Okay so after like 3 days of screwing around I'm so close I can taste it. Here's my iwconfig and ifconfig output for the wlan0 device:

IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"" Nickname:"firegarden"
Mode:Auto Frequency:2.462GHz Access Point: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
Bit Rate=54Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr=2346 B
Encryption key:xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xx Security modepen
Power Managementff
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-54 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:30 Missed beacon:0

Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:90:4B:54:B5:98
inet addr:10.1.x.x Bcast:10.1.101.255 Mask:255.255.254.0
inet6 addr: fe80::290:4bff:fe54:b598/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:83 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:7657 (7.4 Kb) TX bytes:720 (720.0 b)
Interrupt:5 Memory:d0200000-d0201fff

Now obviously I got assigned an IP so I connected to *something* but my ESSID won't set. It's set in my config as NETGEAR, but I can never seem to get the thing set, whether I do it in the config or manually set the essid with iwconfig wlan0 essid NETGEAR.

Any ideas? I've been pointed to the www.wearablelinux.com site which is what I used to get this far, I'm using Fedora Core 2 and ndiswrapper.

Thanks in advance

Is the ip hand assigned? Because a FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF Access point seems like you're not associated with the AP at all. Also, auto might be barfing as a mode setting, take a shot with. Also, might want to turn off wep entirely at least to test everything until you get association.

iwconfig wlan0 mode managed

Cheers,

Finegan

I did some poking and found that wlist scan shows my router twice, one of them has an address of 00:00:00:00:00. Now that's obviously not right, so I tried manually setting the ap with iwconfig wlan0 essid NETGEAR ap my:ap:ad:dr:ess. It wouldn't set regardless of how I did it. Now what *did* work was completely removing the configs through the Fedora Network tool. I deleted the wlan0 and then rebooted, then manually set all of the values and it worked. Only problem then, is that in theory, wlan0 doesn't exist. But if I do so much as have a single config file for wlan0 (and alls that needs is a single line in it) and I can't manually set anything using iwconfig. Setting the AP in this config file didn't seem to work either, it looks like I need to find some way around the Fedora configuration.

ndiswrapper is a little funky with taking wireless settings, if iwconfig arguments aren't taking, its probably the the device isn't ifconfig'd up:

ifconfig wlan0 up

Then, iwconfig blah blah blah...

Yeah, Fedora's wireless configy is still a little clunky, especially with something as odd as ndiswrapper. Its going to get better though

Best to ignore the fedora goop for the time being.

Cheers,

Finegan

So thrash the Fedora configs, ifconfig wlan0 up and then specify the settings?

Yeah, most likely that should clean everything out right.

Cheers,

Finegan

Worked for the most part, only problem is getting an IP address. I generally do this through dhcp since I'm running off of a switch, but it seems Fedora doesn't have dhcpcd. Is there another way I can do this?

Thanks for all your help!

Fedora, RedHat and a number of others have switched to the other dhcp client:

dhclient wlan0

Cheers,

Finegan

Just to add one thing to hopefully clarify finegan's fine post, as I know I struggled with this myself:

You need to do it in this order:

ifconfig eth1 (or wlan1) up- depending on what yours detects as
iwconfig essid <your ssid> channel 11 mode auto key <hex key>
dhclient eth1 (or wlan1)

You only need the key <hex key> if youre using encryption. If youre using KDE, kwifimanager is also a big help in setting some of this up, as well as monitoring your signal strength etc. Hope that helps.

I did just that, dhclient seems to be doing something but I don't get assigned an IP according to ifconfig, and (obviously) I can't ping anything. Any ideas?

Are you using encryption still?

Yep, but shouldn't setting the key unlock it so I can get in anyways?

If you are using 128 bit WEP, you need to enter your key on the command prompt without the dashes.
i.e. not: xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xx
but: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It will automatically insert the dashes for you. This screwed me up for the longest time.
Also, make sure you cd.. out to / when you do dhclient. For some reason, it only works if I do this Ive noticed.

Still no go. I had the key set right (without the dashes). Could you post the output of your dhclient? The only remotely error-type message I get says: /sbin/dhclient-script: configuration for wlan0 not found. dhclient runs for a bit, says No DHCPOFFERS received, No working leases in persistent database - sleeping. That make any sense?

Ok, lets start from scratch. Take the wlan down using
'ifconfig wlan0 down'
then start over again using
Also, one helpful tool for me, being GUI based is kwifimanager. As su, do
'urpmi kwifimanager'
and it should install itself.