Bits Working with Wireless in Linux

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2008/04/25/working-with-wireless-in-linux/1

The more we cover it, the more we find that many of you are interested in getting your feet wet with the penguins. But some things just aren't that simple in Linux and one such thing is wireless networking. Our resident guru Ken Gypen takes a whack at de-mystifying what is one of the biggest pains in Linux.

 

A lil off topic but ... I tried Ubuntu 7.0 which stopped my cdrom being visable/working in windows and in ubuntu. Also I couldnt get the nvidia restricted graphics driver to work. Do you know if these problems have been rectified in Ubuntu 8 and if not would I come across these issues with all other linux distro's.
I have a Evesham Voyager 720DC, the one you reviewed an age ago, ie the Clevo 575U.

and bigup to microsoft for Windows XP, I'll never slate them again....well untill the next arb IT issue comes calling down the phone line. Please god don't let it be Vista! Its hard enough fixing something in XP let alone Vista which I've not used.

 

Installed Ubuntu8 Beta on my friend's laptop and he's been happy since.
Well, once he got the weird Flash issue resolved so he could look at his pr0n online.

Gonna be installing Ubuntu8 on my own system soon.
Once I finish this coursework shich needs a bit of windows-only software.

 

Thanks for this - good article! I wanted to install DSL on an ancient thinkpad (48mb RAM ) & turn it into a wireless digital photo frame, but I gave up trying to configure the wireless. I may try again now!

 

Great article.
With Ubuntu 7.10 I had some issues with my WIFI (using USB stick) after I did the installation. On the Live CD was working fine!!!!
It was solved in 10 min copying the kernel and the modules from the CD.

Same device I never manage it to work under Vista (no matter how many drivers and tools I tried), and under XP was refusing to work from time to time. (And around Xmas dediced to refuse connecting, while on Linux was fine).

When I switched to an MSI wifi PCI card, XP were OK, Vista after long fighting manage to work, and Ubuntu 7.10 just found it straight the moment it boot with no issues.

I believe Ubuntu and Mandriva now, have very mature Linux solutions where you don't need access to the terminal. And do your job easily.

 

Does Ubuntu not install and configure WiFi modules etc by itself? I remember SuSE 8.1 YEARS ago did this right out of the box!

 

Most of the time, it does. However, there are many wireless chipsets that simply don't have Linux drivers. Hence the point of this article - an attempt to help people understand that just because it's not fully functioning right out of the box, it doesn't mean that there's no solution. It's all about troubleshooting those pesky buggers that don't work.

 

Nice article. I remember needing a week to setup my USB-Wireless card with Ubuntu :
The ubuntu forums are indeed a great source of information when you're stuck with these things ...

 

Two incorrect pieces of information I noticed:
A. 'sudo gedit' -- though it doesn't much matter for that one app, it's a _bad habit_ to 'sudo' gui apps. Use gksudo or gksu instead -- or kdesu if you use KDE. Look here: http://psychocats.net/ubuntu/graphicalsudo
B. editing /etc/network/interfaces: You have to either do this, for fixed configurations, OR use NetworkManager (or one of several alternatives) for roaming -- don't do both. Setting up networking in the 'interfaces' file prevents you from using NetworkManager with that network interface.

 

not that it matters, but ubuntu doesn't follow normal naming conventions. there is no ubuntu version 7.0, or 8. ubuntu 8.04 means it was released april 08. similarly, 7.10 was a whole version past 7.04. they both have the number 7 simply because they were both released in 2007.

 

Running Ubuntu 8.04 fresh install, working fine. I've never had wireless issues, always worked out of the box, even a CNet wireless dongle running on Ubuntu server (old laptop with custom install) just to show off at school how linux runs on anything (I had it running on my ipod as well at the time).

 

I ended up installing windows on my sister laptop, it had no cd drive, couldnt boot from USB so basically i was stuck with PXE booting an OS, ubuntu is my OS of choice so thats what i went with, http://www.lockstockmods.net/2008/04/07/pxe-install-ubuntu-via-windows/ details how to PXE boot ubuntu if anyone is interested, unfortunately ubuntu ran a little slow, so i tried xubuntu, worked flawlessly, was extremely happy with it until i tried to get it on the wireless network, i had a USB adapter, could not get it to work, so i bought a netgear WG511v2 which supposedly worked, and it did, sort of, until i put WPA or WPA2 encryption on, could not get it to work with WPA, 2 weeks later i gave up and decided to work out how to pxe boot windows (which i also put up on that site) 5 minutes after starting the setup it was on the network, its a real shame because i really wanted to get my sister using linux, but never mind.

*edit* I first installed Ubuntu fiesty, then xubuntu edgy, then xubuntu fiesty, then xubuntu gutsy, also tried installing network-manager, as well as many other things

 

1 thing i noticed in this guide, You start off by saying to do "sudo su"
But then throughout the guide, you swap between using sudo and not

for example you dont say to use sudo on
rmmod, dhclient, iwconfig and more

yet they all need it

other then that, quite interesting

 

meh, wireless networking is very hit or miss in linux from my limited experience.. my old compaq laptop has a somewhat propreitary W200 wireless lan adapter.. which sadly is not very well supported (if at all) last I checked... the other PCMCIA card I have works with NDISWrapper, however the configuration never saves and everytime I load Xubuntu I end up opening the Network Manager ... Applying the Location settings, and then type sudo su and then
iwconfig wlan essid <ssid> THREE FRIGGIN TIMES in a row.. before the card recognizes the network.. *sigh* hardware configs like this make me want to pull my hair out