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Old 11-16-2005, 06:57 AM   #16
Hangdog42
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OK, the suspense is killing me......What finally got the ssid to take?
 
Old 11-16-2005, 02:23 PM   #17
AnoobiS
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the card was off ><
So i downloaded that acer_acpi package, turned it on, and it started scanning and accepting ESSIDs right there
I do feel somewhat stupid. but I gotta admit, the solution wasn't exactly out in the open.
At some point I'd thought about the card not being on, but didn't know how to fix it.

Now, let's hear suggestions as to how to handle roaming and stuff...
Should I go with scripts for each AP i wanna connect to?
I got one at home that uses WPA2, then at school they use WEP with PEAP and then theres the open APs at cofee shops etc...
Sounds like having a couple of scripts would work like a charm
 
Old 11-17-2005, 06:59 AM   #18
Hangdog42
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I use a mix of scripts. I've got a perl script running at boot time that scans for networks and if it doesn't find any, it simply sets me up for my home network. If it does find other networks it presents me with a list of the access points it finds and lets me pick one. I've also got a separate set of bash scripts for places I frequent that have WEP encryption and when I'm one of those places, I just have the boot script exit and then run one of the fixed location scripts. At some point I should fold the bash scripts into the boot time script, I just haven't gotten around to doing it yet. If you want, I'd be glad to post the scripts.
 
Old 11-24-2005, 12:59 AM   #19
tatwell
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I am having a similar problem that some of the ones who posted in this thread have, and I have to admit that I am at my wits end. I am running slackware 10.2, kernel 2.6.13 -test 26.s from the install cd-, I am installing it on an older hp pavillion n3210 laptop. I use this same laptop with Suse, 9.3 and 10.0 , without problems. I did the install to a spare drive I had, clean install, because I had heard a lot of good things about slackware and wanted to try it. Everything went off fine, except I cannot get a wireless card to work. I have 3 cards, Dlink-dwlg650, a belkin F507010, and a linksys wpc54g. I can use all of these cards in this laptop on suse, so I know that as far as hardware goes it is all working and compatible, at least under suse. I have tried a couple versions on ndiswrapper, all give the same problem. And after I found this thread, I checked my version on wireless tools, and I found I had the version that was giving problems. So I downloaded the recommended version, installed it and am still having the problem. First, the problem is the same with any card of the three I use. I am using the drivers for each card that have worked on the other distro. I can see the cards when I run lspci -vv, even though they are pcmcia cards, so I know they are being seen. when I do modprobe ndiswrapper, the card lights up, and if I do an iwconfig I then have wlan0, and it looks as if all should work. But, when I set the essid, the system freezes, I have to unplug the card to clear the freeze. I found through my troubleshooting that I can do a scan and see my wireless router, but when I set the ssid everything hoses up. I have done several clean installs, just in case I was clobbering something, but without any luck. I even tried the mad wi-fi drivers, same problem. So far nothing I have done has changed my problem. I have done a lot of searching through the forums, and this thread was as close as I could come to finding a similar problem to mine, unfortunately the solution here did not work. This is just a guess, but it looks like I get the freeze when I have the card actually establishes a connection to the router, when the ssid is correct. I would welcome any tips at all as to where to look next as I am out of ideas. At this point I am beginning to think that I am overlooking something very simple, I have to admit that this is my first attempt at slackware so it is possible that there is a simple solution. Thanks in advance for any help given.
 
Old 11-24-2005, 02:24 PM   #20
tatwell
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Update to my original post: After another day of digging and experimentation I have found somewhat of a pattern to my problem. I do not have any trouble getting the card-no matter which one of the 3 I use- to come up. I do an iwconfig and have wlan0. I can set the channel id without any problem. My freeze is happening when the card actually contacts the router. I have taken encryption off the router while working on this, if I have encryption off and then use either "any" or "my essid", the card will the show connected to the router, I see the router mac address in an iwconfig, and then is when the system freezes, the only way to unlock it is to pull the card, and do a modprobe -r ndiswrapper. I can the re-insert the card modprobe ndiswrapper and will have wlan0 as long as I do not make any config changes that will let the card connect. And to make this whole thing even more weird-to me anyway- I decided to try using my lan card, a dlink dfe-690txd pcmcia card which had also worked out of the box on this laptop under suse. Boot the laptop up with the card installed , comes up normally, the card lights up, and as soon as it connects-gets an ip-to the router, the laptop freezes solid, frozen so bad that power off is all that can be done. So my problem is apparently nothing to do with wireless alone, nor ndiswrapper, there is some other issue going on. I would suspect that I had some hardware issue if not for the fact that I can put my other drive in, loaded with suse, and everything works perfectly. Under slackware the only pcmcia device that I get to work is a modem. I am fast running out of ideas here. What I haven't done is try one of the other kernels on the cd, I have used the 2.6.13 one from the start. I think I may try this next, and with all the power offs I have corrupted my system anyway. Any suggestions on this problem will be greatly appreciated.
 
