I have been trying for some time now to setup a wireless connection to my Acer 3680 with Fedora Core 6.
I've reinstalled three times just to cleanup the mess I keep making to my operating system. I need help to
maybe go over my installation.

What wireless adapter does it have?

I'm pretty sure Broadcom 802.11g

Just for grins, read this thread: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=508981

Since you have a Broadcom adapter, this one may be better: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=508686

Does this help?

[root@localhost ~]# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:16:36:89:FF:64
inet addr:192.168.1.121 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::216:36ff:fe89:ff64/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:661 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:636 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:190723 (186.2 KiB) TX bytes:110447 (107.8 KiB)
Interrupt:169

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:480 (480.0 b) TX bytes:480 (480.0 b)

[root@localhost ~]#

[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 IEEE 802.11b/g ESSID:"" Nickname:"Broadcom 4318"
Mode:Managed Access Point: Invalid
RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

sit0 no wireless extensions.

Yes. See the second of my two links, above.

I have been reading forums and instructionals for a month now and I'm getting nowhere. I've been working with Linux for a little over a year now and this is by far the most difficult task that I have tried to tackle. I'm almost at a point of giving up the thought of having wireless on my Linux partition but I am way too persistant for that

We can't come and do it for you. The link I provided for the bcm43xx is really pretty exhaustive. I had nothing to do with it, other than I noticed it here on LQ.org. Give it a try. Really.

Now, I really didn't think you were coming over to repair my installation. I could just call the Geek Squad for that :d LOL. All kidding aside. Reading other peoples troubleshooting problems is not really helping me here. I'm really getting lost trying to understand all that I'm reading. What I am trying to find is some sort of understandable step by step installation that applies to my setup.

I see my essid is blank. How do I get my correct essid?

How do I get my access point and how would I configure it?

I can get a wireless connection on my Windows partition. Can I get that information there?


Password:
[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth1 IEEE 802.11b/g ESSID:"" Nickname:"Broadcom 4318"
Mode:Managed Access Point: Invalid
RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

eth0 no wireless extensions.

sit0 no wireless extensions.

[root@localhost ~]#

Normally root can set the essid by issuing the command:

iwconfig eth1 Essid "YourESSID". Sometimes, however, the connection information remains invalid until you pring up the interface with "ifconfig eth1 up". Seriously, look through my postings on how I setup my wireless using just scripts and madwifi. Modify my scripts so that they match your situation and run them. If you want to break it down to one piece at a time, fine. Start at the beginning of my HowTo, make an entry on your system and show the exact response you get in return. We'll take it from there, as long as you're willing to make the effort. There aren't any fairys that come out at night and do this stuff for you.

Quakeboy02:

I thank you for all your responces in trying to help. Please don't think though that I'm being lazy. I am at this almost every minute that I'm home from work. I have read alot of your posts and dozens of others and I just can't seem to get it right. I am very new at this and coming from Windows you really didn't need to know all this. Windows does everything for you. Linux even pretty much cofigures ethernet automatically. This is very intriguing to me and I'm spending alot of time trying to learn this system and this is my first time installing Linux on a laptop. Please be patient and be assured that I am trying my best.

Ok, I'm connected now on my wireless. What I did after tons of reading was to repair alot of my installation. I first started by replacing my 80211g drivers from one on Acer support ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/not...20_5020/driver/.
I reinstall fwcutter.
I added the MAC address of my router to iwconfig.

Here is my iwconfig:

[root@localhost ~]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 IEEE 802.11b/g ESSID:"linksys_SES_17441" Nickname:"Broadcom 4318"
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.437 GHz Access Point: 00:14:BF:17:xx:xx
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s Tx-Power=19 dBm
RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Link Quality=100/100 Signal level=3/3 Noise level=184/100
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

sit0 no wireless extensions.


Now I need to be able to connect to other access points. Because the walls in my house are concrete block I have a signal expander in athother room to increase the signal when I am away from the router. I lose the connection when I am out of range and it doesn't pick up the expander signal. Any ideas as to how I would configure that?

I notice you have no ESSID, or encryption set. That means anyone can access your network.

Type "iwconfig" at a prompt should give you something like this:

I xxxed out my settings.

ESSID is the name of your router. You have to set this by connecting to it directly. I see you have a Lynksis router. Set up a wired ethernet connection to it and open your browser. Type in 192.168.1.1 as the url, and you should connect to the control panel. The default password is usually "admin". Change this or anyone can get to it!

The WLAN settings are what you need. Put in an ESSID, but leave encryption off and then set the same ESSID on your laptop and make sure you can connect. Then set the encryption on the router and copy the settings to the laptop.

When at startup the computer hangs at "Determining IP information for eth1". It will hang for a quite a while and I get a "FAILED" message. Why is this not connecting at startup? I can connect for short periods of time after it boots but then it will bump me off. A lot of times I can't reconnect. Thanks for the useful information. Everyday I understand a little more.