I am wondering what the best way to set up a laptop so that I can frequently bounce between at least 2 different wireless networks. I am running Mandrake 10.1 (w/KDE) - and I'm sure you can tell by my question, I am new to this.

I set up the wireless connection in the mandrake control center to accept 'any' essid. Then I have also installed kwifimanager. This gives you the ability to preprogram upto 4 'configs' with separate essid's and keys. The problem is that it will load that only after getting into kde right? Because my problem actually happens when the system is booting. If it can't find the wireless network upon boot, the boot sequence takes a long time because when it initializes eth2 eventually it just fails. However once it fails and moves on and I get into KDE I am able to get the wireless working. Is there an easier/better way so that I can quickly bounce between my apartment and school without having to wait for it to fail each time I boot in a new wireless area? Thanks!

MDColson

Actually, probably the best way to do this is to disable the boot configuration for this card and just do it from KDE each time. The other way to do this would be to write a script that lets you choose which network to access and have that run at boot time. If you are feeling extremely adventerous, I've posted a perl script I use to scan for access points and then let me choose. I run it at boot time. I haven't tested it much, so it may not work for you.

How do I go about disabling the 'boot configuration'? Is that from the KDE control center? Go into the network connection and uncheck the 'start at boot' or whatever it says? (this kills my connection!) If I do that... Will kwifimanager just takeover after kde loads?

MDColson

I don't know if Mandrake offers it, but Debian offers the laptop-net package that does what you're looking for. If there isn't a rpm for it, perhaps you can get the source and build it yourself.

I'm not entirely sure how Mandrake handles things, but unchecking the "start at boot" box would be a good start. KWifimanager will almost certainly not just take over after KDE loads, you'll probably have to run it manually. The other bit I'm not sure of is if KWifimanager will request an IP address once it has configured the card.

Following your suggestions - kwifimanager does connect to the AP (iwconfig shows correct essid) however as you said, it doesn't seem to pull an IP. How do I go about getting an IP once I am associated with an AP?

MDColson

I usually do it from the command line. Most linux distros either use dhcpcd or dhclient followed by the device name. So for dhcpcd the command is dhcpcd wlan0. Dhclient works similarly. You'll have to check which one Mandrake uses.