Old 11-24-2005, 06:01 PM   #21
tatwell
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Wireless fixed! I am , like another happy user in this thread posted, writing this from my laptop using wireless. After almost a week it is a relief to finally get it resolved. I do have to thank everyone who posted anywhere with tips to make wireless work. So here is what I did in case anyone else has a similiar problem...I am using a hp pavilion n3210 laptop, about 5 years or so old. I installed slackware 10.2 and originally used the 2.6.13 kernel, no matter what I tried I could not get any of my wireless cards working, and I also as I found out today, could not get my lan card working either, I should have tried the lan card first, I might have saved myself some headaches. I tried loading the wireless tools referred to in a previous post in this thread, no help. I even did several clean reloads but no luck. What I did this evening was to reload again, had to as I corrupted the system with all the power fails I had done. This time I used the barei.i kernel, not the bareacpi.i . After that was done I immediately brought the laptop up with the wired lan card DLINK dfe-690txd card, worked right off. I was able to set up firefox, and thunderbird and stayed online the whole time without any problems. I then shut down and put the dlink dwl-g650 card in and tried it to see if it might work out of the box, which it did not. So I then loaded ndiswrapper version 1.1 , and used the driver net5211.inf. Loaded it in, ran modprobe ndiswrapper, the card came up. Ran iwconfig and wlan0 was now there. I then used the instructions on the ndiswrapper site and configured the card. Then ran dhcpcd wlan0 and was online, got ip address. I also have Kwifi manager, I use kde desktop, which makes a good gui to set up with. So what was my problem? The only thing I did differently was that I used a different kernel, the 2.4.31 without acpi. It may be that acpi was causing my problem, but I am not sure. For those who may need it here is my setup again. Kernel 2.4.31 barei.i, slackware 10.2, ndiswrapper ver 1.1. wireles tools version 27, dlink dwl-g650 airplus card using driver net5211 from the cd. I do intend in the next few days to load the drivers for the Belkin and Linksys card and see if they work also. Thanks again for the help given. This was a learning experience for sure, I might add that I thought I was competent in Linux, but slackware humbled me and showed me that I was not nearly as skilled as I thought . I guess that's part of the allure of slackware.
 
Old 11-24-2005, 08:45 PM   #22
tatwell
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Update: curiousity got the better of me, I tested the linksys and belkin wireless cards , both worked perfectly with ndiswrapper and the drivers from the cd's. Now if I can get everything automated so I wont have to manually set them on reboot I will be happy. I imagine that one could write some easy scripts to accomplish this. Thanks again for all those who took the time to post to this thread.
 
Old 11-25-2005, 08:00 AM   #23
Hangdog42
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Quote:
I imagine that one could write some easy scripts to accomplish this
And you would be absolutely correct. Here is a script I use frequently:

Code:
#!/bin/sh
   #
   # rc.wlan0
   #

   ESSID="YourSSID HERE"
   INTERFACE="wlan0"
   KEY="YourWEPKeyHere"
   MODE="Managed"

   #Load the module
   echo "Loading NDISWRAPPER"
   /sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper

   # Set up the WiFi card

   echo "Configuring ${INTERFACE}:"
   /sbin/iwconfig ${INTERFACE} essid ${ESSID}
   /sbin/iwconfig ${INTERFACE} mode ${MODE}
   /sbin/iwconfig ${INTERFACE} key ${KEY}

   # Get IP address from dhcp
   #This is somewhat Slackware specific you may
   #need to change it for your distro

   /sbin/dhcpcd -t 10 -d -N wlan0

   # Bring up interface - I'm not sure if this is necessary, 
   # but it doesn't hurt

   ifconfig wlan0 up
I have this as a script in /etc/rc.d and then call it from /etc/rc.d/rc.local (I've got Slackware running, you'd have to set it up slightly differently for Suse)

Last edited by Hangdog42; 11-25-2005 at 08:01 AM.
 
