Need help with Linux Fedora 14 hooking up wireless internet connection

[fundamental_mima]

I have a Dell Inspiron 9300 and I recently installed Fedora 14. The computer has a built in Ethernet card, and I'm not sure about what exactly the card is, but I do know that I have a Wireless USB Netopia IEEE 802.11b (model # SWL-2300U) that worked fine on my XP, but now that I've changed over to Linux I can't seem to find this driver for Linux anywhere!!! Help me please!?

[atreyu]

Hi,

Run this command to see if your device has possibly already been detected and you don't know it:

iwconfig

In the output, look for any devices that do have wireless extensions.
If you see one, great, we can configure it.

If not, run this command so we can see what you've got:

lspci

I think the driver you'll need is the ipw2100 or ipw2200. It could already been installed.

[fundamental_mima]

I ran iwconfig and it said
"lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:off/any
Mode: Managed Channel: 0 Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate: 0 kb/s Tx-Power (equals mine isn't working) off Sensitivity (equals) 8/0
Retry limit: 7 RTS thr: off Fragment thr: 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."

[atreyu]

alright, so eth0 is your wireless network adapter, remember that.

now try this, to associate with your wireless network. you'll need to know your ESSID, it should be in your wireless router documentation, or maybe you know if from your Windows machines on the network:

iwconfig eth0 essid "YOUR_SSID"

you'll also need to know your WEP/WPA key, if you have one. you might need to know the channel, too, but most often not. to use the key

iwconfig eth0 key "YOUR_KEY"

The key needs to be entered very specifically. Read up on iwconfig with this command:

man iwconfig

when you've associated w/the wireless router, then try to get an ip address, etc.:

dhclient eth0

if all that works, then we can make it automatic for you...

[fundamental_mima]

I'm not sure what the SSID is or where to find it?

[atreyu]

Do you know your wireless router's ip address? It probably has an embedded webserver where you can configure stuff and get that ESSID. You'd need to the admin password to log in to it, too, though. again, that stuff should come with your wireless router documentation.

however, you can try this command to see what's out there:

iwlist eth0 scan

i don't have a linux device w/wireless up right now, though, so i can't test that...

[fundamental_mima]

Fedora won't let me just log into admin, and when I put in "su root" and try to type my password, it's not typing anything, it was letting me into it yesterday, but it won't even type characters.

[fundamental_mima]

And when I tried to do (not on admin) "iwlist eth0 scan" it says "eth0 no scan results" So it's an IP address? From the computer that's RUNNING the network? Or an IP address for the physical ROUTER?

[fundamental_mima]

I went onto the main computer that runs the network (XP) and did "ipconfig" and came up with a DNS Suffix, an IP, a subnet mask, and a default gateway. Do any of these numbers help me for linux?

[atreyu]

if you have a Windows machine, you should be able to get the ESSID. There should be a Wireless Network icon in the lower right corner of the sytem tray. You can usually right-click it and select View Available Networks or something like that. From there you should be able to see which ESSID you are already associated with/connected to.

When you run ipconfig on the Windows machine, the Default Gateway is probably the IP address of your router. On your windows machine, you could hopefully open IE/Firefox and go to that ip address (e.g. http://192.168.1.1/) and log into your wireless router configuration page and see more settings that way.

Not sure I understand your problems with su. When you run it and start typing in your password, it does not echo what you type back to the screen (for security reasons), but once you press Enter, it should take it.

The iwlist command is supposed to return available wireless network names (ESSIDS), not ip addresses.