Re: [Sheflug] Configuring Wireless connection on a laptop

[Dean Sas <dean@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Peter Collier wrote:
> I am attempting to convert someone to linux. All very well except I'm not sat 
> in front of his laptop and I'm doing it by phone. So far I've managed to get 
> him to install Xubuntu. 
> 
> (it's an old IBM Thinkpad and Kubuntu install struggles:-memory/cpu etc).
> 
>  I've managed to get him to configure his wireless pcmcia card via ndiswrapper 
> and drivers load ok on reboot. All this was extremely difficult. Dealing with 
> someone to whom the concept of installing was alien, never heard of doing 
> this, never used a dos prompt and getting comments like why can't I just 
> click somewhere. 
> 	Where I am stuck, despite much googling around, is how to get his wireless 
> card to communicate with his router. 
> 	Using "sudo iwlist wlan0 scan" in a terminal, he gets the following main 
> lines:-
> 
> CELL 01 ADDRESS 00:09:F3:70:C4:AD
> ESSID T1
> PROTOCOL IEEE 802.11b
> Mode Advanced
> Encryption Key OFF
> 
> In the following commands, what do I put where?
> 
> sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid name_of_AP
> 
> iwconfig wlan0 enc <key>  (I assume this is not used at this stage because no 
> encryption at the router is as yet configured.)
> 
> Any help appreciated as this is my first attempt at wireless.
> 

the name_of_AP will be the essid.

Word of caution, I've always struggled with WPA, you may be better
sticking to WEP. Someone else probably has anecodotal evidence to the
contrary though.

When configuring wireless I find that the easiest thing to do is to
comment out the wireless interface in /etc/network/interfaces and
install network-manager-gnome. However if you're trying to avoid gnome
dependencies (it pulls in gnome-vfs, bonobo, and probably more) it may
be best to hand configure it in /etc/network/interfaces. For no
encryption and using DHCP you probably want a stanza like this:

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
       wireless-essid ap_name

for encryption try:

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
        wireless-essid ap_name
        wireless-key hex_wep_key

The auto line makes it start on boot, to bounce the interface without
rebooting do "sudo ifdown wlan0 && sudo ifup wlan0"






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