Wireless Hell

[rbrugman]

Hello,
I have been trying to get my wireless working on redhat for about a week now. I am having all sorts of problems. I have an Apple Airport as a base station using 128-bit WEP. On the client end (linux computer), I have Dell Insiron 2500 with a Dell Truemobile 1150 card. I installed redhat with the card in the computer. It detects it as there, but I can't get it working.

First, when I tried, it said that it couldn't set the mode and frequency. Then (only once), I got it to detect my AP, but it said something about the key (which is a hex key I got off my mac using the "Network Password Equivalent" thing. I tried using 0x(key) and without the 0x. Then I became frustrated and turned off the encryption, but it wouldn't take an IP address even when detecting the AP. I then tried using ifconfig to set an ip, gateway and netmask, and I also tried the graphical config. I tried connecting to the AP in both the graphical and command line versions. I am having a hell of a time and want to get online asap.

Thanks,
Robert

[hex]

i had driver problems, dhcp problems(which still arnt fixed) and problems seting modes and all that stuff. i installed the latest wireless tools package, and installed the latest driver for my card (i got mine at linux-wlan.com and mine is working now, though i have to do it all at the prompt with iwconfig, or lvnet for wireless and since dhcp will not work at all, i have to use netconfig, if you just use ifconfig it sets my defulat gateway to 192.168.1.255, but since my defulat gate way is 192.168.1.1 (same ip as the wireless router) i have to use netconfig to set that cause i cant get ifconfig to change the value. so i would say, newest driver, newest wireless tools package (with iwconfig and the like) as well as using netconfig and lvnet to set it up, that way you can control every thing.

[bquark]

Hex,

Since you mentioned lvnet I am guessing you are using a card with the atmel chip. I have a linksys WUSB11 and I struggled with it under RedHat 9. It worked before I turned on WEP. The driver came from here
http://sourceforge.net/projects/atmelwlandriver/

After I turned on WEP, I could only get it to work if I hotplugged after boot and used a static IP. I was using version .2.1.1 of the driver. I also hardcoded the key into the source.

I have switched to Fedora core 1 and it uses a different driver. I could not configure it with the GUI but I was able to write a ifcfg-wlan0 file that seems to work. It uses a different driver for the same chipset.
http://at76c503a.berlios.de/

rbrugman,

I am not sure which chipset you card has, so I have no suggestions.


Mike

[hex]

my card has the atmel chipset init and im using the drivers from lwww.inux-wlan.com, im using the driver .2.1 fromthe site, it seems to work just fine like i said, aside from not being able to configure it graphicly, though i do have to et the address staticly as well. i'm on redhat 8, not 9, but i think i'll give those drivers from source forge a try on my laptop. maybe they'll get more of my card working.

[bquark]

my card has the atmel chipset init and im using the drivers from lwww.inux-wlan.com, im using the driver .2.1 fromthe site, it seems to work just fine like i said, aside from not being able to configure it graphicly, though i do have to et the address staticly as well. i'm on redhat 8, not 9, but i think i'll give those drivers from source forge a try on my laptop. maybe they'll get more of my card working.

I actually like the second drivers better. http://at76c503a.berlios.de/ It comes with Fedora which I just started running, so I actually have only three days experience. However with this driver I can get it to configure properly with WEP at boot. I had to write an ifcfg-wlan0 by hand and then the GUI picked it up correctly.

[hex]

im a bit new to writing config files and such, i was wondering if you could post a copy of your config file so i could try it out with on my laptop once i try out these drivers, well it should work with the drivers i have right now any ways shouldnt it? either way i'd like a copy of it to look at if you wouldnt mind posting it or emailing it to me at hex@devzoo.com so i can have a look at it.

[bquark]

This is what exists in my file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0. The stuff after channel was added by redhat-config-network after I ran it. It also appears to have removed the encyption key. It must be saving that somewhere else. My guess is that if you put in everything down through channel, then the configuration gui will work.

DEVICE=wlan0
IPADDR=192.168.1.99
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.1.0
BROADCAST=192.168.1.255
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
TYPE=Wireless
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=yes
ESSID=xxxxxx
MODE=Managed
Rate=Auto
CHANNEL=6
 
DOMAIN=
HWADDR=
DHCP_HOSTNAME=
USERCTL=yes
PEERDNS=no
RATE=Auto

[hex]

i'll give it a shot and see what it can do for me. i'll tell you how it worked when i have the free time to play with it. might be awhile though but thank you, i'm sure it will help me.

[hex]

does your card connect via usb? mine is a pcmcia card, but oh well the config file should still work hopefully.or do i need the drivers to use the config, im a bit of a noob to linux but a long time but a progger and networker and picking this stuff up fast. it looks like i'll have to keep my old drivers, but i'm going to recompile my kernal and try to cut out most of the crap that i dont need so my laptop runns faster. its a 133mhz imb thinkpad running redhat 8, so it lags a bit. thanks for the config, too bad the drivers woulnt work though.

[bquark]

It is a Linksys WUSB11 so yes its USB. The config file does not care.

I had used the sourceforge drivers before they have a pcmcia option, I assumed the at76c503a did also. I had to compile the sourceforge driver so I knew it had everything. I did not compile at76c503a. It came with Fedora Core 1.