bodged wifi - Gnome network manager in kde - is there a better way ?

[Mark_uk]

Hi Folks.. i wish Knetwokmanager worked properly..
i had to 'bodge' it. after hours of trying Knetworkmanager, its really poor, though connected a couple of times.
i tried Wicd and a few other apps, but the quickest and most reliable way i got my Atheros to connect (wpa2) was, strangely, to use the Gnome network manager and put a symlink into the autostart directory
for ' nm-applett' .. not terribly efficient or elegant, but works far far better than any other way i have found so far..

i wonder if theres a non gui way to hard-wire the wireless config, or failing that - a totally robust solution..
i have'nt tried Madwifi yet.. should i ?

The laptop is a Acer 5220 with a atheros 5007eg built-in..
any thoughts - ?
Mark

[dibl]

Re: bodged wifi - Gnome network manager in kde - is there a better way ?

I didn't set up wifi on Kubuntu, but I did on my little Asus Eee PC which has sidux, and an Atheros chip, and I used a Ubuntu guide. Here's what I did, and it's not that difficult:

1. Installed madwifi driver as per:

http://wiki.eeeuser.com/ubuntu#wireless … fi_drivers

"Wireless Internet using native Madwifi drivers"

However, the new better-working "snapshot" tarball is "madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r3698-20080604.tar.gz" from the archive here:

http://snapshots.madwifi.org/special/

But you probably want the 5007 driver, instead of the one for the Eee PC -- I dunno about that.

2. Configured wireless as per:

http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC/HowTo/Wifi

and used "WPA supplicant in roaming mode"

except you have to change the driver name from "wext" to "madwifi".

HTH.

[MoonRise]

Re: bodged wifi - Gnome network manager in kde - is there a better way ?

I have the Acer laptop shown in my sig below. I've always used WEP since TiVO couldn't handle WPA but the laptop worked flawlessly with WEP. I recently ditched TiVO so I was able to boost my security up to WPA/WPA2, it can handle both. Tried yesterday to connect my laptop to either one with no success. So, I understand that frustration. Why it works with WEP and not WPA or WPA2 I couldn't say, makes no since to work one way and not the preferred safer way.

[MoonRise]

Re: bodged wifi - Gnome network manager in kde - is there a better way ?

Well...I got it working for WPA. The wireless router I have is a Netgear 624. It supports their 108 Mbps format and it was set to auto detect. I turned that off and set it to only g and b mode and I connected. So others having problems may be related to the wireless router set to some special mode other than the straight "standard". Hope this gives anyone help and insight to their own problems.

[Mark_uk]

Re: bodged wifi - Gnome network manager in kde - is there a better way ?

Hi Dibl
Yup.. thanks for the reply .. Interesting.. i did exactly as you suggested, including the latest madwifi
and set the whole thing up with Kwlan..
thats as far as it got i'm afraid.. - Kwlan complained that wpa-supplicant was'nt installed
(though it is) and so it did'nt want to start any security, and it ate my eth0. i got bored with that and no
connectivity to anything and returned to my bodge. lol.
i ended up using xnetcardconfig (looks like a gtk app) to re-enable eth0. the kcontrol network section
just would'nt touch it. was fun trying though !

i dont hate freedom, but being pragmatic, i would certainly use a native binary driver if it made matters
simpler and more consistent. just my thoughts .. if Broadcom are listening !

Moonrise:
Thanks mate .. i've been using Linux on and off since redhat 5.1.. but purely Linux for nearly 3 years,
and it still puzzles me.. i even started reading up and preparing to learn python,
but my skills are *years* off even helping the situation

I can use Knetwork-manager, but it connects less reliably than Gnomes NM.
i'm using WPA2 and static IP / MAC address filtering, some of these gui's dont even do WPA.
- this Edimax router is okay, but the defaults suck. but have'nt found out how to stop it broadcasting its
vendor ID. the old laptop was using Atheros on PCMCIA and it worked first time everytime, but had
corrupted d/loads occasionally. i even emailed Security Now about that .. but he never read the email <sigh>
i know the problem here lays between the chair and keyboard..
Thanks fellas !

Mark

[dibl]

Re: bodged wifi - Gnome network manager in kde - is there a better way ?

Hi Dibl
Yup.. thanks for the reply .. Interesting.. i did exactly as you suggested, including the latest madwifi
and set the whole thing up with Kwlan..
thats as far as it got i'm afraid.. - Kwlan complained that wpa-supplicant was'nt installed
(though it is) and so it did'nt want to start any security, and it ate my eth0. i got bored with that and no
connectivity to anything and returned to my bodge. lol.
i ended up using xnetcardconfig (looks like a gtk app) to re-enable eth0. the kcontrol network section
just would'nt touch it. was fun trying though !

Bummer.

But "eth0" isn't right for wireless -- it should be "ath0", at least that's what I get! (eth0 will still be there, but wireless doesn't use it). That's the about the end of my expertise with wireless, but something still isn't playing nice.

[MoonRise]

Re: bodged wifi - Gnome network manager in kde - is there a better way ?

Dibl, you are right about the eth and ath, but for some reason, even on mine, it automatically (the wireless) gets assigned eth1. Never figured that out. Didn't bother to look because it worked and really didn't want to mess with it knowing the troubles I had in the past with wireless. Mine is integrated, so that may be why. My PCMCIA cards in the past always got ath or wlan or something to that effect but because I had to manually set those and was going by the How Tos .

[Mark_uk]

Re: bodged wifi - Gnome network manager in kde - is there a better way ?

Hey Dibl .. yeah.. something's weird. yes, when i removed kwlan it disabled Wlan0 - wireless *and* my ethernet interface !! jolly strange. i will keep tweaking
its certainly better than just sat watching TV ..

Mark

[jglen490]

Re: bodged wifi - Gnome network manager in kde - is there a better way ?

The state of wireless in Linux is still somewhere across the border from the state of confusion :P . When I finished installing HH (fresh install from the CD) and downloaded all the needed package across ethernet, I stuck my Broadcom BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] card in the PCCARD slot. HH fetched b43-fwcutter package, installed it, got the firmware and set it up, and set up wpa_supplicant (for WPA2). It then set up knetworkmanager, and did the kwallet thing. I unplugged my ethernet cable and within a matter of minutes I was wireless once more.

I used knetworkmanager under GG also, but this time it's much more stable (no drops, no locks, no errors - sorry, it's still baseball season!) and I get good speed considering the shared nature of our home DSL usage. I think b43 is just better. Now that doesn't resolve the Atheros question at hand, but I'd bet madwifi would probably work well for you regardless of the wifi control mechanism you use (knetworkmanager, wicd, nm-applet). Actually, knetworkmanager and nm-applet both use the same network management underlying tools, but use whatever works best for your situation.

[assettt]

Re: bodged wifi - Gnome network manager in kde - is there a better way ?

I have to say Knetwork manager has worked out well for me. I have an Atheros chipset PCMCIA card and using the restricted drivers and it works OOTB with wpa encyption. Using network manager enables me to save several SSID's and it automagically connects when in range.