Can't change my essid with iwconfig
 

I've used Slackware for quite awhile and only recently needed wireless and I'm having a huge mess. I can get my wireless to work in Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, even Arch Linux, so it shouldn't be a hardware issue.

Iwconfig puts out

lo no wireless extensions.

ra0 Ralink STA ESSID:"" Nickname:""
Mode:Auto Frequency=2.412 GHz Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Link Quality=10/100 Signal level:0 dBm Noise level:0 dBm
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.


I try to change my essid with iwconfig ra0 essid "myessid" after of course I do ra0 up. When I try to change it, it stays exactly the same. Am I missing something or is there some other way I should try to get my wireless working?

Also when I do iwlist ra0 scan it comes up with all the wireless networks there should be and yes it shows mine as well.

I would really appreciate any help.

What puzzles me is that your output shows no access point. Hers is mine:Other than that, IMO simplest way to get wireless working on Slackware-14.0 is to run as root 'netconfig' and when asked choose NetworkManager to auto-configure your network. Then, as a regular user, type 'nm-applet' to put a handy widget on your desktop.

You can also install wicd, then run wicd-curses in a terminal and connect to your access point from there.

Thanks Didier I will try that.
Wicd for some reason does not jive with my wireless setup.

Some troubleshooting tips for Wicd here:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wicd

I assume your access point is configured with WPA2 authentication. It looks like you didn't run wpa_supplicant.

As Didier suggested before, if your objective is just to have WiFi access working, your best bet is to use NetworkManager.

HTH

Phil

Ah, the ralink driver. It even went into kernel 'staging'. I had similar things happen with that driver, not playing well with userspace for setting things like ESSID, barely supported wpa_supplicant (they may have had their own hack for it), and it even had its own built in config file. Have you tried a maintained kernel driver, like rt2800pci? Maybe you need to update your kernel? Probably anything in Slack 13.37 or later will do, which is fine for me here, but I don't know which device you have.

Have you looked under this page for Ralink?
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers