Setting essid without AP

[guldo]

Hello.
I can't make my wireless card work properly.
I have been trying to set up a wlan without an access point. I have a desktop pc cable-connected to the internet, and I would like to connect it to a laptop pc via wireless card.
(desktop=debian, laptop=windows)
I couldn't get the card to work with ndiswrapper or madwifi, so (as advised on ndiswrapper website) I used the RaLink linux driver (since my card has such a chipset). Now the card should be up and running.
But I'm not sure I understand what an essid is. I thought it could be just any string, but it doesn't work. I mean:

debian:~# iwconfig ra0 mode ad-hoc essid "GuldoNet01" 
debian:~# iwconfig ra0
ra0       RT61 Wireless  ESSID:""  
          Mode:Ad-Hoc  Frequency:1 MHz  Cell: 2E:82:AF:62:7B:C6   
          Bit Rate=11 Mb/s   
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Link Quality=0/100  Signal level:-121 dBm  Noise level:-107 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

debian:~#

Could you tell what's wrong?

Thank you

[UgoDeschamps]

Hi mate
is the wireless card up?
"ifconfig" will tell you


Im am not sure I get this correct, but your trying to get a wireless card (laptop) to connect to your PC without an access point (wireless router) is that correct?

[yourname3232]

A side note: you must either set up a dhcp server on the debian machine or manually set the IP address of the laptop. Also, you are going to have to figure out how to set up IP masquerading (which is a pain) to allow your laptop to connect to the internet. I have set this kind of thing up just to say that I could and it was a real pain. I really suggust you go and spend a little on a hardware based router/wifi. It will really save you some sanity. If you are really up to the challenge, then more power to you.