Kernel parameter to start network

[sdousley]

Is there a way to do this?

On my laptop it starts my wireless network whatever since i got it to load the module. But the boot takes a very long time since my dhcp timeout is rather long. Now i WOULD reduce this timeout, but sometimes at home it can take a fair while to get an ip through DHCP.

So what i would like is a kernel option of nowireless which just will not load the kernel module for the wireless card. Is this possible? If so how!

[sdousley]

I have solved this with a Simple init script as follows:
Filename: /etc/init.d/wireless-init

#!/sbin/runscript

depend(){
  need localmount
  after bootmisc hostname
  use isapnp isdn pcmcia usb wlan
}

start(){
  ebegin "Starting wireless-init"
  if [ "$LINES" -gt "0" ]; then
    modprobe $MODULE
  fi
  eend $?
}

stop(){
  ebegin "Stopping wireless-init"
  if [ "$LOADED" -gt "0" ]; then
    rmmod $MODULE $MODULE_DEPS
  fi
  eend $?
}

This also has a configuration file that gets read from /etc/conf.d/wireless-init

LINES=`grep -c wireless /proc/cmdline`
LOADED=`lsmod | grep -g bcm43xx`

MODULE="bcm43xx"
MODULE_DEPS="ieee80211softmac ieee80211 ieee80211_crypt"

Then add this to the default runlevel:

rc-update add wireless-init default

That's enough to get the script to work, now to make grub tell linux wether to start the wireless or not!

edit grub's menu (mine's located at /boot/grub/menu.lst). In there, make a copy of the existing boot item for linux, and then add wireless to the end of the kernel like as such:

title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.17 - Wireless
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/linux-2.6.17 root=/dev/hda6 video=vesafb:mttr:3,ywrap,1280x800-32@60 splash=verbose,theme=livecd-2006.0 wireless

title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.17 - No Wireless
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/linux-2.6.17 root=/dev/hda6 video=vesafb:mttr:3,ywrap,1280x800-32@60 splash=verbose,theme=livecd-2006.0

Now just reboot and choose wether you want wireless on at boot or not

If anyone can suggest improvements to the script, that would be great. Also, the script seems to run at the very end of the boot process, not really where i want it. I want it to run around where the network gets started (hence i copied net.lo) Adding in

before urandom

(the process that starts after eth0) to the depend() still didn't solve the problem.

I have sorted this by changing the default runlevel to boot not default, and then adding

before *

to the depend() section of the init script, but this was just to make it load a bit sooner, upto you wether you want it to boot earlier or are happy it starting at the end.