Hello, I am a cs student and decided to try my first linux distro this summer, and went for suse 9.1.... needless to say, i have no clue what im doing
I have a Dell 600m computer with an intel pro wireless card, the driver of which seems to be properly installed (the only reason i say this is b/c i go to Yast->network devices, and it correctly identifies my both my wireless and wired NICs and allows me to configure them(correct me if im wrong, and this does not mean i have the right drivers installed)). The problem is, for the life of me, i cant figure out how to use yast to connect to my home wireless network. I cant find any options to input my SSID or the good old window-esque "search for available networks".
Basically, i know my SSID (anything else i should know)?, i disabled all encryption on my wireless router, and i want to connect to it through Suse. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Hi MD,

In Yast there is an option to look for during setup "wireless settings".
You can put all your AP info there. You will not get the option if you go in through hardware tools. You must use Yast, Network Devices, Network Card.

Assumming it's been recognized, it will be in the Already configured devices section on the bottom, click "change". Make sure the device is set for wireless. Pick the device to configure, should be "wlan0", click "Edit", setup your DHCP, usually Automatic. Click "Advanced" choose "Hardware Details". Click the button "Wireless Settings", here is where you setup your AP. Set to "Managed", enter your "ESSID" and "Encryption key". If using WAP enter the "Passphrase" setup on your AP. If using WEP,click "Hexadecimal" and enter your key. Click ok, Click next, Click Finish. Reboot and see if your Card works and your Network comes up.

Good luck,

LC

Thanx for the help, but I am still unable to connect to my network. Since i am currently not using any encryption, I did nothin but input my SSID, and restarted my computer, but still no go. How do I know if the network has come up? Is there anything else I can do? Thanx again.

Hi MD,

Do both lights on your card come on?
or
Does the power light at least come on and the other one flash?

LC

My wireless card is an internal one ( Intel Pro/wireless LAN 2100 3A, part of the Intel Centrino package ), so the two lights you're talking about do not exist. However, a tiny light above my Ethernet conncetor lights up when a Wireless network is available, and that does not happen when I am running Suse 9.1. Thanx.

are you able to fully bring the wireless nic up? i have the next model up in my laptop, the 2200bg, the drivers are not complete AFAIK from http://ipw2100.sf.net. the framework for the drivers are still in development [ version 0.51 at the momment.]. it does look like they do have a functional driver at this point, but you might want to check the version you have vs what the site has.

what is the output of iwconfig and ifconfig -a?

linux:/home/lxuser # iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"HoloNet" Nickname:"linux"
Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate=0kb/s Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retryn RTS thr=2304 B Fragment thr:2332 B
Encryption keyff

sit0 no wireless extensions.

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linux:/home/lxuser # iconfig -a
bash: iconfig: command not found
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can you please expain these commands to me? for example, why is there an eth0 card and eth01 card, even thought these are not the names of the cards under suse device manager?

i was away for a week, totally missed your post. sorry about that.

try running /sbin/ifconfig -a instead. this should tell you if the interface is there or not.

if your wireless network is running dhcpd, you should be able to use either dhclient or dhcpcd to get the interface an ip address.

something like: dhclient ethN OR dhcpcd -k ethN
-> where N is the number of your interface.