Hello,

I am Rolf and I am new with linux. I've installed slackware on a Latitude D630C just for fun and of course to learn some linux skills.

Now my question: How do I install wireless under Linux on this laptop

Dell Latitude630C, wireless nic is Intel Wireless WiFi 4965AGN

Thanks,

Rolf

Hi and welcome to LQ. You will have to install and setup ndis wrapper. Here are a few previous entries.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...archid=2328141

Hi, this is what I did on my Toshiba Satellite A205 Laptop. Dual 32 bit Pentium T2330 CPU's at 1.6 Ghz and 1014 MB Ram, realtek 8189b wireless lan 2.6.21.5-smp linux kernel.

Overview of process.

get the driver working

I used the rtl8187b-modified-dist driver
from [URL="http://www.datanorth.net/~cuervo/rtl8187b]cuervo[/url]

From my reading, I gleaned that a native windows driver for the card, and ndiswrapper could be another option, but I did not go that route, since the linux "native" driver seems to work fine


2. get the datalink part working with..

the Linux Wireless Extensions

iwconfig
iwevent
iwgetid
iwlist
iwpriv
iwspy

wpa_supplicant tools

/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
wpa_supplicant
wpa_gui



3. use dhcpcd (dhcp client daemon) to get an ip address attached to the card




Here is a bit of detail for each of the steps above....

[B]1. get the driver working.[/B]
[p]
Download the driver and compile it via the instructions.
The install script did not work for me, but on examining it,
I saw it just copied all the *.ko files to the /lib/modules/2.6.21.5-smp/ directory.
I forget where I read it, but I read somewhere that you "should" put the modules in the
/lib/modules/2.6.21.5-smp/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ directory.
Well, examining that, I saw some sub-directories, so I created a realtek subdirectory and rebooted.
[/p]
[p]
Then I did a lsmod and saw my drivers--here are the relevant bits...
[/p]


root@howard:# lsmod
Module Size Used by
ieee80211_rtl 63748 1 r8187
ieee80211_crypt_rtl 8324 1 ieee80211_rtl


a lsusb shows...


Bus 6 Device 1: ID 0000:0000
Bus 7 Device 1: ID 0000:0000
Bus 1 Device 1: ID 0000:0000
Bus 2 Device 3: ID 0bda:8197 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Bus 2 Device 2: ID 0781:5406 SanDisk Corp.
Bus 2 Device 1: ID 0000:0000
Bus 5 Device 1: ID 0000:0000
Bus 4 Device 1: ID 0000:0000
Bus 3 Device 1: ID 0000:0000


so my device is seen by the kernel


[span style="font-weight:bold;"]2. get the datalink part working with...[/span]

the Linux Wireless Extensions

iwconfig
iwevent
iwgetid
iwlist
iwpriv
iwspy


The wirelesss tools are part of the Slackware 12.0 distribution. I believe they are what the wpa_supplicant uses to do its magic.
iwconfig is analagous to ifconfig. Just type iwconfig as root to see your wireless lan. If you can't see it with this, then you have a driver or module issue.
Here is my output from iwconfig

wlan0 802.11b/g linked ESSID:"903 Mills Market"
Mode:Managed Channel=6 Access Point: 00:12:17:3C:5A:E3
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s
Retryn 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

I found iwlist usefull as well. It takes several options for doing various things. It's output kept me thinking I could get this thing working, and helped me develop my current ideas about how wireless works under linux.
Here is the output from iwlist wlan0 scanning

bash-3.1# iwlist wlan0 scanning
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:18:F8:4E:86:C9
ESSID:"kk"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
Mode:Master
Channel:6
Encryption keyn
Bit Rates:54 Mb/s
Extra: Rates (Mb/s): 1 2 5.5 6 9 11 12 18 24 36 48 54
Quality:13 Signal level:0 Noise level:102
Extra: Last beacon: 366ms ago
Cell 02 - Address: 00:12:17:3C:5A:E3
ESSID:"903 Mills Market"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
Mode:Master
Channel:6
Encryption keyff
Bit Rates:11 Mb/s
Extra: Rates (Mb/s): 1 2 5.5 11
Quality:13 Signal level:0 Noise level:73
Extra: Last beacon: 351ms ago
Cell 03 - Address: 00:40:96:3A:6C:34
ESSID:"<hidden>"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
Mode:Master
Channel:6
Encryption keyn
Bit Rates:11 Mb/s
Extra: Rates (Mb/s): 1 2 5.5 11
Quality:13 Signal level:0 Noise level:27
Extra: Last beacon: 461ms ago



At this point, I could see that my card could see the network. What I couldn't figure out, was how to select a network. That's where the next tool comes in....

wpa_supplicant tools

/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
wpa_supplicant
wpa_gui


wpa_supplicant seems to be a means of tying the card to the network. A VERY IMPORTANT DISTINCTION is that it does NOT tie the computer to the network--you need dhcpcd for that; rather, it sets up what I believe is called the data-link layer between the card and the network.

wpa_supplicant uses a config file :/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf (imagine that (. I only have mine configured to talk to non-encrypted networks where I don't need to log in. (I will post on how to do that after I accomplish it).

The contents of my wpa_supplican.conf file are:


bash-3.1# cat /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
# Plaintext (no encryption) network

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

network={
ssid="example open network"
key_mgmt=NONE
}


There are other examples in /usr/doc/wpa_supplicant-0.5.7/examples. My example is straight from there.

There are several ways to invoke wpa_supplicant, but I am currently using wpa_supplicant -Dwext -i wlan0 -dd -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf . This ties the wpa_supplicant to the wireless extensions listed above (there are othe tools available that can talk to wpa_supplican: ndiswrapper, for example) and to my wireless card on wlan0. It is running in double verbose debugging mode (I like to see output from programs in a shell, so I can learn from them) and uses the wpa_supplicant.conf file.

Running this, shows a lot of stuff running by the screen, and trying to run firefox or lynx, results in network not found errors. That lead to the next tool: wpa_gui.

wpa_gui enables you to select your network. As root, run wpa_gui then click the [scan] button. A separate window appears with a list of networks. Double click on the one you want. A new window appears showing the details of the network. Click the [add] button and the network appears in the first window as "connected".


But wait! Now you open firefox, and nothing happens! WTF!

That brings us to dhcpcd.

dhcpcd is a program that aquires an i.p address for an interface. To get this, just run dhcpcd wlan0.

I am happily composing this in Emacs at a very nice public market, sipping diet coke and digesting a lox and cream cheese bagle.


good stuff!

Hope it helps

prgrcmpny

Well, prgrcmpny, you've made quite a post there. My hope is that it is very useful for readers here because it's obvious that you worked hard on getting wireless to work on your machine and it is also obvious that you are quite knowledgable about things of a Linux nature.

I have a Toshiba Satellite A205 with the same hardware, and no ability to use wireless in ANY Linus distro I have attempted to far: Mepis "antiX," Fedora 9, Vector 5.9, Dreamlinux, Sabayon 3.5 r2 and r3 and the latest Mint.

They all come close, some even showing me my network, but all not showing me my network card. LOL.. sorry, but it's true.

I was finally informed in the Vector forums that there is something wrong in the latest Linux kernel "stack" that excludes this particular 8187b realtek from being seen at all, let alone from being used.

So, it's Vista for me here until some kernel bugs are identified and worked out. I would be up the creek if I had not purchased a spare hard drive and use it for Linux.

No, No, No. For Intel chips, ndiswrapper is never the right answer. Any kernel later than 2.6.24 will support the 4965 natively and you just need to install firmware. The details are at the Intel Wireless site.


@prgrcmpny

That is an absolutely excellent piece of work, however it has no bearing on this thread because it is a completely different chipset. You might want to consider putting this is the LQ Wiki so that other users can benefit from your experience.

Ahem....

I installed Slackware 12.1 on my laptop (Intel 4965 wireless) and it worked **out-of-the-box**. It even installed the firmware.

Try this:
ifconfig wlan0 up
iwconfig wlan0 essid <yourAPname> key <yourkey>
dhcpcd wlan0

if you have an ascii key, then use "......key s:<yourkey>" "man iwconfig" for more details.

@Hangdog42


My apologies (and thanks for the compliment). This thread came up in my (first, ever) search of this site and I posted reading only the human stories and did not notice the difference in chipsets.


Cordially,

prgrcmpny

p.s.

If you feel like it, feel free to cut and past the post (with any edits) on the wiki; I am very busy as a flight instructor and only have the occasional weekend day to hack; That said, my next lazy day off, I will review the Wiki and post.


p.p.s

This is my first use of the "@" in a thread, I hope I am using it correctly.

Hi JerryBasham.

Maybe I can help.

Bear with me, as I am a very busy man with only an occasional weekend where I have the free time to hack around on linux (which I enjoy doing).


Excellent thinking on the spare hard-drive; I am in the same boat, using Vista for wireless where a password is needed, and Slackware 12.x where a password is not needed.

Let's start from the beginning; first thing is to verify the hardware.

I am not fluent in windoze, but there is a way to see the hardware you have installed on the machine; specifically, the network card. (I know you said in your post you have a realtek card, but in troubleshooting, it is important to get every detail correct)

I am posting this from Vista and I go via "start->control panel->system->device manager->network adapters"

There I have a Realtek RTL8187b Wireless 802.11g 54mbps USB2.0 Wireless adapter.

If you have the same card, we can boot to linux and go from there.

Cordially,

prgrcmpny.

p.s.

Hangdog42 mentioned this is an inappropriate thread for this discussion, so we may have to move elsewhere.