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Newer page: version 11 Last edited on Friday, February 9, 2007 10:33:54 am by IanMcDonald
Older page: version 7 Last edited on Sunday, March 6, 2005 7:48:27 am by SleepyHead Revert
@@ -4,9 +4,11 @@
 There are several methods you can use to configure a wireless interface in a linux computer, often these are distribution specific. This page takes the approach of showing you how to manually setup a link at the command line before delving in to distribution specific details. While this page is written with 802.11b in mind it should be generic enough to help with other wireless technologies such as 802.11g as well. 
  
 The structure of this page is a number of steps that should be executed in order, at the end of each step is a ''Troubleshooting'' section that should help you to fix any problems that you encountered. Do not proceed to the next step unless you are sure you have completed all the preceding steps correctly! 
  
-  
+There is also useful webpages at:  
+* [HP|http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Tools.html] which has quite a lot of links and background information.  
+* http://linuxwireless.org/ which is the new official wiki of wireless drivers for Linux  
  
 !! Verify Environment 
 First we need to check that there is a wireless card in your computer to. To get a list of all wireless interfaces in the machine use the ''iwconfig'' command. In Debian, this command is part of the package called __wireless-tools__. 
 In the example shown below we can see that this particular computer has a single wireless interface called ''eth2''. The rest of the output provides details of the current configuration of the wireless interface. Ignore that for now, we'll deal with it later - the important thing here is that you have a wireless interface installed and ready to go. 
@@ -53,8 +55,10 @@
 This shows the [MAC] address of any remote wireless access points (or peers if in AdHoc mode?). 
  
 Apparently the "__<tt>iwlist ... ap</tt>__" command is obsolete, and the 
 better command is "__<tt>iwlist ''eth2'' scanning</tt>__", which gives its output in the different format. 
+  
+On some network cards you need to issue the above scanning command to get the card to associate. e.g. Current driver for Broadcom 4306  
  
 !Troubleshooting 
 If your wireless card can't find anything to connect to, you won't get 
 very far. 
@@ -139,9 +143,13 @@
 * Check dmesg, syslog, etc for any error messages printed 
 * Check that the ESSID and/or any security settings match up between the clients and AccessPoint. 
 * If still stuck, google, or try the WlugMailingList. 
  
-  
+! Setting the rate  
+Some cards don't automatically set the rate and may set it at a lower rate. You can fix this by typing for example (for an 802.11g card)  
+<verbatim>  
+iwconfig eth2 rate 54M  
+</verbatim>  
  
 !! Setup IP 
 This is a pretty generic step and isn't actually related to Wireless in any way, it's the same as bringing up any interface at all! You can either manually assign network settings, or use [DHCP] (if the AccessPoint is also a DHCP server). 
  
@@ -209,7 +217,8 @@
 # comment out the above line and uncomment the following line: 
 # pre-up iwconfig eth2 essid ''MY_SSID' key s:abcdefghijklm 
 </verbatim> 
  
+Any of the commands mentioned in this page can be added to the above file in Debian/Ubuntu with the word up before it to automatically do this after the card is initialised or pre-up if before the card is initialised.  
  
 ---- 
 CategoryWireless, CategoryNotes