[lubuntu] wlan-1000 usb wifi works fine before, but not after (!) live-cd installation.

Dear all. I have a problem with my usb wifi adapter. Tried to solve it for a week now, but I didn’t succeed and do not know where to look now. Can someone help me out?

thanks, greetings from NL.

Setting:
- laptop Toshiba Satellite A200-1G3
- since the inteal wifi is broken (works neither using windows) - I use an usb wifi adapter
- usb wifi adapter = Sitecom Wireless Network USB Micro Adapter 150N X1 WLA-1000
- WLA-1000 works fine with Windows 7
- WLA-1000 works also fine (!) with lubuntu-15.10-desktop-i386.iso - note: the live cd, before the actual installation

Here comes the interesting part, once installed on the HD (or another flash drive) - the usb wifi does not work anymore: I get no specific error message, but no network is shown to select to coect. I am talking here about a completely fresh install, no config changes made. Format drive again -- fresh install -- no change: with the flash drive it works during live Lubuntu, after install/regular boot, it doesn’t anymore.

So below I paste some interesting commands that I checked while surfing all forum website I could find. Does anyone have an idea?

BEFORE = live usb - straight from website
AFTER = regular boot, directly after installation from live-cd

root@lubuntu:/home/lubuntu# uname -r
BEFORE: 4.2.0-16-generic
AFTER: 4.2.0-34-generic

BEFORE:
lubuntu@lubuntu:~$ iwconfig
wlx000cf6b6e851 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"Dooroosje" Nickname:"rtl_wifi"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: A4:2B:B0:A5:79:D8
Bit Rate:150 Mb/s Sensitivity:0/0
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=100/100 Signal level=67/100 Noise level=0/100
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

lo no wireless extensions.

enp4s0 no wireless extensions.

wlp5s0 IEEE 802.11abg ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off

AFTER: (** so somehow the usb is notified by lubuntu...)
root@lubuntu-usb1:/home/lubuntu# iwconfig
wlx000cf6b6e851 unassociated Nickname:"rtl_wifi"
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Sensitivity:0/0
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

(NO changes before/after)
lubuntu@lubuntu:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0df6:005b Sitecom Europe B.V.
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0781:5583 SanDisk Corp.
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 058f:6387 Alcor Micro Corp. Flash Drive
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

(NO changes before/after)
lubuntu@lubuntu:~$ lsusb -t
/: Bus 07.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 06.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 05.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 04.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=uhci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ehci-pci/6p, 480M
|__ Port 2: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Mass Storage, Driver=usb-storage, 480M
|__ Port 5: Dev 3, If 0, Class=Mass Storage, Driver=usb-storage, 480M
|__ Port 6: Dev 4, If 0, Class=Vendor Specific Class, Driver=r8712u, 480M
/: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ehci-pci/4p, 480M

(NO changes before/after)
root@lubuntu-usb1:/home/lubuntu# cat /etc/network/interfaces
# interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

lubuntu@lubuntu:~$ lsmod | grep w
iwl3945 65536 0
iwlegacy 90112 1 iwl3945
serio_raw 16384 0
mac80211 659456 2 iwl3945,iwlegacy
cfg80211 483328 3 iwl3945,iwlegacy,mac80211
snd_rawmidi 28672 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_hwdep 16384 1 snd_hda_codec
wmi 20480 1 toshiba_acpi
snd_seq_device 16384 3 snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_midi
snd 69632 13 snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_hda_ codec_hdmi,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_hda_cod ec_generic,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_seq_dev ice
firewire_ohci 36864 0
firewire_core 65536 1 firewire_ohci
crc_itu_t 16384 1 firewire_core

(BEFORE)
root@lubuntu:/home/lubuntu# cat /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf
# /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf
# iwlwifi will dyamically load either iwldvm or iwlmvm depending on the
# microcode file installed on the system. When removing iwlwifi, first
# remove the iwl?vm module and then iwlwifi.
remove iwlwifi
(/sbin/lsmod | grep -o -e ^iwlmvm -e ^iwldvm -e ^iwlwifi | xargs /sbin/rmmod)
&& /sbin/modprobe -r mac80211

(AFTER) the following line appears at the end of the file:
options iwlwifi bt_coex_active=0

(NO changes before/after)
root@lubuntu:/home/lubuntu# cat /var/log/syslog | grep wlan | tail -n20
Apr 3 18:51:06 lubuntu keel: [ 25.714729] iwl3945 0000:05:00.0 wlp5s0: renamed from wlan0
Apr 3 18:51:07 lubuntu keel: [ 27.315142] r8712u 2-6:1.0 wlx000cf6b6e851: renamed from wlan0

(BEFORE)
root@lubuntu:/home/lubuntu# ps aux | grep etwork
root 1248 43.7 0.6 87048 13508 ? Ssl 18:51 7:25 /usr/sbin/NetworkManager --no-daemon
root 2943 0.0 0.3 9276 7840 ? S 18:51 0:00 /sbin/dhclient -d -q -sf /usr/lib/NetworkManager/nm-dhcp-helper -pf /run/sendsigs.omit.d/network-manager.dhclient-wlx000cf6b6e851.pid -lf /var/lib/NetworkManager/dhclient-d35c1c7a-3091-4311-a7d3-04900b76b132-wlx000cf6b6e851.lease -cf /var/lib/NetworkManager/dhclient-wlx000cf6b6e851.conf wlx000cf6b6e851
nobody 2952 0.0 0.1 8480 3820 ? S 18:51 0:00 /usr/sbin/dnsmasq --no-resolv --keep-in-foreground --no-hosts --bind-interfaces --pid-file=/run/sendsigs.omit.d/network-manager.dnsmasq.pid --listen-address=127.0.1.1 --conf-file=/var/run/NetworkManager/dnsmasq.conf --cache-size=0 --proxy-dnssec --enable-dbus=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.dnsmasq --conf-dir=/etc/NetworkManager/dnsmasq.d
root 3998 0.0 0.0 4544 2004 pts/1 S+ 19:08 0:00 grep --color=auto etwork

(AFTER)
root@lubuntu-usb1:/home/lubuntu# ps aux | grep etwork
root 569 0.0 0.9 86900 19160 ? Ssl 19:11 0:00 /usr/sbin/NetworkManager --no-daemon
root 1595 0.0 0.0 4548 1960 pts/0 S+ 19:20 0:00 grep --color=auto etwork
** so here I miss 2 lines