cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

Wurls80
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎21-01-2012

Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

Hello all - new Plusnet customer here.
Apologies for linking to another topic, but I've just posted the following topic http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,101798.0.html in the Linux forum. However I think that it's worth asking the question in the router forum too, to ensure I've got both bases covered.
Mods - sorry if this is bad form, please delete one or the other if appropriate and accept my apologies.
I've just swapped in the Thomson router to manage our ADSL and local network in place of our old Netgear DG845 one. Obviously our broadband provider has changed to plus net at the same time. I've set up the wireless network in the same way on the Thomson router as the Netgear one. My windows and android devices attached immediately - however my Ubuntu 10.04 laptop can detect the network but can't get past the authentication stage. I have got the password right, promise!
Any ideas? The laptop and router haven't moved; the only thing that I believe has changed is the router itself. What am I missing?
Many thanks in advance.....
13 REPLIES 13
ReedRichards
Seasoned Pro
Posts: 4,927
Thanks: 145
Fixes: 25
Registered: ‎14-07-2009

Re: Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

Quote from: Wurls80
What am I missing?

You fixed an IP address on the Ubuntu machine that is not appropriate to the new address range of the router?  Netgear routers are 192.168.0.1 by default whereas Thompson are 192.168.1.254 . 
Was you old Netgear router locked to your old ISP; otherwise no reason why you have to abandon it.
Peter_Vaughan
Grafter
Posts: 14,469
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

Can you try changing the router so it uses WPA rather than WPA2 and see if that works - also if the router is set to use WPA/WPA2 (i.e. tries to support both types of connection) try changing to so it is WPA2 only.
dvorak
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 29,473
Thanks: 6,623
Fixes: 1,482
Registered: ‎11-01-2008

Re: Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

Any reason why you switched to the Thomson? You could reconfigure the netgear to work with pn, I would say it's a better router.
Customer / Moderator
If it helped click the thumb
If it fixed it click 'This fixed my problem'
HairyMcbiker
All Star
Posts: 6,792
Thanks: 266
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎16-02-2009

Re: Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

Does it get an ip address or is it actually stuck at the registration? Have you enabled the authenticated mac only wifi on the router?
Since it was working before and you actually haven't changed anything it is not going to be the distro/card, are you sure you have wpa/wpa2 enabled on the router.
Wurls80
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎21-01-2012

Re: Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

Many thanks for all the replies. Will work through them now, having found that none of the computers will connect to it today. All that's changed since last night is that they've been turned off and on again. The router can see them, but they can sign in.
So I'm with you on the authentication issue, and will work through your guidance.
Ubuntu laptop didn't have a fixed IP address.
Old ISP was vodafone; we'd been having trouble with the connection and the router was the next thing to try and eliminate as a potential cause of faults. So that's why I want to get the Thomson up and running so can compare. I doubt very much it's the router, but good to confirm it.
Will let you know what works.
Wurls80
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎21-01-2012

Re: Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

Turns out what works is the Netgear router.
When I turned the laptops that had been connected last night on today, they couldn't connect. Nothing I could do could fix it; turned off the router and turned it back on, and the power light flashed yellow for two hours with no other lights on. Phoned tech support to see if it really was downloading updates, they suggested turning it off and on again. Which gave me a green power light but no others. So they diagnosed an unfortunate case of a faulty router, and are sending a replacement.
In the meantime my old netgear router has been configured to work with the plusnet account and we're all up and running again. If everything remains stable we'll see how brave I'm feeling when the new thomson arrives....
Thanks to purleigh as well for his comments on my other post. Thanks everyone.....
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

One thing to add, I have used various Linksys routers for many years and had always used an MTU of 1500 without ANY connection oddities.
However when I switched to the Netgear DG834GT, everything appeared to work normally EXCEPT the login page for eBay.
Dropping the MTU to 1458 on the Netgear cured the problem,  I also found that dropping the MTU further to 1430 gave me the absolute fastest download.
So if you unexpectedly can't login to eBay, then there is an easy solution, although I don't know why it should be different to my Linksyses.
dick:green Typo corrected at poster's request
ReedRichards
Seasoned Pro
Posts: 4,927
Thanks: 145
Fixes: 25
Registered: ‎14-07-2009

Re: Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

I have used the same Netgear router for many years.  The MTU has always been set to 1492 and this has never given me any problems.
Wurls80
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎21-01-2012

