Help Connecting to Wireless Hotspots Needed

[pylonx]

KDE version 3.2.3
Kernel 2.4.26
Slackware 10.0


Linksys WPC54G Wireless Card
IBM Thinkpad A21p Laptop

It looks like my wireless card is picking something up when I use

iwlist scan

command (results below) but I have no clue where to go from here. I don't have a wireless router at home so I'd have to go to a hotspot to test it out completely. I have resisted asking for help, trying to do everything alone, ReadingTFM, but my frustration level is scaring me. I've thought about going back to windows xp which I really, really don't want to do. I tried both ndiswrapper and linuxant, I think Linuxant worked for me. I do also use a normal(non-wireless) network card in the same slot to hook up to my home lan but I power off before I do any switching hope that isn't screwing with anything. In kwifimanager it still shows a wireless card with a question mark on it even though I installed the drivers with linuxant, have I missed a step?

I am clueless where to go from here.
If I go to a hotspot will I need to find out their accesspoint? If so how would I impliment them? What will I have to do if anything in the kwifimanager? Is there any other information I need to list for you to help me? I keep seeing people have wlan0, why is mine eth0, is that a problem? Am I on the right Track or am I making things more complicated? Is there an easier program? I tried wifi-radar but I get an error "ImportError: No module named gtk"

I have Tried so many thing and stuffed my brain with so much information that I think I just got myself more lost.
I'd really appreciate a second brain to get me to focus on just what I need to do.
Please let me know what other information I can give for an accurate reply.
I am beginning to wondering if I am just paranoid.

What iwlist scanned below is from my apartment, not from one of the hotspots. Just Proving that the Wireless card is picking up something.
root@pyPort:~# iwlist scan
lo Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:0D:88:99:A2:77
ESSID:"agena2"
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.432 GHz (Channel 5)
Quality:2/94 Signal level:-81 dBm Noise level:-154 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
Extra:bcn_int=100
Cell 02 - Address: 00:90:0E:00:F5:63
ESSID:"transnet"
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
Quality:1/94 Signal level:-87 dBm Noise level:-154 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:22 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100

eth1 Interface doesn't support scanning.

root@pyPort:~# ifconfig
eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:03:47:70:D6:3C
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0xc000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

root@pyPort:~# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"" Nickname:"pyPort"
Mode:Managed Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power:0 dBm
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

eth1 no wireless extensions.


Thank you So much for making it this far!

[AlexK]

as root, try this in the command line:

iwconfig eth0 essid ssid_you_want_to_join
iwconfig eth0 key xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

replace xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx with the wep key you want to use.

now, when you connect to the AP, you should setup your distro so that it updates the dns server via dhcp or something (as most wifi hotspots in cafes do).

Don't worry about using different drivers, as the driver for your card and everything is already loaded. Now, the gtk error you get from trying to install wifiradar, you should download and install gtk and its relevant libs uisng slackware's package manager (i think it is called slapt-get).

[pylonx]

Hmmn, Well I tried the slapt-get, took 24+ hours to download all the upgrades and like the second thing it tried to install a message saying it couldn't find /lib/libc.so.6: version 'GLIBC_2.3.4' came up. Now it was a clean install of Slackware 10.0, I did nothing on it before I did the slapt-get --dist-upgrade ...

yeah...
A little frustrated having wasted 24 hours downloading.

[AlexK]

so, whats the status regarding your wireless card? did you try the iwconfig commands?

[pylonx]

I did the first command

iwconfig eth0 essid ssid_you_want_to_join

And used kwifimanager and it was showing that it was connected, access point and all but I tried to get on the net. It Didn't work, I tried pinging google, but nothing. I was only stoping by the hotspot for a short time, only 5 minutes, so I didn't really hunt out any problems. But it was picking up the connection showing ups and downs in kwifimanager. So I am further along than I've been before. Tomorrow I'll try further. If you have any Ideas right off about it let me know. I didn't try the key thing cause I didn't think it was needed to connect. The hotspot wasn't using a key and for a 5 minute connect I didn't think I was in danger of contracting anything dangerous or letting any information out. Or is a WEP key necessary for connecting? Thanks for the help thus far, any ideas before I go and dig deep would be apreciated.

[AlexK]

ok, what would be helpful were the exact result of trying to ping google with say:

ping -c 4 www.google.com

Also, a WEP key is not required to be able to connect to the AP or anything. It is only required when the AP uses WEP encryption.

Also, when you think the card is connected, what is the result from

iwconfig eth0

[pylonx]

Well I am wireless right now, this is a different hot spot. Don't think I did anything different. But hey I'm obviously connected.