Re: Why newbies don't RTFM...

From: Dave Uhring (daveuhring_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 09/15/05 

Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 17:44:16 -0500

On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 17:46:43 -0400, Jeff wrote:

>
> YaST tells me that pciutil is installed, but the command lspci (under su)
> will not work for me (I get "command not found").

Probably because you do not have /sbin (or possibly /usr/sbin) in your
PATH. You fix that in your ~/.bashrc.

export PATH=/sbin:$PATH

> Instead, here is some
> recent data I acquired ("connected" to neighbor's secured wlan - see end of
> message - and using built-in wireless adapter):
>
> # ifconfig
> eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:3............

Nobody gives a rat's ass what your Ethernet address is. It cannot be seen
beyond your router.
...

> eth1 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"neighbor's" Nickname:"............."
> Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:.............
> Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
> Retry limit:4 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
> Encryption key:off
> Power Management:off
> Link Quality=6/92 Signal level=-87 dBm Noise level=-93 dBm
> Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
> Tx excessive retries:1 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
> ...................................
> # cat/etc/resolv.conf
> bash: cat/etc/resolv.conf: No such file or directory
> wierdhost:/home/jeff # cat/etc/hosts
> bash: cat/etc/hosts: No such file or directory
> wierdhost:/home/jeff # route
> Kernel IP routing table
> Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use
> Iface
> 192.168.2.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1
> link-local * 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth1
> loopback * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
> default 192.168.2.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth1
>
> ....................
> # route-n
> bash: route-n: command not found
> .............................
> # route -n
> Kernel IP routing table
> Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use
> Iface
> 192.168.2.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1
> 169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth1
> 127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
> 0.0.0.0 192.168.2.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth1
> ............................

Obviously your wireless adapter is working. You have issues with
compatibility between your own router and your laptop.

> One major problem I am having is that I have found no way to force the
> adapter to connect to my own network rather than the neighbor's. That is
> because the KInternet screen that should allow me to select which network to
> connect to, always remains blank. I'm still working on figuring why that is.
> I could connect to the internet by 10/100 cable and have updated my Suse
> installation so that it is up-to-date.
>
> Hope you can help and I appreciate the effort even if you cannot.

Not much I can do with wireless setups; I hardwire everything. But there
may be other readers who can provide better information than I.

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