Almost got this wireless pcmcia thing down

scum · n00b Joined: 01 Dec 2002 Posts: 5

Man, if it weren't for some scattered posts on these boards I'd be really frustrated right now. Anyways, here's the story:

Basically, did what was stated in this post. Edited /etc/wlan/wlan.conf, wlancfg-random (my ESSID) and /etc/pcmcia/network.opts with my relevant info. My Linksys WPC11 is on, can ping the gateway but won't resolve hostnames. /etc/resolv.conf has my correct nameservers as does /etc/pcmcia/network.opts. ifconfig shows wlan0 as up and running.

Now, I did NOT compile the kernel with Wireless Lan (non-hamradio) support so there are no wireless extensions. Do I need to go back, recompile wireless lan into the kernel, recompile linux-wlan, re-emerge pcmcia-cs just so I can resolve hostnames? Accord. to Jean Tourrilhes, wireless extensions should be compiled in the kernel. Should the card work at all without these?

I haven't touched /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts yet as iwconfig won't work w/o the wireless extensions.

scum · n00b Joined: 01 Dec 2002 Posts: 5

Well, I figured it out. Forgot something very simple.

route add -net default gw **** netmask **** metric 1

Works great now (no switching cat 5 back and forth). But I'm still curious about no wireless extensions and the wireless tools. Anyone know what the lack of these will do? I guess I'll recompile and re-emerge everything later but it's no longer a priority.

Thanks for being there.

krt · Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 9:39 am Post subject:

[quote] But I'm still curious about no wireless extensions and the wireless tools. Anyone know what the lack of these will do? I guess I'll recompile and re-emerge everything later but it's no longer a priority.
[/quote]

For starters, if you're using a prism2 based card, I highly suggest grabbing the hostap driver (its awesome for clients too!). Its not in portage yet, but works nicely!

you can find hostap here:
http://hostap.epitest.fi/

as for wireless tools and extensions, a lot of "Extra" programs, such as wavemon, require them. Not having wavemon with wireless is a shame!

unlike hostap, wavemon -is- in portage. Check it out!
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bps7j · Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2002 5:12 pm Post subject: note on modules in the kernel

I am using a Cisco Aironet 350 series and also want a standard 3com to work without any contortions. I was able to get the aironet to work for me during installation but then had trouble getting it to be recognized after reboot into my new system. I hope this helps someone:

The cisco and the 3com cards are *both* supported by pcmcia-cs and you don't need to bother with wlan or anything; and also, they will show up as eth* not wlan* which is nice. But note that when you emerge pcmcia-cs, *it checks your kernel config* to tell how it should be built (I assume -- why else would it do that?). Thus you must have your kernel properly configured before you emerge pcmcia-cs.

When you DO emerge pcmcia-cs, note the output says some things about how to properly configure your kernel! This usually scrolls right by and you miss it, so try running

bps7j · Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2002 5:20 pm Post subject: further note

http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/SUPPORTED.CARDS

for a list of cards that are supported by pcmcia-cs
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