Cheap And Easy Wireless Configuration/Option For Linux

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Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 23:34:50 -0600

Just thought I'd post due to I worked for weeks trying to get differnent
wireless cards to work and trying linux-wlan, different drivers, kernel
rebuilds, and all to no avail. I finally found a quick, cheap and easy
way to get a D-Link 650 to work and so for it works fine with Fedora
3/2/1, Mandrake 10.1, Ubuntu and Damn Small Linux. Here is the low
down:

Here ya go:

1. Wireless Card: ($14 rebuilt card, mine was $22 with shipping)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=174000&CatId=367

2. NDISWrapper:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=93482&package_id=99148

3. Realtek 8180 XP Windows Drivers:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloads1-3.aspx?Keyword=8180

4. Steps to install and get working.

- Insert Card
- Extract RealTek Drivers
- Install NDISWrapper (follow below instructions versus README because
of problems listed further below)
 -- Extract NDISWrapper
 -- make install
 -- ndiswrapper -i /path to realtek driver's .inf
 -- modprobe ndiswrapper (card should be lit up now)
 -- ndiswrapper -m (to set ndiswrapper to boot as module at startup)
- Copy /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 to
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0
- Edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 and set ONBOOT to "No"
versus "Yes" (if you leave it yes it causes default gw problems with
wlan0 and will cause wlan0 to loose connectivity upon ifup for wlan0
also)
- Edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 and change all the IP
settings to what you want wlan0 to be, leave ONBOOT "Yes", make sure
all other IP settings are correct. Change type to wireless versus
ethernet , and ADD to the end of file the following:

mode managed
essid whateveryours is
key "if you have WEP Key"

- ifdown eth0
- ifconfig wlan0 IPaddress, netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast
192.168.1.255 (or 10 if thats what you have)
- route add default gw 192.168.?.? wlan0 (or 10. or whatever your gw is)
- if config wlan0 up
- iwconfig wlan0 mode managed
- iwconfig wlan0 essid (whatever yours is)
- iwconfig wlan0 key (whatever yours is if you have WEP)

All should work now (or at least will when you reboot). I did find a
problem initially when I would set iwconf first and then ifconfig second
and then bring card up. It would null out the original iwconfig and I
would have to redo it and reset the default gw. You can piddle with it
initally, but the ifcfg-wlan0 and ndiswrapper module will cause card to
work correctly upon reboot as long as you have eth0 disabled at boot.

I also found the KWifiManager (Comes installed Core 3, but can be
downloaded) works pretty good for checking connections or scanning for
networks.

If ya decide to get one, Enjoy!

After actually getting this to work, it was pretty easy and a relatively
cheap way of getting it to work.

Again, Hope it works for ya as easy as it did for me.

Judge Stone

"We know your in there, so come out with your hands up and surrender the
Orangatang!"
Judd Nelson, "Jay And Silent Bob Strikes Back"!

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