laptop wireless networking

[Guest absurd]

ok first let me appologise, im a newbee very new and long time xp user.

 

After a recent brush with the law im now haveing to use a fully legal system that means useing linux.

 

I chose mandrake because its the only linux id used before other then susi and i didnt like that so much.

 

Ive downloaded the free dvdr of ver 10

 

Everything is installed and working fine.

 

Its seeing my wireless network card fine and shows in as eth1 in configerations.

 

This is however as far as i have managed to get.

 

Before in xp once the card was installed every time i was in range of a net it just flashed up avaialbe net i double clicked and entered the wep code to conect.

 

In mandrake of cource this does not happen and im at a total loss at how to set up the options.

 

rts/cts, fragmentation etc all meen nothing to me.

 

What makes it a little harder is that its not my router/connection im trying to connect to but a neighbours. (i have the wep key) so its not as easy as just looking for the settings there

any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

 

If you want to reply in pm or email thats fine ill simply make it into a post so other can benifit when its all sorted.

 

i hope you can help i really do.

 

many thanks

[aRTee]

Hi absurd,

 

I don't have much time until after the weekend, but could you check my mdk10.1 and mdv05le config pages for the various wireless cards that I discuss?

http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/configuration2005le.html

and

http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/configuration101.html

 

I never put anything in the sense of rts/cts or fragmentation, ... just leave it empty,...

 

 

Anyway, we need to know what wireless card/chipset you have. Is it pcmcia or built in?

What's the product name? How does Mandrake/Mandriva call it?

 

 

BTW, the latest version of Mandriva is 2005le, if you're still on 10.0 or 10.1 you may want to get that latest version first...

 

 

What do you get if you give the following commands (hit alt-F2 and type 'konsole', then inside that give your commands):

su

(give root password)

ifconfig

and:

iwconfig

?

Edited June 30, 2005 by aRTee

[Guest absurd]

ok its an old 2100xpm time laptop all drivers were picked up automaticly for that.

 

I just downloaded the latest version available from linuxiso.org last week I believe it was 10.1

 

The wireless card is a pcmcia card. a netgear WG511 2.4GHz 54 Mbps

 

If i go into the network set up it sees the card as

 

eth1: Intersil Corp.|PRISM GT 802.11g 54Mbps Wireless Controller

 

eth0 is my ethernet port on the laptop.

 

in konsole

 

if config - it displays information on eth0 and link encap no mention of etho1

 

iw config displays

 

lo no wireless extensions

 

eth0 no wireless extensions

 

eth2 no wireless extensions

 

sit0 no wireless extensions

 

eth1 NOT READY! ESSID:off/any Nickname "local host"

Mode Master channel: 802 Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00:

Tx-power=31 dBm Sensitivity=0/200

Retry min limit:0 RTS thr=0 B Fragment thr=0 B

Encription key 0***-****-****-****-****-****-** security mode :restri

 

cted

 

Link quality: 0 Signal level 0 Noise level 0

 

Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 invalid frag :0

Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

 

This was done at the house with this pc not my place so it wouldnt be in the range of the wireless network anyway so its not all going to be of help.

 

As i said i dont think its something phisicle wrong i think i just dont know what im doing or what to do to make it connect.

 

Thanks for your input ill do another test at home and repost what it says there.

[aRTee]

Good, prism54! I had a card with this chipset... I borrowed it to test on Mdk. Actually, it was the exact same card I think.

 

I think your first problem is that you have to add the firmware, follow the instructions at my 2005le config page:

http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/configu...e.html#wireless

read the steps for the prism54 card there. (Below the atmel card info.)

 

Tell me how far you get.

 

In any case, you need to get rid of the 'not ready' if you issue the iwconfig command...

 

Without the firmware in the correct location, this card won't work at all, but as you can see, it does get recognised and somewhat 'talks' with the system.

 

If you would check the system logfiles when you plug in the card, you could have found this - naturally, _you_ can't guess that that's where you have to look.

 

Just for kicks, you can try this command, as root:

tail -f /var/log/messages

and let it run, then plug in the card, and see what the system logs say.

If you want to stop the messages and get the prompt back, hit ctrl-c.

 

Hope this helps.

Edited July 1, 2005 by aRTee