Total noob, first post, needs help with wireless setup (long) Any takers?

[curt8769]

Okay here is the situation.
Dell C610 Latitude Notebook
Mandrake 10.1
Linksys WPC54GS Cardbus adapter
using ndiswrapper

following these directions
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/p...81a02620e3db71

So I did the bit about removing ACX100 and the older ver of ndiswrapper as stated in the distributions section.

Then I followed the insructions for installing ndiswrapper 1.1

after installing ...

ndiswrapper -l

returned is:

Installed ndis drivers
bcmwl5 driver present, hardware present

so im good there right?

then modprobe ndiswrapper
no errors returned

still good right?

ndiswrapper: driver driver1 added
this I believe I did in the GUI with..
menu/system/configuration/configure your computer
I followed the instructions for setting up a wireless connection and pointed it to the windows driver.

I could then see the wireless card in the configure network panel.

Im still looking good I think.

then next step is to configure the interface

iwconfig

returns

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"sidious" Nickname:"vader"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:13:10:33:96:CC
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr=2346 B
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-35 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:7 Invalid misc:883 Missed beacon:0

im thinking thats all good too

then a
iwlist wlan0 scan
returns

list wlan0 scan
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:13:10:33:96:CC
ESSID:"sidious"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-36 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Encryption key:off
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Bit Rate:18 Mb/s
Bit Rate:24 Mb/s
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
Bit Rate:6 Mb/s
Bit Rate:9 Mb/s
Bit Rate:12 Mb/s
Bit Rate:48 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0
Cell 02 - Address: 00:13:10:2B:12:B6
ESSID:"neilhome"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.422 GHz (Channel 3)
Quality:0/100 Signal level:-95 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Encryption key:on
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s
Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s
Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Bit Rate:18 Mb/s
Bit Rate:24 Mb/s
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
Bit Rate:6 Mb/s
Bit Rate:9 Mb/s
Bit Rate:12 Mb/s
Bit Rate:48 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0
I did this:
iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed

I did this
iwconfig wlan0 essid ESSID (my essid)

no errors retuned so im still alright i think.

then
ifconfig wlan0 up

no errors

then
dhclient wlan0

AND I GET

sit0: unknown hardware address type 776
sit0: unknown hardware address type 776
Listening on LPF/wlan0/00:0f:66:b3:3a:a3
Sending on LPF/wlan0/00:0f:66:b3:3a:a3
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 18
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 9
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 9
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 1
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.

So bassically all this is saying is I think I just cant get an IP assigned thru DHCP. The directions have this warning: Remember, if you have a firewall, to let it know that wlan0 is an external interface and allow it to pass traffic (otherwise you won't even be able to ping your AP)

So I searched for firewall programs on my computer and found shorewall, messed around with it a bit to no avail then I just removed it altogether.
How do I make wlan0 an external interface anyway?

I'm sorry this is so long but since this is my first "legit" attempt at linux I wanted to be thorough and let you know the steps I have taken and the results I have gotten along the way. I was so proud of myself for getting as far as I did but bummed I cant figure this last part out. I am at your mercy

P.S. I also started messing around with the ndiswrapper/interfaces file.
Dont know if I messed it up or not, if someone could let me know what it should look like.


Thanks
Curt8769

[curt8769]

Sheesh, dont everybody line up here at once.......just kidding

I guess I just posted way too much information for my problem. But here is an update.
I tried it again tonight at work instead of at home and was able to get an ip right away with the dhclient wlan0 command from our network here. So I'm figuring there must be something I need to setup on my linksys router at home. I have a windows pc that connects to it wirelessly with no special settings. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Curt8769

[bigtomrodney]

Two quick ideas...

Your work network is managed, but if you're using a router could it be peer to peer? Try setting the mode to Any

Aside from that have you set the correct encryption in your ifcfg-wlan0 file, or on the flip side have you got it set on your router?

[curt8769]

If you are talking about WEP it is disabled on my router and we dont use it here at my work either. But changing to peer to peer mode sounds like it may be the trick. Dang... I hope its that simple. Thanks, I'll give it a shot in the morning when I get home.........DAMM GRAVEYARD SHIFT

Thanks for the suggestions
curt8769

[curt8769]

Its working now tho I dont know why. Luckily I saved my config at work as a seperate profile. When I got home I used my home profile but it still will not get an ip from my linksys router. messed around with all the diffent iwconfig wlan0 modes, I tried alot of stuff but still no luck. So i tried switching to the work profile and wallah! I'm confused but happy it works. Thanks for the help.