Hi everybody,

Well, I'd been using Ubuntu for about 5 years when I decided about a week ago to switch to a "purer" distro. After a few days of effort I was able to install (not a full install) Slack from a hard drive partition on my aging IBM Thinkpad T41, which was just in time because my rescue disk, (don't laugh) Ubuntu 8.04, decided to crap out at that exact time. So I've learned a lot about how linux boots already.

But anyway, I've hit my next brick wall, configuring my wireless network. I've spent maybe six straight hours at this, reading countless man pages and FAQs, including Alien Bob's (twice), but nothing has worked so far. I think I've managed to get some bits and pieces in place but I have some specific questions:

1) At some point in my journey iwconfig decided to create an interface called "eth1-eth0". Ifconfig lists no such interface, and it certainly doesn't appear in the rc.inet1.conf file. Anyone seen this before? I think it started when I changed the name appearing in udev's 70-net-rules file, but I changed them back and rebooted and it's still there.

2) In rc.inet1.conf, I created a shiny new wlan0 interface, with a bunch of parameters (I uncommented most of the sample), including WPA support with wpa_supplicant, but rc.inet1 doesn't seem to pay any attention to it, only eth0. Is there some way to change the 'default' interface?

3) Speaking of the wlan0 interface, I'm kind of worried because at first my wireless card (an Intel with driver ipw2100) seemed to gravitate towards eth1. Should I have just stuck to that instead of trying to force a wlan0 on it?

Sorry, that's a lot to throw out there without providing any of my source or outputs etc. If you want to see a file that I've edited, or the output of some command, please ask!

Thank you,

Der Stephen

I've always found wicd (in the extras directory of the Slackware install media) to be an excellent solution to wireless config. I do a fair bit of traveling and found that the official Slackware way to deal with wireless is a little fiddly for my tastes.

I usually prefer to let it be what it will be. It really doesn't matter what the device is called so long as that name is stable.

If your card is coming up as eth1, that is probably why this is being ignored. If I remember correctly, there isn't a default here, Slackware will happily configure all of the cards it finds using the info from here.

As for #1, I suspect you made a change that you don't remember. If you've done a lot of fiddling, it might not be a bad idea to re-install the stuff from n and see if that gets you back to a stock situation.

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If you are new to slackware I'd strongly encourage you to do a full install until you are comfortable with it. This will remove a potential source of problems as you are learning the system.

For the wireless problem, let your system determine the interface name and edit the .conf file accordingly as Hangdog suggests. If you are configuring manually then you will also have to mess with wpa_supplicant (assuming your network is encrypted). If you move at all between networks and/or use encryption then wicd (in extra) or NetworkManager (which you can build using scripts from slackbuilds.org) are much more robust solutions.

Brian

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Apparently this is pretty important. I imported my parameters for the wlan0 interface back to the eth1 interface, changed the udev rules to rename it back to eth1, ran rc.inet1, and Bingo! I'm connected with 98% link quality!

Thanks guys for your replies.

1 members found this post helpful.

When it comes to wireless devices, there is a chance you MAY be required to download and install Firmware either from the OEM, a Linux wireless network project, or another website.

You should research the type of wireless device you are using first, then see if drivers or firmware are needed, then download and install them if needed and use a network management tool to control the wireless.

Generally excellent advice, however in this case the OP did say that the card in question is an Intel, and since Intel actually deals with Linux in an intelligent manner (mainly it allows firmware to be included in distros), it isn't an issue in this case. Intel's support of Linux is the main reason that if there is a choice of wireless device, I always buy an Intel based card.

Yup, I found my driver was already installed, good ol' ipw2100. It's getting on in years but they still keep it around (though they specifically say that because it's so old one should use the wext wpa driver).

I love your sig Hangdog. Context would only ruin the joke.

Didn't mean to bump the thread but I just saw the "solved" thing so I'll go ahead and mark it.