Re: Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

Holy thread resurrection Batman!
Apologies for adding to an old thread, but since I've had some success I thought I'd post my solution, in case it helps someone else.
Having configured the Netgear router and been running our connection through that, we've been experiencing broadband problems again, so swapped in the Thomson router tonight to see if this solves the problem. Same as before, I ran into the problem with the Ubuntu laptop not being able to connect to the Wi-Fi network.
The only way I've found it to work is to set the wi-fi settings on the router as follows -
Protocol:                                      802.11b/g (instead of 802.11b/g/n
WPA-PSK version:                      WPA2 (instead of WPA + WPA2)
On the ubuntu laptop the encryption for the wireless network is set to WPA & WPA2 Personal, same as when using the Netgear router.
Haven't tried all the other devices that connect to our network yet, but for the Ubuntu machine this fixed the problem
Wurls80
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎21-01-2012

Re: Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

If you'll allow me.... balls  Sad
My excitement led to premature publication of success on the internet. Further testing has suggested that while the Ubuntu machine can connect to the router wirelessly, and can get onto the network fairly consistently, the internet is very flakey. Like, connected to google once.
My next thought would be to try adjusting MTUs; but will wait to see if our original broadband issues are replicated with the Thomson router, as then I can rule out router issues, go back to the Netgear, and get onto technical support.
So close....
Wurls80
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎21-01-2012

Re: Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

A cautious thread resurrection. I'm resurrecting this thread because I've had (or possibly still got) the same problem, but I might have found a solution which could help someone else.
Today we moved onto the Plusnet fibre package. When looking to upgrade I compared plusnet & BT but decided to stay with plusnet on the basis of typing "plusnet fibre router" into google, and seeing that they provide a Netgear router. This was a mistake, because what actually arrived was a Technicolour router.
And guess what's happened? I've had to spend the evening reconfiguring everything due to inflexibility of the router, and I've met the same problem: despite setting up the wireless network in the same way within the new router as the old netgear one, everything would connect apart from the Ubuntu laptop.
Our Thinkpad T41 laptop, running Ubuntu 10.04, can see the network but will not authenticate with it (wirelessly) - the same problem I had before. It can see the network, but wouldn't authenticate.  Every other machine (windows 7 & windows XP laptops, android devices) can connect, but not this one.

I have tried  two different wireless adapters (one PCMCIA Belkin N adapter, one the standard one within the laptop) and neither worked.
In the end I changed the security settings on the router from "WPA-PSK + WPA2-PSK" to "WPA2-PSK". The Ubuntu laptop will now connect, despite changing nothing within it's set up. Everything else on the network also connects, with no changes to their settings.
Do Thomson/Technicolour implement WPA-PSK + WPA2-PSK in some slightly different way to Netgear? And how different is it to WPA2-PSK, if I didn't need to change anything on the networked devices themselves?
I shall engage in some wikipedia browsing for education later (once, you know, I've finished changing server settings on the rest of the devices because this router doesn't let me chose what IP to fix the addresses too, grrrrrrr), but if anyone else is suffering the same problem, then it looks like this solved it. Fingers firmly crossed.
Apologies if my solution just confirms that I'm a numpty 🙂
adamwalker
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 16,871
Thanks: 882
Fixes: 221
Registered: ‎27-04-2007

Re: Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

Quote
And how different is it to WPA2-PSK, if I didn't need to change anything on the networked devices themselves?

I'm not sure what the technical differences are but it is classed as a different authentication protocol to that of WPA-PSK
Thanks for taking the time to post though as this may come to help someone else out in the future.
Adam
If this post resolved your issue please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
 Adam Walker
 Plusnet Help Team
PeeGee
Pro
Posts: 1,217
Thanks: 84
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎05-04-2009

Re: Thomson router & Ubuntu 10.04

I don't know how "recent" Ubuntu 10.04 is, but there used to be a problem with Linux wireless devices when the key contained certain non-printing characters - I don't recall which. I found that my eeePC 701 running Mandriva was quite happy with a key from https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm ("63 random printable ASCII characters" version)  Crazy
Plusnet FTTC (Sep 2014), Essentials (Feb 2013); ADSL (Apr 2009); Customer since Jan 2004 (on 28kb dial-up)
Using a TP-Link Archer VR600 modem-router.