Considering all I've read about setting up wireless on GNU/Linux, I was expecting some pain. This was super easy! At least, it was after being pointed in the right direction by you folks.
I started with Matej's advice: lspci, which required installing the pciutils package. This revealed that I was using and Atheros card, and google revealed that MadWifi was the appropriate driver. So I went to the MadWifi website and found out that everything I needed was available in debian nonfree. I followed the directions on the MadWifi page, installed everything I need with aptitude (including module assistant and all the suggests from madwifi-sources and madwifi-tools), worked through the newbie help, and here I am not an hour later with a working wireless setup, WEP encrypted no less! Thanks for your help! On a less optimistic note, I see that I have now officially tainted my kernel with heathen code. Could I get this setup running without compromising my virtue (such as it was)? Cheers, Tyler shahim essaid.com wrote: > Tyler Smith wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I'm a little confused by the available how-to's etc. regarding getting >> wireless working on my laptop. There is a fair bit of material >> available, but much of it is old and/or contradictory. If someone could >> help point me towards a good reliable source to get going that would be >> great. >> >> I'm using: >> Debian Etch, freshly installed and upgraded >> Linksys model no. WPC55AG notebook adapter card >> Toshiba Satellite 2410 laptop (I have to wait for my thinkpad...) >> >> Thanks! >> >> Tyler >> > I just went through this the other day for the first time. I needed a > driver (madwifi), wireless-tools, and wpa-supplicant (for WPA). I am > running Sarge and some of these packages have to be up to date so I got > them from backports.org. I am not sure if you really need ifplugd but it > helps configure/deconfigure your interfaces when they appear and disappear. > > I can't remember all the details but I think that hotplug will get your > device installed and then ifup/ifdown will have scripts added by the > above packages to get your card working correctly. I put all the > settings for wireless-tools and wpa-supplicant in > /etc/network/interfaces and the scripts for those packages used that > information to setup the card when it is plugged in. > > This was the first time I did this but it worked for me. You need a > driver, wireless tools and possibly other packages if you need > encryption. I read most of the documents (man pages, docs, and their > websites) for these packages to understand how they all work together > and I would recommend you do the same otherwise you might waste many > hours trying different settings without understanding what is going on. > I did that first and it didn't work. :-) > > > http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/ ( I think WEP is > included in the wireless tools) > > http://madwifi.org/ > > http://hostap.epitest.fi/wpa_supplicant/ > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
