything just fine, but once I try to play anything in my library (its all on storage on the network) it tells me the file no longer exists or that it cant connect.

So I am connected to the internet, but one I go into XBMC and try to play anything, it isnt connected

Everything works with a wired connection though

Any Ideas?

this is probably because your box mounts the network share at startup, so it never mounts if you aren't plugged into the network. i guess the solution would be to mount it manually once a connection is established

by the looks of things, it can get messy and you might find it easier to use the launcher plugin in xbmc to send the mount command (or get it to trigger a script that sends the mount command)

[aeiah]

I've been having the same issues myself. Was up until 2am last night trying to figure things out and it was a small victory when I finally got the drivers installed for the card. My router is about 10 feet away (around a corner) from my Revo, so thankfully, I can connect via Cat5 in a pinch, but I'd really like to get the wireless working (and 10 feet away shouldn't be too far, I'd think, poor antenna or not). In case a little bit of info helps, I have a Belkin Pre-N router, WEP security. I've added the SSID and WEP key into the interfaces file, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. I'm glad I found this place though, since it kept me from going completely nuts last night.

I'm at work, so it's killing me that I can't be at home working on it right now. Last thing that happened last night was the DHCP connection not happening (don't remember the exact message and sadly, networking isn't my forte).

WEP is a really bad choice. i could get into your network in 5 minutes and just sit there waiting for you to log into your email, use paypal etc...

you should use WPA, but anyway, i guess your first step would actually be to turn all encryption off and have it open and see if you can connect. if you can, you can add your authentication layers on top.

you might find help on the ubuntuforums.org. its a friendly place and wireless can be a big issue in linux, so you'll probably find answers

[edicius]

I was actually going to switch over to WPA, but unfortunately, my netbook doesn't support it (Dell Mini 9 running Ubuntu 10.04).

I tried once last night with the encryption off, but now that I think about it, I might not have had everything set right yet at that point. I'll have to give that another go tonight and see what happens. I'll definitely take your advice and check out the Ubuntu forums though. Thus far, I've just been Googling the hell out of everything and seeing what sticks. :p

[aeiah]

I was actually going to switch over to WPA, but unfortunately, my netbook doesn't support it (Dell Mini 9 running Ubuntu 10.04).

I tried once last night with the encryption off, but now that I think about it, I might not have had everything set right yet at that point. I'll have to give that another go tonight and see what happens. I'll definitely take your advice and check out the Ubuntu forums though. Thus far, I've just been Googling the hell out of everything and seeing what sticks. :p

ah yea, its a broadcom driver. it is possible to get it working, but i guess its a case of one thing at a time. im surprised ubuntuforums.org hasnt popped up a million times in your google search as it seems to whenever i search for anything, heh.