Wireless Networking HOWTO

From ArkWiki

In the procedure below,
text in this font
is command text, to be entered character for character in a command shell, unless otherwise indicated in the step.

When a typed command contains semicolons (;), it is actually a compound command, which can be performed in stages. In other words, this:

command1 param1 param2 ; command2 param1 param2 ; command3 paramX paramY

does the same as this:

command1 param1 param2
command2 param1 param2
command3 paramX paramY

which can make it easier for you to see what is going on, step by step.

To make sure your card is installed:

1. Click Kmenu, System, Command Line Interpreter - Super User Mode
2. If you're using a laptop, type

modprobe yenta-socket
or
service pcmcia start
to load the cardbus driver or PCMCIA driver

1. Enter

iwconfig
and examine the devices it lists.

1. Connect your wireless device.
2. Enter
   iwconfig
   again.

If your card's driver is preinstalled, enter:
iwconfig wireless_device essid network_name ; dhclient wireless_device
but replace network_name and wireless_device as indicated!
If your card isn't installed:

1. Insert and mount the disk with the drivers for your device: you can use Windows drivers. If you don't have the disk, you can download the driver via Ethernet or another computer (as long as you can get it from that other computer to your Ark machine!).
2. Copy the folder with the drivers in it to your desktop, and ensure that all files are in lower case.
3. In the command line interpreter, cd to the folder on your desktop.
4. You should see a .inf file in the folder. Enter:
   ndiswrapper inf_file.inf
   This will take the drivers and reconfigure them so that they'll work in Linux for a network device.
5. Make sure the wireless device is connected to the computer and enter
   modprobe ndiswrapper
   This will scan your computer for hardware. If it finds any hardware, it will check to see if it can use any drivers you retrieved with ndiswrappers. If it can, it will assign the drivers to that device.
6. Enter
   iwconfig
   again. Examine the list for a new wireless device.
7. Enter:
   iwconfig wireless_device essid network_name ; dhclient wireless_device
   and replace network_name and wireless_device as indicated.
8. You are now connected to your wireless network.

• If your wireless network uses WEP encryption, replace iwconfig wireless_device essid network_name with iwconfig wireless_device essid network_name key wep_key
• If you prefer a graphical tool after making sure your wireless card is installed or you use WPA encryption (the tool will work with WEP, WPA, and without any encryption), type in service wpa_supplicant start , then go to KMenu, Internet, WPA GUI

If you would like to configure it to connect at bootup, type 'kwrite' in a root terminal. Click Open and open /etc/rc.local . Add the following line (note: you can also type it in to a root terminal if you choose not to insert it into a file):

modprobe ndiswrapper ; iwconfig wireless_device essid network_name ; dhclient wireless_device

again replacing network_name and wireless_device as indicated by your previous discovery.

If you didn't need to use ndiswrapper or modprobe to connect to your network, the line you add should look like this (again, you can type it manually in a root terminal if you don't want to insert it into a file):

iwconfig wireless_device essid network_name ; dhclient wireless_device

with proper replacement ditto the above.

If the appropriate commands are placed within /etc/rc.local, they will be executed at system boot. There is no problem if the wireless device is not available; there will simply be a momentary pause while the system learns it needs to skip it. There may also be a half-minute pause if there is trouble connecting.

There is also a way to run the commands at login, rather than boot. This is very helpful if the machine is used by different people with their own logins. To do this, place the commands within a text file, named "wireless-startup", in the ~/.kde/Autostart directory for the appropriate user. The ~ means "home"; for instance, when Ark is just installed, there is one user named "arklinux", and if one is at a non-superuser command prompt, the "~" directory is /home/arklinux. If there were a user named "argyle", the "~" directory would point to /home/argyle, if the user "argyle" were doing the checking. Anyhow, after the file exists in the right place with the right contents, run the following command, and it will allow the file to be executed:

chmod +x wireless-startup