Re: [gentoo-user] Wireless Help

["Michael Crute" <mcrute@gmail.com>]

On 7/7/06, Colleen Beamer <colleen.beamer@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> 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.


Hi Colleen,

I would really recommend you use wpa_supplicant as IMO it is far
easier to configure and supports more access methods than iwconfig.
Since your wireless card is clearly detected it should be trivial to
setup. Check out this article in the wiki (which you may have already
looked at): http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Wireless_Configuration_and_Startup#Configuration_using_wpa_supplicant

-Mike


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________________________________
Michael E. Crute
http://mike.crute.org

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