This device is an adsl modem / router and is 'wireless ready' in the form of a pcmcia slot. It came with a wireless pcmcia adaptor and when plugged in and switched on worked first time out of the box with three different adaptors, (siemens, smc and netgear), all under windows, (dammit).

The problem is that I just can't get it to work under Linux (Suse 9.2) with any of the adaptors, each one showing exactly the same problem, that problem being that the adaptor lights up, iwconfig shows the correct mac address for the gateway but the network is unreachable.

I know that I have the adaptors configured correctly because I've tested them with another wireless gateway, (Intel), and they connect no problem. In other words, with exactly the same settings* my wireless network works with one gateway, (Intel), but not the other, (Linksys). Why do I bother with the Linksys? Because it's got the adsl modem built in and the Intel gateway doesn't.

What am I setting wrong on the Linksys gateway that differs from the Intel one? I have studied and compared the settings for each but no joy there.

Any help would be much appreciated.

*apart from changing the essid

Anyone got any suggestions as to why I can't connect to the wireless network? It's probably some router setting but I have no idea what.

Thanks

Off the top of my head I would suspect the IP address. Are you getting an IP address from the Linksys? You should be able to tell from the output of ifconfig.

No ip address shown in ifconfig, although I know the router is sending addresses as I have three other boxes connected, (win), and they are all set to get ip automatically. Also, when I connect the linux box via ethernet to the same router, ip is set.

OK, what that probably means is that your wireless card is not set up to make a DHCP request while your ethernet card is. What you could try is using either dhcpcd or dhclient to request an IP address. The syntax is pretty simple:

dhclient wlan0 (of course you need to use the real name of you wireless card if it isn't wlan0).

If that doessn't work, you could try setting a static IP address. You do that using ifconfig:

ifconfig wlan0 1.2.3.4

And again, use the proper interface name and replace 1.2.3.4 with the IP address you want to use. If you go this route, you also need to set your gateway with the route command:

route add default gw 5.6.7.8 and replace 5.6.7.8 with the IP address of your router.

I have variously deleted the eth0 configuration or set it to 'off' in etc/sysconfig so that it does not run on boot. Makes no difference. Also, the wireless card is making DHCP requests ok when it talks to my other wireless gateway so I'm not sure that's the problem. I have also tried setting a static ip address with no joy.

However, this problem has become low level because I have now plugged the Intel Wireless Gateway into an ethernet port of the Linksys box and disabled the Linksys wireless. Connected first time no problem. However, I would still like to get to the bottom of this. I am away for 4/5 days and will have another go when I get back. Any suggestions meanwhile would be much appreciated.

That is actually good news.... One less problem to worry about. However, is it possible your Linksys router is set up to respond to DHCP requests? Or is it possible that the Linksys router is filtering by MAC address? Once you get back, it woould be interesting to see the results/errors that happen when you try to set the IP statically.