I have gotten a specific ESSID to work, but my methods are very kludgy.

I'm using Knoppix v3.2-2003-05-20 on a Dell notebook with a Linksys AP and an Orinoco Gold card. I also get the version 14 versus 15 mentioned above.

Initial bootup identifies my Orinoco Gold card correctly, but I get no Internet access (wireless card not found). Running iwconfig or netcardconfig and selecting DHCP produces no results.

This is what works for me: Open a shell and run netcardconfig and select STATIC configuration. Enter info from LAN (internal) connection (notebook=192.168.1.100, gateway=192.168.1.1, no DNS). After ifconfig sets the LAN parameters a wireless configuration tool opens up and requests wireless parameters like ESSID and channel and stuff. I enter my specific ESSID and channe number and the program (iwconfig?) writes these parameters. Nothing works yet, but we're almost there.

Rerun netcardconfig again, but select DHCP this time. Sending DHCP broadcast from eth0 is now "OK" and "auto lo eth0" sets everything up. From now on wireless performs correctly with my specific ESSID and channel number.

If I could restore myconfig from a floppy (to save these settings) I'd be a happy camper...


-jb