WIRELESS PROBLEMS!!

**WANDr** · 03-13-2003, 04:22 AM

Hey gang,

I have been spinning my wheels for the past 3 hours trying to get my wireless card working . I have beeps, lights, and recognition, but I dont know what file to add my SSID, Encryption key etc to. Could someone please post a snippet of their files.

Thanks in advance.

**aay** · 03-13-2003, 06:47 AM

Originally Posted by WANDr

Hey gang,

I have been spinning my wheels for the past 3 hours trying to get my wireless card working . I have beeps, lights, and recognition, but I dont know what file to add my SSID, Encryption key etc to. Could someone please post a snippet of their files.

Thanks in advance.

Your first option is to run wlcardconfig.

Optionally you can enter your settings from the comand line like this:

iwconfig eth0 essid [your_essid] key [your_key]

If you want to save these settings they go in /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts

**WANDr** · 03-13-2003, 02:48 PM

[/quote] Your first option is to run wlcardconfig.

Optionally you can enter your settings from the comand line like this:

iwconfig eth0 essid [your_essid] key [your_key]

If you want to save these settings they go in /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts[/quote]

aay,

First off, thanks for responding to my post. I always make it a habit to search the forums for an answer to my question before posting. Surprisingly wireless is not a much talk about topic on this board.

Anyway, I did what you said but now I am at work so I have no way of seeing if the configuration worked. I will check as soon as I get home. You also stated "If you want to save these settings they go in /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts". Does wlcardconfig save it there automatically? After running wlcardconfig, should I still need to make any changes to any of the files in /etc/pcmcia?

I don't want to jump on the whole I AM A NEWBIE bandwagon for sympathy. I am two months into Linux, and during that time I have installed and used Red Hat and Mandrake. Both were a pain in the arse to install on my Compaq Presario 900, and neither worked 100%.

Knoppix/Debian is the first distro that installed painlessly, and detected all my devices. And just think when I started two months ago I was told by the Linux community to stay away from Debian because it has a steep learning curve. Maybe so, but after I get my wireless and sound working I will have a fully functioning machine. Something I never had with the other distros!!!

Steve

**aay** · 03-13-2003, 07:59 PM

Originally Posted by WANDr

You also stated "If you want to save these settings they go in /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts". Does wlcardconfig save it there automatically? After running wlcardconfig, should I still need to make any changes to any of the files in /etc/pcmcia?

Actually wlcardconfig will save your wirless settings in /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts so you may just want to adjust your settings that way. BTW, wlcardconfig will ask for a lot of stuff. All you'll probably need to enter is your essid and your encryption key.

Originally Posted by WANDr

I don't want to jump on the whole I AM A NEWBIE bandwagon for sympathy. I am two months into Linux, and during that time I have installed and used Red Hat and Mandrake. Both were a pain in the arse to install on my Compaq Presario 900, and neither worked 100%.

Knoppix/Debian is the first distro that installed painlessly, and detected all my devices. And just think when I started two months ago I was told by the Linux community to stay away from Debian because it has a steep learning curve. Maybe so, but after I get my wireless and sound working I will have a fully functioning machine. Something I never had with the other distros!!!

Steve

I too was told to stay away from Debian. I think the difficulty generally associated with Debian lies in the install. Once debian is installed it's a really easy to keep updated with apt. Since Knoppix makes the install pretty easy, much of the pain attributed to Debian is removed.

Let us know how the wireless issue goes.

Take care,

Adam

**WANDr** · 03-14-2003, 05:16 PM

Originally Posted by aay

Your first option is to run wlcardconfig.

Optionally you can enter your settings from the comand line like this:

iwconfig eth0 essid [your_essid] key [your_key]

If you want to save these settings they go in /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts

aay, YOU DA MAN!!!! My wireless worked when I got home :P !!

**aay** · 03-14-2003, 06:11 PM

Glad to see it all worked out ok.

**Jester^** · 03-19-2003, 09:55 PM

Do I have to do anything special to get it going once I've run the information through wlcardconfig?

I have a Cisco Aironet 350 card. I run wlcardconfig and enter the essid "MyAir" and the key "2dcfe44aec" (64bit). Then exit out. It saves (at least temporarily) the changes to /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts but iwconfig doesn't show the card running. I then tried '/etc/pcmcia/network start wifi0' but it gives me an error and shows me the 'usage' info over and over:

root@ttyp0[pcmcia]# /etc/pcmcia/network start wifi0
usage: /etc/pcmcia/network [action] [device name]
actions: start check stop suspend resume

Rebooting of course replaces the wireless.opts with the default one off the CD (I'm still booting from CD), so that doesn't work either.

As all of the above failed, I tried:

iwconfig wifi0 essid MyAIR key 2dcfe44aec

This returns no errors, but iwconfig does not show the ESSID listed, nor does the card start (no lights on it are lit up). The card lights are on during boot and shutdown when modprobe checks the aircard.

I've tried the key with and without 0x as the data are hex.

Any ideas, pointers? This is a Compaq 2525US and has a built-in wireless controller, but I prefer the Cisco. Figured that would be easier to get up and running too...

J