[gentoo-user] Need to turn on wireless

[gentoo-user] Need to turn on wireless

[Mark Knecht]

Hi all,
   I haven't used built-in wireless on Linux in years but come
Thursday I'll likely have to spend 12 or more hours waiting around in
a hospital so I'm making an attempt to get it working.

   Can someone point me at instructions oriented toward sitting down
in a place like Starbucks on a public network and gaining basic
connectivity? Everything I'm finding is based on running a properly
secure network which I suspect isn't what one uses in a public place.
Am I correct in this?

   The hardware is Atheros:

slinky ~ # lspci | grep Atheros
03:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285
Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
slinky ~ #

so I'm building into my kernel anything that looks reasonably likely
to be used. I didn't find anything for this specific chip though.

   What sort of apps are available to discover a public network ESSID?
Something GUI based would be appreciated if it's in portage.


   Thanks in advance for any help.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Need to turn on wireless

[luis jure]

on 2011-07-18 at 18:17 Mark Knecht wrote:


>   What sort of apps are available to discover a public network ESSID?
>Something GUI based would be appreciated if it's in portage.

i got good results with wicd in the past. i got it to work fine on a
gentoo laptop for exactly what you need, if understood your mail correctly.

i don't have a laptop anymore, and on my netbook i have xubuntu. they use
network-manager as a default. wicd is lighter and works fine, but
network-manager has the advantage of working with mobile broadband, while
wicd doesn't. but i never could make network-manager work on gentoo...

Re: [gentoo-user] Need to turn on wireless

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 6:41 PM, luis jure <ljc@internet.com.uy> wrote:
> on 2011-07-18 at 18:17 Mark Knecht wrote:
>
>
>>   What sort of apps are available to discover a public network ESSID?
>>Something GUI based would be appreciated if it's in portage.
>
> i got good results with wicd in the past. i got it to work fine on a
> gentoo laptop for exactly what you need, if understood your mail correctly.
>
> i don't have a laptop anymore, and on my netbook i have xubuntu. they use
> network-manager as a default. wicd is lighter and works fine, but
> network-manager has the advantage of working with mobile broadband, while
> wicd doesn't. but i never could make network-manager work on gentoo...
>
>
>

Thanks, wicd seems to work well enough to show me the networks in my
neighborhood. I'll have to figure out how to connect to one when I get
to my destination tomorrow night.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Need to turn on wireless

[Srdjan Rakic]

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I've been using NetworkManger for quite long time now. You might want to
check it out.

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 11:03 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 6:41 PM, luis jure <ljc@internet.com.uy> wrote:
> > on 2011-07-18 at 18:17 Mark Knecht wrote:
> >
> >
> >>   What sort of apps are available to discover a public network ESSID?
> >>Something GUI based would be appreciated if it's in portage.
> >
> > i got good results with wicd in the past. i got it to work fine on a
> > gentoo laptop for exactly what you need, if understood your mail
> correctly.
> >
> > i don't have a laptop anymore, and on my netbook i have xubuntu. they use
> > network-manager as a default. wicd is lighter and works fine, but
> > network-manager has the advantage of working with mobile broadband, while
> > wicd doesn't. but i never could make network-manager work on gentoo...
> >
> >
> >
>
> Thanks, wicd seems to work well enough to show me the networks in my
> neighborhood. I'll have to figure out how to connect to one when I get
> to my destination tomorrow night.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Need to turn on wireless

[Mick]

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On Tuesday 19 Jul 2011 04:03:46 Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 6:41 PM, luis jure <ljc@internet.com.uy> wrote:
> > on 2011-07-18 at 18:17 Mark Knecht wrote:
> >>   What sort of apps are available to discover a public network ESSID?
> >>
> >>Something GUI based would be appreciated if it's in portage.
> >>
> > i got good results with wicd in the past. i got it to work fine on a
> > gentoo laptop for exactly what you need, if understood your mail
> > correctly.
> > 
> > i don't have a laptop anymore, and on my netbook i have xubuntu. they use
> > network-manager as a default. wicd is lighter and works fine, but
> > network-manager has the advantage of working with mobile broadband, while
> > wicd doesn't. but i never could make network-manager work on gentoo...
> 
> Thanks, wicd seems to work well enough to show me the networks in my
> neighborhood. I'll have to figure out how to connect to one when I get
> to my destination tomorrow night.
> 
> Cheers,
> Mark

You can choose from wicd, networkmanager (this comes with different front ends 
depending on your DE) and wpa_supplicant gui.  From what I read wicd is the 
best if you just want to use it for WiFi.  The way to connect is to click on 
the access point of your choice and fill in the passphrase/key when it pops up 
and asks you for it.

Unprotected wireless networks will just connect without asking for a key.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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