topic Re: Wireless Help in Operating System - Linux

Wireless Help

Drey — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 18:49:51 GMT

I have a pavilion ze4600 AMD, how do i turn the wireless network on? I have no on/off button. I've tried everything to get it working but nothing. Thanks

Re: Wireless Help

Drey — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 19:07:48 GMT

I have a westell versalink 327w modem/router is it possible for it not to be commpatible?

Re: Wireless Help

Vernon Brown_4 — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 08:05:32 GMT

If you can access the wireless router setup screen (In LinkSys it's http://192.168.1.1) you should find tabs with configuration screens. Basically, your network name must be the same in the router and the hosts, and the network key (similar to a password, but stored and automatic) must be the same.

I just set up two Linksys wireless networks, using the WRT54G LinkSys routers. Everything went very smooth.

Re: Wireless Help

Steven E. Protter — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 08:15:53 GMT

Run through the router configuration and check security.

There may be a code required to encrypt transmission, which you have to enter on your ze4600.

Also, its common to limit access based on MAC Address.

In both of the above cases we are dealing with configuation changes made to the router by humans. They don't come out of the box like that.

SEP

Re: Wireless Help

Drey — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 12:54:46 GMT

There is nowhere for me to put the networkkey for the router. And if there is a code required how do I get it and where to I enter it? still havn't been able to go wireless, im about to quit.

Re: Wireless Help

Andrew Bruce — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 10:31:53 GMT

Ok. Let's take this one step at a time.

1. Assumption: Your wireless router is out of the box, and unconfigured?

2. Turn the sireless router on and reset it (there should be a reset button on it somewhere. This will clear any configs.

3. Turn on laptop.

4. Assumption - you are running windows? I'm a linux fan, but windows is easier for WiFi...

5. Somewhere in windows there will be a configuration panel to configure the WiFi on your PC.

6. Run the config wizard and get it to scan for any wireless access points.

7. If you see your router, connect to it and take it from there.

8. If you *don't* see your router over the WiFi, download netstumbler from http://www.netstumbler.com/ and run it.

Netstumbler will detect any wireless signals and tell you where they come from, and what the associated details are (access point name (ESSID), MAC address, etc).

Once you have detected your WiFi Routers ESSID or MAC address, you should be able to configure your PC to connect to it.

9. Once you have established a connection, understand it(!) then begin to configure security (MAC address controls, and WEP or WPA encryption).

If none of this works, you need to check that your WiFi router is working, and that your PC does actually have WiFi hardware (and drivers) installed...

Let us know how you get on.

If you are still having difficulty, try and work out as much detail as you can about your problem so that we can make a better guess at where the fault is (e.g. verify the WiFi Router is working, do you get error messages, etc.).

Good luck.

Re: Wireless Help

Andrew Bruce — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 10:56:06 GMT

Bah! Just realised this was posted to the *Linux* networking forum! Ooops!!

In *that* case...

Depending on your distro:

1. Boot up your laptop
2. Make sure your WiFi adapter in your laptop is on (blue light should be on, if not, press the radio transmitter button nearby the power button)
3. Execute 'lsmod' and scan through the output. There should be a reference (kernel module = driver) refering to your wireless adapter. I'll assume that it's the standard HP one which would mean that you have a kernel module named something like 'ipw2100' listed.

If you don't have a module listed that refers to your WiFi adapter, then you need to get hold of the linux drivers, and copile the modules (not for a newbie IMHO).

If you do have the module installed, so far so good.

3. Execute 'iwconfig' and make sure that there is one 'device' that is a wireless device (it may be called wlan0 or eth1 or something.

4. Now, wireless adapters do not store their firmware on flash - usually, the firmware (lowlevel Operating System if you like) is downloaded to the device when the PC detects it.

For *your* device, I don't know if there is an easy way to see if the firmware has been downloaded.

Have a look through your '/var/log/messages' file looking for anything that might remotely resemble a message about your wifi.

Also, you can look to see if you have any firmware files on your laptop.

Some distros store the firmware in:

/lib/hotplug/firmware or /lib/firmware
but your distro may be different...

*If* you have firmware, and it is getting downloaded to the wifi device, then you should be more or less there.

5. Execute 'iwconfig essid any'

then

6. execute 'iwconfig' and look to see if your wifi device has attached to your wireless router (you should see the ESSID field match the name of your router).

7. Finally, you will be able to run 'dhclient ' and *hopefully* be assigned an IP address, etc.

Ultimately, there are graphical tools available on Linux to help ease the stress of all this. Unfortunately, different distros have different config GUIs, so, without knowing what Distro you are on, I can't really help in this area...

Let us know how you get on (and what your system details are if you need more help!).

A.

Re: Wireless Help

Drey — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 19:27:33 GMT

oooopps! I didnt notice I posted on linux section. I do have Windows. I tried that net stumbler and it couldnt find any APs. I ran the wireless network setup wizard with no success. My modem 's wireless light is always on which should mean its functional. I have a Zyxel g-162 Pci wireless card with its own adapter utility which I configured to match the routers SSID etc. I called Zyxel and they told to upgrade to Service pack 2 which I did and still nothing. ummm.. no error messages and well I can't think of anything else.

Re: Wireless Help

Drey — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 18:20:33 GMT

Thanx everyone I bought a new pci card and it works now.