I finally got me an .iso burned onto disk, ran it this aft and started checking out Backtrack linux for the first time. I am using the live cd for now, am planning to do a HD installation in time but want to make sure it is going mto be a good fit for my purposes.....

I am having a hard time getting the wifi running properly and am wondering what I can do to rectify?

Does this distro automatically do a config on the installed network cards or does this need to be manually set up? How about drivers so I can use the wifi auditing tools included? The drivers automatically installed and config'd or do I have to manually compile and install a driver (DWL-G520[atheros chipset])

I just finished downloading a bunch of madwifi driver versions, some pre-compiled and some need to be fully done fr scratch...they are from the slax site but imigine they shoudl work...they are not all that current though, wondering of anyone knows where I shoudl be checking for a newer version (if there is one?) preferable one which is good to go?

Upon bootup I notice that there are numerous listing for various network cards- but only have the 1 eth and 1 wifi, yet it lists ath0, eth0 and wifi0---which shoudl I be using for wifi connect? (or are these all needed for the various sniffersd and other auditiung toolz?)usually it is ath0 I have used in the past but I cannot seem to connect yet using any of them, cannot collect packets either, no nothing so need to do somethin....

helpme?

thanks in advance, jd

Maybe you need to also tell us what your question has to do with Slackware?

Eric

Backtrack linux is based on slax (as far as I have been understanding) and considering that there was no dedicated forum thread for backtrack I figured I would post under slax.....

I am still having all soprts of issues with getting it to do what it is supposed to be doing.....the wifi cannot connect to internet yet, even through it seem to be config'd properly (I guess obviously not tho..) I have tried many commands which have been known to work in the past with other distros but they do not seem to work under this one??? Oftentimes after I issue the command and hit teh enter button just nothinh at all happens!

I am also haveing graphics issues, the whole screen seems to be off to one side, but fine when I boot windows back up, I do not want to have to re-size the monitor each time I boot into Backtrack, what is the scoop?? Some of the GUI control panel config apps just do not seem to function as they are supposed to....I am wondering if the distro I have is corrupted or something? When I shut down X, the screen goes balnk and I do not always get my consol prompt (depending on the vid config I think) and have to blindly type in the shutdown command and wait for it to do its thing.....just a lot of bugs thus far....helpz?

Oftentimes when I am shutting down the system hangs at the same place each time--unmouinting remote filesystem and I have to re-boot hardware (which cannot be a good thing).

I would really benifit from a genral manual or tutorial encompassing a broad variety of related subjects,. anyone know of such a thing???

thanks in advance for any tip, and apologies if my posting has offended anyone for being wher it shoudn't.......jd

Alien Bob's issue is that BackTrack, while a loose relative, is far removed from Slackware. It is a modified version of SLAX, which in turn is a modified version of Slackware. So you are already 2 generations away from a normal Slackware system, what works in Slackware may or may not actually work in BackTrack.

To answer some of the questions in regard to BackTrack:

No, it does not automatically configure the WiFi cards. The concept of BackTrack is advanced WiFi functionality, so automatically configuring the card to just get online with a local AP is not what it is about at all. That would actually be counter-productive, as many people are going to want to immediately put the card into Monitor mode and start sniffing.

The tools themselves are not configured either. For instance, you will need to write your own "source=" line in kismet.conf for Kismet to work, even if your card is automatically picked up.

As far as I am aware, BackTrack contains all of the OSS WiFi hardware drivers available. The only thing it doesn't include is support for cards that only run under ndiswrapper. So if you have a WiFi device with native Linux drivers, it should be picked up immediately. Having to manually compile and add in drivers for various WiFi devices would, again, defeat the entire purpose of BackTrack.

thanks for clearing the distro particulars up for me, I wasn't aware about that! either way there was no dedicted header for the BT distro so figured slackware was the closest to BT so posting here was better than say posting under the suse header or somewhere else.....anyways, I managed to do a HD installation of the BT linux and got the whole dual boot thing going fine, finally got the network card configd' currently using it!

Thanks again to all!!