New linux laptop wants to connect to wifi

ufmale · 06-20-2008, 09:36 AM

I run /sbin/ifconfig on my labtop and get following

Code:

ath0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:05:4E:4F:78:1A  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:11:25:85:46:9C  
          inet addr:192.168.1.156  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:4703 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4153 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 
          RX bytes:3677640 (3.5 MiB)  TX bytes:547380 (534.5 KiB)
          Base address:0x8000 Memory:c0240000-c0260000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:2703 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2703 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:4826512 (4.6 MiB)  TX bytes:4826512 (4.6 MiB)

wifi0     Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-05-4E-4F-79-1B-F3-0F-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:48203 errors:0 dropped:22 overruns:0 frame:1024
          TX packets:777 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:195 
          RX bytes:8584523 (8.1 MiB)  TX bytes:33054 (32.2 KiB)
          Interrupt:11

I am not sure what the different between wifi0 and ath0 is?
I think have only one internal wireless network card in my laptop.
Can anyone help me understand it please?

What is a good Graphical software I can use to find a local wifi network and connect to it?

jvj · 06-20-2008, 10:38 AM

They're both different ways of talking to an Atheros wireless card. My notebook uses the ath0 interface with knetworkmanager to connect to an access point, but when I want to run Kismet, it uses wifi0. The difference seems to do with whether or not the driver wants a cooked or raw interface to the hardware.

Personally, I use knetworkmanager as the graphical bit. Right-click on it and it will show all of the wireless networks it can see. Left-click on a network in the list to connect. Handles WEP and WPA too.