Re: [gentoo-user] Still Struggling With Wireless

[Jake Moe <jakesaddress@gmail.com>]

 On 08/17/10 11:55, Adam Carter wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm biting the bullet here and asking for help.  Yes! I've posted
>> before.  And before anyone asks, I have read the responses to my
>> previous posts which helped little.  I have read the documentation and
>> the wikis - ad nauseum.  I'm still having problems with wireless.
>>
>> Things were so much easier when I could just use the ipw3945 driver.
>> However, I can't build that because it requires TKIP and CCMP, neither
>> of which I can find settings for in my active kernel, 2.6.34-gentoo-r1.
>> In one of the responses to my previous posts someone told me about the /
>> trick while in the kernel configuration to bring up a search menu.  I
>> did this and the only reference I could find for TKIP was one related to
>> debugging.
> I use wpa_supplicant to provide the wifi crypto.
>> So, I'm left with trying to use the iwl3945 driver in the kernel.  I
>> followed the wiki for setting this up and thought I had succeeded.  I
>> got to the point where I was told to type the following:
>> ifconfig wlan0 up (this does activate the wireless led on my computer)
>> iwlist wlan0 scan
>> iwconfig wlan0 essid "network name"  (where the network name is the
>> essid that has been set)
>>
>> When I got this to work, I thought I was home free despite the "kludgy"
>> way of getting wireless working.  However, I rebooted and now, when I
>> type iwlist wlan0 scan I get told that scanning is not supported.  Yes,
>> I have iwl3945-ucode installed and yes, it was recompiled after the
>> kernel was rebuilt.
>>
>> I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.
> Forgetting to post up your configs :) eg /etc/conf.d/net etc
I've used the iwl3945 on a few HP laptops without much problem.  The few
problems I had were related to switching the wireless on and off; I'd
have to rmmod and modprobe kernel modules to get it working again.

Does "ifconfig" list the interface?  If not, what does "ifconfig wlan0
up" do?  What about the output of "iwconfig"?  And going for the obvious
here, any chance that the wireless is turned off?

Jake Moe