Re: Debian and Wireless on an IBM Thinkpad
On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 04:30:11 +0100, Leonid Grinberg wrote:
> Thank you for your reply.
>
> I do not quite understand. First of all, am I right in saying that the
> "auto eth0" line means that eth0 (wired, I presume) is the one that
> the laptop tries to log on to first? Also, what exactly is the generic
> syntax for the other wireless ones?
>
> Thirdly, is there a program that tells which networks are in range
> from which you can log onto one, supplying a password, if necessary?
> An example is the Windows XP program. Is there a GNU/Linxu equivalent?
>
> --
> Leonid
Hi-
Sorry for not making my method completely clear. The eth0 line on my
laptop is a 3com wired card which may or not be used; but most often is
not used or wired up. I tend to be wireless 90% of the time these days.
If I am not wireless, I just do a dhclient eth0 and get a IP address on
the wired interface. My wifi card does not use ethx; but instead uses
ra0 (common for the raylink cards) so the lines in the
/etc/network/interfaces focus on different wifi networks I may want to
use and I switch on by a simple command line syntax (ifup ra0=xxx). If I
want to see some wifi networks which are in range that I may not know
about it, I simply do a iwlist scanning and the wireless tools scan for
local wifi networks and it will tell you whether its WEP/security
controlled or what. If I am at a place I normally do not use, like a
hotel, I just use the command line syntax to get online like:
sudo iwconfig ra0 essid nameofessid key off
dhclient ra0
This basically sets up wifi for me at a hotel which may have a redirect
in place or requires some login on a webpage but gives me a IP initially
and populates my /etc/resolv.conf with correct values.
The other wireless cards use generic /etc/network/interface commands to
bring up a variety of wifi interfaces with their associated essid
information and/or keys. I give each one a name on the line that will
help me remember what it is. My appraoch does not do WPA since none of
the places I go use it. IF you need that, I'm not the person to ask.
I have used the same thing with many cardbus cards and I did the same
with the older orinoco classic 11b cards but in a slightly different
place like the /etc/pcmcia/config.opts file I believe.
There are other ways of doing this with deb packages like ifplugd I
believe or waproamd. I have not used those since my way is pretty much
driven from a xterm and a few lines.
--
Michael Perry | Do or do not. There is no try. -Master Yoda
mperry@lnxpowered.org | http://www.lnxpowered.org
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