Re: Lenovo Thinkpad, HP, or Vostro/Latitude? was Re: OT: Laptop for College Bound Student?

[Anthony Campbell <ac@acampbell.org.uk>]

On 15 Jun 2008, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> 
> when did you last try? Mine still works, though it's definitely a
> little buggy getting it to associate. I haven't upgraded the lappy in
> a while though, so maybe it's better. Currently, to get it to
> associate I have to run through the following hoops...
> 
> ifup wlan0 
> # can't do anything without upping the thing
> 
> iwlist wlan0 scan 
> # will perform a scan (can you get this part to work?)
> 
> iwconfig wlan0 essid <essid of choice>
> 
> and then various permutations of 
> 
> iwconfig wlan0 channel <chan #>
> iwconfig wlan0 ap off
> iwconfig wlan0 ap <MAC of desired ap>
> 
> all while watching 
> 
> tail -f /var/log/syslog 
> 
> in another terminal until I get the (paraphrased) message:
> 
> NETDEV: wlan0 comes ready
> 
> or something like that. 
> 
> I've tried to script this, but it just doesn't work reliably, which is
> frustrating. It seems that the driver doesn't actually do what it
> claims with regard to the 'ap off' command. It usually just tries to
> associate with the last ap, even if that ap is 100 miles away. 
> 
> its frustrating, but does work. And once it comes up, it works great. 
> 


Well, I finally got it to work! I use the following incantation; I don't
know why it works but it does.

1. ifup wlan0
	This never works initially; it goes on trying without
	connecting. So I kill the process by killing the xterm (no other
	way to do it).
2. ifdown wlan0.
3. ifup wlan0.

Very odd.

Anthony

-- 
Anthony Campbell - ac@acampbell.org.uk 
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux
http://www.acampbell.org.uk (blog, book reviews, 
and sceptical articles)