basics of linux wireless?

slinky2004 · 09-20-2005, 10:27 PM

i've got slackware 10.1 running pretty nicely on my new laptop, but i havent been able to get my wireless card working. i'm following a guide from tuxmobil.com by a guy who installed sorcerer on almost the exact same laptop(his processor is a few more mhz and i think his screen is a little larger) http://linux.highsphere.net/howtos/b100b.php . here's his wireless section:

Quote:

Wireless

The integrated wireless card Intel Pro 2200BG works with the ipw2200 driver and a proprietary firmware. Follow instructions on the project's web site to install the driver and obtain the firmware.

Interestingly, the wireless adapter is not controlled via PCMCIA but rather like a PCI network adapter. Thus, you may need to modify your network initialization scripts.

If the wireless adapter cannot associate with an access point (AP) while using WEP, then you need to set the security mode to open, for example iwconfig eth1 enc "s:1234567890123" open. Once you load the ipw2200 module, you can try establishing a connection to an AP from a command line:
iwconfig $DEVICE mode "$MODE"
iwconfig $DEVICE enc "$KEY" open
iwconfig $DEVICE essid "$ESSID"

Set the DEVICE, MODE, KEY, and ESSID variables to match your environment. Command iwconfig $DEVICE will show whether the association with an AP was successful or not.

now, i've installed the firmware(i just untared it and coppied the .fw files to /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware, i'm not sure this is right since he mentions the card not being controlled by pcmcia. i've also installed the ipw2200 driver and it's modprobed and everything. my kernel is the latest 2.6.13.1. anyway, i dunno what to do now. iwconfig says that all of my network devices have "no wireless extensions". also, apparently you get on a WAP with

Quote:

* iwconfig eth1 mode Managed
* iwconfig eth1 essid <wapname>

but what is the mode thing about? what are the other modes? and what if i dont know the name of my wap? how do i scan for waps?

darin3200 · 09-20-2005, 11:00 PM

Other modes could be ad-hoc which would be a connection just with another laptop, there is also infrastructure but I don't know much about that. Kismet allows for you to find waps in your area.

slinky2004 · 09-21-2005, 12:49 PM

so, it comes with commands to setup a wifi connection, but nothing to scan for waps?

nesor · 09-21-2005, 01:49 PM

try

Code:

iwlist (interface) scan

slinky2004 · 09-21-2005, 02:08 PM

well, i've gotten the card to work(kind of) it comes up as eth2 when i do ifconfig now, but when i try to connect to my wap with iwconfig eth2 essid:linksys it doesnt really do anything. iwconfig says my essid is "linksys" but i havent been assigned an ip address and i'm not really on the network. i dont see an ip address assigned to eth2 and i cant ping any computers on the wireless network. also that iwlist eth2 scan didnt do anything it said the device does not support scanning. but i could scan for waps in windows.