Re: [gentoo-user] Wireless Help

["Colleen Beamer" <colleen.beamer@gmail.com>]

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On 7/5/06, A. R. <feoymalo@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > So, my question is, once I install ndiswrapper and the driver, do I then
> > follow the wiki for either wireless-tools or (preferred)
> > wpa-supplicant?  Is there anything else I have to do or install?
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Colleen
> >
>
> Hello,
>
> May I suggest that you try first with wireless-tools?
>
>
> Things you need to know:
> 1. The interface id of the wireless card (eth0, eth1, wlan0 etc...)
> 2. The "essid" of the wireless access point you are connecting to.
> 3. The encryption key (if any) for wireless access (WEP)
>
> Once you have those you can run the following commands (after you have
> emerged wireless-tools) Using eth1 as the interface for example:
>
> iwconfig eth1 essid <the essid of the access point>
> iwconfig eth1 key <the encryption key>
> dhcpcd eth1


Okay, I emerged ndiswrapper which also emerged wireless-tools.  I haven't
yet created any configuration files.  However, if I run iwconfig, this is
what I get:

localhost ~ # iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"beam26wireless"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:13:10:99:9C:BF
          Bit Rate:54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:25 dBm
          RTS thr:2347 B   Fragment thr:2346 B
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:100/100  Signal level:-60 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

So, I assume that eth1 would be replaced by wlan0 in the commands above,
correct?



If this works, then depending on how you want to configure your box
> you may want to set all this configuration in the file
> /etc/conf.d/wireless (BTW, please take a look at the file
> /etc/conf.d/wireless.example, it does have very good comments that
> would make this very understandable), or you may want to go for
> wpa_supplicant.



Well, I already have wireless-tools on my laptop because it was installed
with ndiswrapper.  As you note, my access point (a wireless cable/DSL
router) is recognized and I realize that there isn't an encryption key set.

The thing is, I *have* looked at /etc/conf.d/wireless.example and it may as
well be hieroglyphics.  I don't know which section to alter.  Right now, if
I'm on my laptop, I want to be able to connect to the access point in my
apartment.  However, if I'm at someplace that has wireless access, I want to
be able to scan for an available network.  So, I don't know what section to
changed.

I'm just a user and not a network person, so further help would be
appreciated.


Regards,

Colleen






>

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