Re: Wireless issues -- Lenovo R61 ThinkPad
On Saturday 20 September 2008 17:58:27 Ken Heard wrote:
> This laptop has Lenny installed. It has a built in IBM 3945 wireless
> card. Once I installed the firmware-iwlwifi package the laptop
> recognized this card and allowed me to configure it. While I usually
> use a RJ-45 cable connection to connect to networks, I am presently
> temporarily located where a wireless connection is more convenient.
>
> By using KDE's "Network Settings" page, accessible from the KDE control
> panel under "Internet & Network", I was at first able to make this
> connection in automatic DHCP mode by entering the ESSID and the
> hexadecimal WEP key. This arrangement however had its problems. At
> first I selected "Network Settings" to activate this connection on boot
> up, but it did not work. After switching off this selection I was then
> able to establish the connection manually, but had to re-enter the ESSID
> and the key -- and select "hexadecimal" for the key instead of ascii" --
> several times in "Network Settings" before I finally would get a
> connection.
>
> This arrangement worked for about a week, but now I am no longer able to
> connect no matter what I do. "Ifconfig wlan0" returns the following:
>
> wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:"FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN 7050"
> Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
> Tx-Power=15 dBm
> Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B
> Encryption key:4765-6973-6265-7267-7374-7231-37
> Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
> Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
> Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
>
> Both the ESSID and the Encryption key are correct, but Access Point: is
> "Not Associated".
>
> "Iwlist wlan0 scan" returns, in part the following:
>
> Cell 01 - Address: 00:04:0E:76:FF:46
> ESSID:"FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN 7050"
> Mode:Master
> Channel:6
> Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
> Quality=91/100 Signal level=-40 dBm Noise
> level=-127 dBm
> Encryption key:on
> Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 22 Mb/s
> 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s
> 36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
> Extra:tsf=000000950e6329f5
>
> "Ifup wlan" returns "ifup: interface wlan0 already configured".
>
> These are the same settings I have been using all week, and now they
> don't work. I would certainly like to know why, and what to do -- not
> only to get the connection working again, but also to be able to
> activate it on boot up.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ken Heard
I read you use KDE so may I suggest the network-manager-kde package as the
solution to almost all the wireless issues? I used to have serious problems
before discovering it. I have successfully configured Atheros (don't remember
the model number), Broadcom (4318) and Intel (4965 and 3945) wireless cards
with WPA2-PSK and little effort. The only thing you have to pay attention to
is commenting every line in /etc/network/interfaces except for those
regarding the loopback interface.
The only drawback is that you cannot configure a static address but only dhcp.
Regards,
Giuseppe Marinelli
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