Intel 3945 Wireless card

zWaR · 02-14-2007, 02:15 PM

Hello,

i'm trying to install Intel 3945 Wireles card on my laptop (hp pavilion dv6162ea). I'm running slackware 11.0 with generic 2.6.18 kernel. I've been following the instructions in INSTALL file, which comes with Intel's ipw3945 driver. Everything went smooth (i just had to force ipw3945 to install, since it complained about ieee80211 duplicate), but as i run iwconfig it claims no wireless extensions. I tried to go trough FAQ steps on Wireless Tools for Linux, under the title debugging Wireless Extensions, but according to it everything should work. lspci displays the card, modules ieee80211 and ipw3945 are listed in lsmod output, cat /proc/net/wireless gives output, but still iwconfig claims no wireless extensions. What should i do?

The wireless card has a switch on the laptop, to turn it on or off. If the wlan card is switched on, the status light lights orange until OS does not load (e.g. it stays orange until windows do not load and it then chages its color to green), but on linux it is allways orange - i don't know if this is important, but it might be a clue.

Any help would be great!

zWaR · 02-14-2007, 04:31 PM

I've installed new kernel 2.6.20 and somehow managed to get iwconfig to work. Now there's a second trouble comming on. I configured my essid and WEP key and have also managed to connect inside the local network, but i still can not connect outside of it, on the internet. Other machines on the local net are using the same router (allthough they are wire connected) and the internet connection works like a charm. I was testing the wlan connection on windows, where outside connection also worked. My router is asus WL-500g Premium.

zWaR · 02-14-2007, 05:05 PM

Yee i solved it! I disabled eth0 (ethernet device) configuerd eth1 (wlan card) with ifconfig again and now it works! I just have to automate the procedure, so the wlan settings will be configured on startup.

zWaR · 02-15-2007, 09:19 AM

I just want to be more specific on managing the wireless card installation. In kernel 2.6.20, ieee80211 is build into kernel, it can not be disabled (Y by default), so there is no need to install ieee80211 module (as suggested in ipw3945 INSTALL file), although the ieee80211 installation can also be done. All you have to do is install ipw3945 driver (if it claims you have to force it, because it has found ieee80211 duplicate, just force it) and then copy the daemon file (ipw3945d) into /sbin folder. Running ipw3945d will load ipw3945 module and because ieee80211 support is build into kernel, there is no need to load ieee80211 module again, hence the error if you try to run ./load from the ipw driver directory (as suggested in INSTALLATION file). Now, you should be able to see a description of your wlan card, if you enter iwconfig command (if you don't, i don't know what to do - i compiled new kernel and it worked).

Next thing is to configure the wlan, it is enough to set essid and WEP key (if you use one):

Code:

iwconfig eth1 essid YourActualEssid
iwconfig eth1 key xxxxxxxx (where xxxxxxx is  you actual hex key or s:yyyyyy, where yyyyy is your ascii key)

Once you did that, just configure eth1 (if that's recognised as your wlan card) with ifconfig:

Code:

ifconfig eth1 {$IPADDRESS} broadcast {$BCASTIP} netmask {$NETMASKIP}
route add default gw {$GWADDRESS}

(Replace variables in curly brackets with actual ip addresses!)

ifconfig command implicitly enables eth1 device, so there is no need using ifconfig eth1 up (but it can be useful when testing).

If you have more then one eth device on your laptop (what usually is the case), be sure to bring unused devices down, since that can be a cause for problems. You can do this using the command ifconfig eth0 down (replace eth0 with the identifier of your device).

To automate the process, it is enough to configure ipw3945d to start on system startup (on slackware placing ipw3945d into /etc/rc.d/rc.local). To configure wlan card via iwconfig and ifconfig, you can write your own bash script, it's really straight forward or you can use my script, which i will post when i come back to my linux machine

I hope this post will someday help someone to configure his/her intel 3945 wireless card!

zWaR · 02-20-2007, 07:26 PM

Here's the promissed code for wlan enabling script.

Code:

#!/bin/bash
#The script starts wlan connection

#config
WEP=<insert your wep key here [hex-key | s:ascii-key]>
ESSID=<insert your essid here>
ETH=<the name of lan devide e.g. eth1>

iwconfig $ETH essid $ESSID
iwconfig $ETH key $WEP

if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
	echo "iwconfig loaded successfuly"
else
	echo "iwconfig error"
fi

eigernorth · 05-08-2007, 04:51 PM

Hi folks,

with my Slack 11, I got the ipw3945 setup almost complete: iwconfig and ifconfig see the adapter as 'eth1'. So far so good. However, I cannot obtain a dynamic IP address. Any ideas? Please see rc.wireless.conf.

00:19

2:B0:3C:59) ### Work
INFO="Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)"
ESSID="ISD-MAX-WL"
# ESSID="ISD-ALL-WL"
# NWID=""
MODE="Managed"
# AUTO_CREATE="1"
# FREQ=""
#CHANNEL 0 means any
CHANNEL="0"
# SENS=""
RATE="auto"
KEY="xxx"
# RTS=""
# FRAG=""
# IWCONFIG=""
# IWSPY=""
IWPRIV=""
;;

... it works find under the other OS.

Thanks

0ptimus · 05-22-2007, 12:03 PM

eigernorth, you've probably already tried this, but for those who don't know it:

Did you try

Code:

# dhclient eth1

where "eth1" is replaced with your wireless interface name?