linux wireless networking
Linux definitely has a little ways to go before it becomes main-stream Desktop ready: just search slashdot.org to see tons of articles on this exact topic.
One of my beefs, and it has everything to do with cooperation between hardware vendors and the linux community at large, is lack of support for basic wireless functions. Maybe some of the bleeding edge versions of these drivers have more support, but the orinoco (orinoco_pci, hermes) drivers stock with any modern distro (correct me if I’m wrong) lack good software for control that isn’t totally cryptic.
OK, the moral of my post is that here’s how I setup wireless networking on my laptop.
At home, I have no wireless security (yeah, yeah, neither do the other 5 networks in my vicinity, including my condo’s free service) that network the powerbook, my linux mythtv video/audio server, and my linux notebook, so I have configured the ifup script for eth1 (the wireless card) to bring up my home network.
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 contains:
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=no
TYPE=Wireless
MODE=Managed
ESSID=Wireless
so a quick:
brings me up. But if I’m at a coffee-shop with a wireless-key (mock-security), here is the shell script that brings me up:
iwconfig eth1 essid linksys
iwconfig eth1 key c91b27ed0c
iwconfig eth1 enc restricted
ifconfig eth1 up
dhclient eth1
I am pretty sure the newer versions of the orinico driver support scanning (read down a few entries to my post on the linux kernel fixes including patches to the orinoco drivers), but I can’t seem to get it to work. Even iwpriv shows my card only supports a few commands like card_reset. Anyone know of a good way to see wireless networks in the vicinity that doesn’t involve me typing:
Comments, suggestions?
