https://faq.i3wm.org/questions/Frequently asked questions and answers about the i3 window managerenCopyright i3, 2012Thu, 12 Jul 2012 06:28:05 +0000https://faq.i3wm.org/question/218/is-i3status-compatible-with-wpa_supplicant/i3status can't detect my wireless status. Status is always "W: down". leho@s9 ~ $ [git:master+?] sudo iwconfig wlan1 wlan1 no wireless extensions. Looking at http://code.stapelberg.de/git/i3status/tree/src/print_wireless_info.c I'm guessing that might be related. But wpa_supplicant works without any issues so I have no idea why I would even need these wireless extensions? How to get i3status to recognize my wireless status?Thu, 05 Jul 2012 20:49:32 +0000https://faq.i3wm.org/question/218/is-i3status-compatible-with-wpa_supplicant/https://faq.i3wm.org/question/218/is-i3status-compatible-with-wpa_supplicant/?answer=250#post-id-250I had similar problem after compiling my own kernel. So i will try to describe what i think can be the problem. i3status and iwconfig both use libiw to talk to the kernel. The part of the kernel which was used to configure wireless devices is called wireless extension (Wext). But wext is now considered obsolote and is being replaced by newer subsystem in the kernel (cfg80211, nl80211). Also new mechanism for interacting with userspace was introduced. So if you use newer driver based on cfg80211 you should use iw (which uses libnl) instead of iwconfig to configure your card and get its status. If you want i3status to get status of your card you can enable Wext compatability layer in your kernel (CFG80211_WEXT). Networking support -> Wireless -> cfg80211 wireless extensions compatibility I was thinking about adding libnl support to i3status. But the new API seems a bit heavy and i didn't have time to look at it closer. If i have time i will ask Michael what he thinks about it. Wed, 11 Jul 2012 23:20:38 +0000https://faq.i3wm.org/question/218/is-i3status-compatible-with-wpa_supplicant/?answer=250#post-id-250https://faq.i3wm.org/question/218/is-i3status-compatible-with-wpa_supplicant/?comment=253#comment-253Yes I was pretty certain this was it, haven't had the energy to dig in and report back like you did. Good job. I would definitely rather avoid enabling obsolete kernel options, but I do understand patching is a heavier option. It's not business critical for me, so I'm sitting back on this one.Thu, 12 Jul 2012 05:43:37 +0000https://faq.i3wm.org/question/218/is-i3status-compatible-with-wpa_supplicant/?comment=253#comment-253https://faq.i3wm.org/question/218/is-i3status-compatible-with-wpa_supplicant/?comment=254#comment-254Great answer indeed. Patches to make i3status use the new API are very welcome.Thu, 12 Jul 2012 06:28:05 +0000https://faq.i3wm.org/question/218/is-i3status-compatible-with-wpa_supplicant/?comment=254#comment-254https://faq.i3wm.org/question/218/is-i3status-compatible-with-wpa_supplicant/?answer=219#post-id-219i3status uses libiw to get the wireless information. If iwconfig doesn’t list any wireless cards on your system (are you sure it’s wlan1? try `sudo iwconfig`), then i3status will not find anything either.Fri, 06 Jul 2012 04:20:43 +0000https://faq.i3wm.org/question/218/is-i3status-compatible-with-wpa_supplicant/?answer=219#post-id-219https://faq.i3wm.org/question/218/is-i3status-compatible-with-wpa_supplicant/?comment=223#comment-223and make sure the i3status.conf is properly pointing to wlan1 instead of the default wlan0 (it happened to me before once a kernel update changed my interface from wlan0 to eth1).Sat, 07 Jul 2012 07:27:38 +0000https://faq.i3wm.org/question/218/is-i3status-compatible-with-wpa_supplicant/?comment=223#comment-223