Wireless on new laptop

Mon Mar 19 19:01:08 MST 2007

Yeah, the whole linux wireless thing is an issue. Don't blame the linux dev community though. Venders and FCC make it difficult.

try reading this, it might help:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=140085&page=3

I understand your frustation, but don't give up. It's worth it.

-j

----- Original Message ----
From: Dazed_75 <lthielster at gmail.com>
To: Main PLUG discussion list <plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 4:50:08 PM
Subject: Re: Wireless on new laptop

I never had done any configuration using iwconfig (except once to change out of open mode per your suggestion.  Any other configuration was done using the menu item System/Administration/Networking which brings up the same windows as if I run network-manager from the command line.  It provides very few options unless you count the options for static IPs etc.  Before I left the house I loaded wifi radar which I used on my old laptop and had no luck.

I am down at the clubhouse now using the open wifi there which came up after I futzed a bit with wifi radar AND went back to network-manager and turned everything off including eth0 (wired connection not available here).  I wish I could be more precise, but my frustration level is now through the roof so I am less coherent ATM.

One thing that REALLY bothers me is that Linux people have been doing networking well much longer than Microsoft but this is truly trivial in M$ Windows.  That is just wrong on so many levels!!!  Seems like the Linux world is focused on fixed location handling while Windows has addressed the mobility issue better.

Anyway, I will be heading over to EVALUG in an hour or so.  Maybe Eric will be there to help though I kind of doubt it.

On 3/19/07, Josh Coffman
 <josh_coffman at yahoo.com> wrote:
maybe i just missed it, but did you say how you were configuring it? I'm curious how it would go if you configured it with iwconfig.

just for reference:
iwconfig eth1 essid wireless_network_name key the_wep_key commit

sometimes i have to first make sure everything is down by:
dhclient -r eth1; ifdown eth1

-j

----- Original Message ----
From: Dazed_75 <lthielster at gmail.com>
To: Main PLUG discussion list <
plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 3:20:12 PM

Subject: Re: Wireless on new laptop

On 3/19/07, Josh Coffman <
josh_coffman at yahoo.com> wrote:
Ubuntu has a NetworkManager applet comparable to knetworkmanager, which is the the applet used in many KDE distros.

Are you using iwconfig to configure your wireless or some other graphical tool. The manager applets I've seen sometimes require a '0x' before the encryption key and some don't. iwconfig does not accept '0x' prefix when setting the key. If you use a gui app, you need to make sure the right encryption modes are set.

I'm pretty darn sure the chipset you have supports wep 64/128 (aka 40/104). I spent a lot of time working on the wireless when i first put linux on my laptop. I came to the conclusion that broadcom chipsets suck and my next laptop would use an intel chiipset.

-j

<snip previous msgs>
Agreed.  Josh this is the Intel 3945 chipset  and under Ubuntu 6.10 I was using network-manager (though it is just called Networking on the System/Administration menu).  One has no opportunity there to specify an encryption type.  You have a place to specify whether you are inputting the key as ascii (
i.e. a passphrase) or in hex so I don't think you can enter a 0x prefix (all chars echoed as big dots).  In fact, the snipped code from my first message the output of iwlist eth1 encryption showed the same key digits the router/AP shows.

Additional Info:

larry at lapdog2:~$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      unassociated  ESSID:"mariewilliam"  

          Mode:Managed  Frequency=nan kHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power:16 dBm   
          Retry limit:15   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off

          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:427   Missed beacon:0

sit0      no wireless extensions.

Note the last line (Tx) for eth1 seems to show something about 427 Invalid misc errors.  No clue what that means but I am sure it is significant.

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