Wireless Problem Mandrake Powerpack 10.1

I know I know - I seem to be saying something a few other newbies have said as well - they are unable to get their wirless cards to work. It should be no surprise that I am no different.

I am very new to Linux - Just got it today and installed it.

I have a Compaq Presario x1000 dual-boating Win XP Pro & Mandrake Powerpack 10.1. The wireless card is Intel Pro/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter (yes its a Centrino setup).

Linux detects the card and sees it and has drivers for it and everything - no problem. My problem is in the configuration in Mandrake. I am running WEP on the WAP, and I've put in all the settings I know (for instance the SSID broadcast name and the WEP key - but then there are other text fields (I believe one of them was frequency) and several others that I have no idea what to put in for them. Is anyone able to walk me through my configuration so I can get my wireless to work?
Thanks!

~Anthony

I don't think you need to modify the other parameters - just make sure the ESSID and the WEP keys match.

First try out without the WEP.

Hey!

I got my wireless to work when I turned WEP off - so WEP seems to be the problem. I tried both 64 bit and 128 bit using both jsut the "passphrase" and the full hex number. Nothing seems to work. Any ideas?

~Anthony

I can't really say what exactly you are doing wrong here,
since I have no problem at all to use WEP in my configuration.
You should double check you Access Point configuration, enable WEP and after that try the comman

Code:

---

iwconfig wlan0 enc 0123456789ABCDEF0123456789

---

The example above is when you have enabled WEP-128 HEX encoding.
(Yes you must use exactly 26 HEX characters)
Change "wlan0" to your interface name.

I tried your command but it didn't work (I got an error).
Here's what happened.

iwconfig eth2 enc 4C5ADC0180 restricted <-- the 4c5adc0180 is my 64 bit hex encryption key

it came back with an error:
Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2a) :
SET failed on device eth2: Operation not supported.

I then tried the command without the restricted command at the end and I got the exact same error.

...What does this mean?

~Anthony

Hope the enc key matches the one you have defined on your accesspoint.

e.g. if you have defined key 0 on the accesspoint, your iwconfig should be

Code:

---

iwconfig eth2 essid <whatever> enc &#91;1&#93; BEAD5BA5EDF00DF00DFEEDF00D restricted

---

** Note F<zero><zero>D

you can also use key instead of enc. (man iwconfig)

I am not sure where Mandrake stores the keys.

you can try defining the KEY in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth2

add these 2 entries

ESSID=your essid
KEYn=your 26 hex character key.