[TriLUG] Wireless and Mandriva 2006/2007

[Steve Litt]

Quite right, but in this case, the native driver was *really* horrible -- much 
worse than the ndiswrapper workaround. At least ndiswrapper didn't 
intermittently freeze the entire machine.

By the way, what wireless NICs do you use with native drivers that work so 
well? I might get myself another wireless NIC.

SteveT

On Monday 06 November 2006 10:31 am, OlsonE at aosa.army.mil wrote:
> One of the #1 reasons why I try to stay with native linux compatible
> wireless cards. ndiswrapper was nothing but a pita to me. I got about as
> far as you did, and could get WEP working, but nothing else. Ultimately
> I gave up ...and got something a little more supported (without the
> fluff of configuring).
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org] On
> Behalf Of Steve Litt
> Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 10:22 AM
> To: trilug at trilug.org
> Subject: [TriLUG] Wireless and Mandriva 2006/2007
>
> Hi all,
>
> Mandriva 2007 has a built in native Linux rt2500usb driver for the
> linksys WUSB54G wireless NIC. It creates device rausb0. Unfortunately,
> it's intermittent, glitchy, and often freezes the entire machine. I have
> no proof yet, but I suspect that this rausb0 prevents me from using
> ndiswrapper plus the Windows driver to create a wlan0.
>
> Mandriva 2006 doesn't have the native driver, and it's a 5 minute
> process to use ndiswrapper plus the windows driver to create wlan0,
> which seems to work better than rausb0.
>
> Now I'm at the stage of needing to configure the (Mandriva
> specific) /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 file for
> encryption, and the information is hard to come by. Does anyone have
> first hand knowledge of configuring ifcfg-wlan0 for Mandriva?
>
> Some specific questions:
>
> WIRELESS_ENC_KEY='open s: mypassword' doesn't work for WEP, WPA1 OR
> WPA2. Why?
> WIRELESS_ENC_KEY='restricted s: mypassword' doesn't work either. Why?
> WIRELESS_ENC_KEY=MYHEX works in WEP, as long as it's the right key.
>
> Last night I could get it to work on WEP identifying all 4 keys (4
> WIRELESS_ENC_KEY statements) as long as key #1 was last. Surprisingly,
> after switching the access point's default key to key 3 and powercycling
> the access point, on the client it was still necessary to place key 1
> last of the 4 WIRELESS_ENC_KEY statements, each of which looked like
> this:
>
> WIRELESS_ENC_KEY='[1] MYHEX [1]'
>
> Why must #1 be last even though #3 is the default key according to the
> access point?
>
> Overnight I powered down all computers but kept the accesspoint running.
> In the morning bootup, the computer could no longer get an IP, gateway
> and DNS server from dhcp, even though a (different) wired box could get
> them from dhcp, and according to the IPCop firewall on which I keep the
> leases, there were plenty of spare, expired leases ready for use. Last
> night the setup worked through multiple reboots, but this morning it
> doesn't work at all, even if the key 3 WIRELESS_ENC_KEY is placed at the
> bottom. What could have happened overnight?
>
> Of all the things I've worked on in Linux, wireless (especially with
> encryption) is about the most difficult. Hundreds of variables, few good
> diagnostic tools (as far as I know), GUI tools that silently alter
> config files in unacceptable ways, situations where state is dragged
> around sometimes necessitating a reboot after a change, serious
> distribution and version dependencies, and not enough documentation
> (even though there's voluminous documentation, it's still not exactly
> what's needed).
>
> Anyway, anyone who knows Mandriva's ifcfg-wlan0 syntax, could you please
> explain how it works?
>
> Thanks
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> Author:
>    * Universal Troubleshooting Process courseware
>    * Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist
>    * Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
>    * Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
>    * Rapid Learning: Secret Weapon of the Successful Technologist
>
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/utp/tcourses.htm
> --
> TriLUG mailing list        :
> http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug
> TriLUG Organizational FAQ  : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member
> Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/