[aklug] Re: Starting a Wireless Connection

On Wednesday 01 April 2009, Christopher Howard wrote:
> Hi. Somebody sold me a laptop for $30. It is the first computer I've ever
> owned with wireless capability, so I am trying to work through that. Could
> anyone help me know what commands to use to start the connection (to a
> public hotspot).

The simple way? Plug in your ethernet card, su to root and install
network-manager and it's related companion (network-manager-kde, etc.)

Make sure wlan0 isn't in /etc/interfaces and network-manager will control it.

Easy as pie.
>
> My information:
> 32 bit Lenny Debian install
> XFCE desktop
> HP Pavilion ze2000
>
> Results of iwconfig:
>
> lo no wireless extensions.
>
> eth0 no wireless extensions.
>
> wmaster0 no wireless extensions.
>
> wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:""
> Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
> Tx-Power=0 dBm
> Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B
> Encryption key:off
> Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
> Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
> Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
>
> Results of iwlist wlan0 scan:
>
> wlan0 Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down
>
Some wireless cards won't scan until you bring the interface up:

ifconfig wlan0 up
iwlist wlan0 scan
--- find the network you want
iwconfig essid networkname here
dhclient3 wlan0

That's assuming an unencrypted network.

If you're going to do things manually, a good tool to monitor your connections
is wavemon. It shows signal strength, the AP you're associated with, your
IP, etc.

> I haven't installed ndiswrapper (or whatever it is called) because I saw
> wlan0 showing up there in iwconfig (so I wasn't sure I needed it). Plus,
> the wireless seemed to work under Mandriva live without special driver
> installs.

Yup, you don't need ndiswrapper. Actually you need that less and less these
days.
>
> The wireless hotspot should be DHCP.
>
> I can setup wired ethernet in the config files and from the command-line,
> but I've never dealt with wireless before. Any advice or really good
> tutorials would be appreciated.

man iwconfig will get you where you need to be to manipulate the card.

Also look into the wpa supplicant documentation if you want to set up your
home network with wpa2. It's really easy, and network-manager will do the
heavy lifting for you if you install it.

James

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Received on Wed Apr 1 21:10:14 2009