Old 11-25-2005, 09:05 AM   #24
tatwell
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Thanks for the script.( I use suse and slackware, right now I have just began to use slackware and may switch to it completely after I get up to speed on it. I thought I was reasonably competent on Linux, but getting slackware running has taught me more than I ever learned on suse or mandrake) I will try it out. I did some more tinkering this morning and I have almost got wireless starting completely automatically. In KDE I use Kwifi-manager and have 1 configuration set for my home router, in it there is a field to input a script to run on connect, and I have made a script that will run dhcpcd wlan0 when I activate the configuration. I can set 4 configurations in it and that should be all I need. I of course have ndiswrapper loading on boot. If I could get Kwifi to load a configuration when kde starts up then I would be set. Your script may be a better way, I'll certainly give it a try. Thanks again for the posts you made, was a big help to me and others I am sure.
 
Old 11-25-2005, 09:32 AM   #25
Hangdog42
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My personal opinion is that you should ditch kwifi manager and use scripts. Scripting really isn't hard at all if you are even midly competent at using the command line. My experience is that all these GUIs tend to do is screw things up, or at least make it harder to figure out what's going wrong.

Quote:
I thought I was reasonably competent on Linux, but getting slackware running has taught me more than I ever learned on suse or mandrake
Yeah, Slackware kinds does that. Stick with it and you'll be completely hooked.

Last edited by Hangdog42; 11-25-2005 at 09:33 AM.
 
Old 11-29-2005, 10:06 AM   #26
tatwell
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I took your advice and have started using scripts. I like knowing exactly how things work and writing scripts gives me that knowledge. Out of curiousity, would you mind to post the script that you use that scans for wireless networks on boot, and configures you for home if others aren't found? I am trying to do that myself, and would like to see how others have done it. Thanks for the help.
 
Old 11-29-2005, 11:34 AM   #27
Hangdog42
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Here it is. It is written in perl largely because I'm much better with perl than I am with shell scripts. If you've got any questions about how it works, I'd be happy to answer them.

Code:
#!/usr/bin/perl
$Interface = "wlan0";
$HomeESSID = "Home_SSID_HERE";
$WEP = "Hex_WEP_Key_Here";
$Mode = "Managed";
$IWCONFIG = "/sbin/iwconfig";
$DHCP = "/sbin/dhcpcd -t 10 -d -N";
@APList = ();
#First load the ndiswrapper module
print("Loading ndiswrapper\n");
system("/sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper");
print("Scanning for wireless access points\n");
@ScanList = qx/iwlist wlan0 scan/;
push(@APList, 'Exit');
push(@APList, 'Home');
foreach $a (@ScanList){
	if($a =~m/No scan results/){
                print("No networks detected, enabling home network\n");
                &homeNet;
        }
	if($a =~ m/$HomeESSID/){
                print("Home network detected\n");
		&homeNet;
	}
	if ($a =~m/ESSID/){
		@Temp = split(/"/,$a);
		push(@APList,$Temp[1]);
	}
}
&selectFrom;
sub homeNet{
	print("Setting up wlan0\n");
	system("$IWCONFIG $Interface essid $HomeESSID");
	system("$IWCONFIG $Interface mode $Mode");
	system ("/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 key $WEP");
	print("Requesting IP from $HomeESSID\n");
	system("$DHCP $Interface");
	system ("ifconfig $Interface up");
	print("Configuration done\n");
	exit;
}
sub selectFrom{
	print("Select one of the following AP points\n");
	for($x=0;$x<=$#APList;$x++){
		print("$x - $APList[$x]\n");
	}
	print("Select by number: ");
	$SelectAP = <STDIN>;
	if((0 <= $SelectAP) and ($SelectAP<=$#APList)){
		if($SelectAP ==0){
			print("No AP Selected, exiting program\n");
			exit;
		}
		if($SelectAP==1){
			print("Configuring Home Network\n");
			&homeNet;
			exit;
		}
		else{
			print("Using $APList[$SelectAP]\n");
			system("$IWCONFIG $Interface essid $APList[$SelectAP]");
			print("Requesting IP from $APList[$SelectAP]\n");
			system("$DHCP $Interface");
			system("ifconfig $Interface up");
			exit;
		}
	}
	else{
		print("Please select an acceptable number\n");
		&selectFrom;
	}
	exit;
}
 
Old 11-29-2005, 05:47 PM   #28
tatwell
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Thank you very much. I'll let you know how it works out for me thanks again for all the help.
 
  


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