11 replies to this topic

[thecriscoking]

I've got this small problem. Whenever I install xubuntu on my new acer, everything runs smooth until it comes time to use the machine. Xubuntu shows that I have no wireless capabilities (i ran a 'lspci | grep -i wireless'). Ethernet works wonders and all, but it would be alot better with wifi. Anyways, back to the story. Since newely installed, I run the system updates which takes about a half hour and restart the machine as prompted. Upon booting and logging in, an error message pops up stating: Failed to initiate HAL. and the top right status bar that displays the battery and network connection shows nothing except the shutdown button. I ran 'ifconfig -a' and saw that i have both wlan0 and wmaster0 and I've tried 'ifconfig wlan0 up' but doing that does something similar to ending the process explorer.exe on a windows machine. I've also tried reinstalling multiple times but each time the exact same thing happens. Anyone have any ideas?

OH, the machine is an Acer Aspire 2930, 2.0 ghz, 3gb memory, 250 hdd, with intel processor.

Edited by thecriscoking, 27 January 2009 - 10:37 AM.

[friendless]

I'm no expert. I assume it also updates your Kernel when you do the updates, do you know if you have any problems with any other hardware devices after updating?

Sounds like it's able to detect the hardware however it can't interface or communicate with it properly hince an issue with HAL.

[isolationx]

I've got this small problem. Whenever I install xubuntu on my new acer, everything runs smooth until it comes time to use the machine. Xubuntu shows that I have no wireless capabilities (i ran a 'lspci | grep -i wireless'). Ethernet works wonders and all, but it would be alot better with wifi. Anyways, back to the story. Since newely installed, I run the system updates which takes about a half hour and restart the machine as prompted. Upon booting and logging in, an error message pops up stating: Failed to initiate HAL. and the top right status bar that displays the battery and network connection shows nothing except the shutdown button. I ran 'ifconfig -a' and saw that i have both wlan0 and wmaster0 and I've tried 'ifconfig wlan0 up' but doing that does something similar to ending the process explorer.exe on a windows machine. I've also tried reinstalling multiple times but each time the exact same thing happens. Anyone have any ideas?

OH, the machine is an Acer Aspire 2930, 2.0 ghz, 3gb memory, 250 hdd, with intel processor.

It looks like some people just reinstall the three hal packages: Hal, hal-device-manager, and hal-info. Have you used wireless on this machine before? Here's a few threads where people have fixed it (doing various things):

http://ubuntuforums....hp/t-23291.html
http://ubuntuforums....t=365442&page=1

Edited by isolationx, 27 January 2009 - 12:17 PM.

[thecriscoking]

The machine originally came installed with Vista which I could use wireless with. Its about 3 days old total. Can i reinstall the HAL packets without an internet connection? Because once I run the updates and restart, I have no connection whether it be wireless or not.

[isolationx]

The machine originally came installed with Vista which I could use wireless with. Its about 3 days old total. Can i reinstall the HAL packets without an internet connection? Because once I run the updates and restart, I have no connection whether it be wireless or not.

When you first installed Ubuntu, did HAL shutdown? The problem is with the new updates, somethings not right. Without a network, you probably wont be able to reinstall Hal, unless you use revert back down to the old version from the ubuntu iso.

BTW did you try to restart it? "sudo /etc/init.d/dbus restart"

Edited by isolationx, 27 January 2009 - 12:56 PM.

[thecriscoking]

The installation prior to the updates did not have HAL. I noticed this after the first time I attempted to run the updates. I scrolled through the updates list to see what maybe could have caused that and i saw 'hal' but I did not think much of it. Do you think perhaps if I just opt not to install HAL that my network card will work?


EDIT: I have not tried to restart it, I will have to do that when I get back to computer.

Edited by thecriscoking, 27 January 2009 - 01:01 PM.

[isolationx]

The installation prior to the updates did not have HAL. I noticed this after the first time I attempted to run the updates. I scrolled through the updates list to see what maybe could have caused that and i saw 'hal' but I did not think much of it. Do you think perhaps if I just opt not to install HAL that my network card will work?


EDIT: I have not tried to restart it, I will have to do that when I get back to computer.

When I was screwing around with opensuse 11.1, I turned off hal and it screwed everything up. I believe that you need it, but I may be wrong. If it was my system, I just wouldn't update hal if it was giving me problems.

edit: When you get the hal situation figured out, you will probably need to use ndiswrapper for the wlan0. My wife has an aspire one, and I needed to use ndiswrapper to get the card to work.

Edited by isolationx, 27 January 2009 - 01:12 PM.

[thecriscoking]

Thanks alot for the help. I'll report back with the progress.

[thecriscoking]

I tried all the fixes i could find from here and a couple I found on Google but nothing. I've concluded that since my xubuntu cd is fairly old, about over a year, maybe some hardware isn't supported. I downloaded and installed ubuntu 8.10 becuase I've read it supports my machines hardware.

[isolationx]

I tried all the fixes i could find from here and a couple I found on Google but nothing. I've concluded that since my xubuntu cd is fairly old, about over a year, maybe some hardware isn't supported. I downloaded and installed ubuntu 8.10 becuase I've read it supports my machines hardware.

Did this get the wifi working right?

[Swerve]

The alternate CD tends to have the better hardware support I've found.

[thecriscoking]

Yeah, 8.10 ubuntu works wonders. Wifi support, sound, the works. Thanks for all the help guys.