# Wireless - Intel 3945

## eArquilla

Trying to connect my laptop to my wireless internet, relatively new to gentoo (first couple months using it), my desktop had no trouble at all.

I have installed the iwl3945-ucode and enabled the intel 3945 option in the kernel... I got frustrated and eventually enabled absolutely everything that said 80211 and intel.

Wicd detects my 'wlan0', it lists it as an option for wireless in preferences, however, the preferences never save. I choose wlan0, click apply, ok, and try to refresh the wireless networks, nothing. When I go back in preferences, it never saved the choice of wlan0.

I typed in "ifconfig wlan0 up" as root, it did not give me any error messages, but it didn't do anything either. 

Not sure what's going on, the driver seems to be installed, I've searched all around the net and have seen that the iwl3945-ucode package is the only other thing I need installed... it should work at this point.

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## Gusar

well, ifconfig wlan0 up only activates the card, but that's just the beginning of setting up a wireless connection. You then need to use either iwconfig (for non-encrypted or WEP encrypted networks) or wpa_supplicant (for WPA/WPA2 and other kinds of encryption).

Does dmesg say anything interesting? Also is the driver compiled into the kernel or as a module? Having it as a module is simpler. if it's built it, you also need to compile the ucode into the kernel.

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## eArquilla

I'm running kernel 2.6.39 if it matters

In Networking -> Wireless I have

"cfg80211 - wireless configuration api" selected as a module

"Common routines for IEEE802.11 drivers" selected as a module

"Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Staack" selected as a module

"Minstrel 802.11n support" built in

In Device Drivers -> Network Device Support -> Wireless LAN I have

"IEEE 802.11 for Host AP" selected as module

"Intel Pro/Wireless 2100 Network Connection" as module

"Intel Pro/Wireless 2200BG and 2915ABG Network Connection" as module

----------> "Enable QoS support" built in

"Intel Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN" as module

"Intel Wireless WiFi 4965AGN" as module

"Intel Pro/Wireless 3945ABG/BG" as module **********(this is my card)*********

"Intel Wireless Multicomm 3200 WiFi driver" as module

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## eArquilla

wpa_gui does not have any choices available for "Adapter" or "network"

Under status it says "could not get status from wpa_supplicant"

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## Gusar

I'm not completely sure how wpa_gui works, but I recall it's only used to connect to an already running wpa_supplicant instance. So configure and start wpa_supplicant.

And again, does dmesg say anything interesting? dmesg is always the first place to look if you have hardware problems.

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## eArquilla

i have no idea if dmesg says anything interesting, it says a lot of stuff that i don't understand. and i don't know how to post it because of the original problem, i can't connect that laptop to the internet.

as for wpa_supplicant, i created a wpa_supplicant.conf based exactly on the example provided here: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=4&chap=4  except i changed my ssid and psk.

when i ran it it says "wpa: group rekeying completed with" followed by a string of numbers and ending in "[GTK=TKIP]"

It hangs there, and I'm still not connected to the internet.

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## eArquilla

I don't understand why I have this problem at all, the wireless card is common and I've installed the necessary package, wicd should do its job from there. I shouldn't have to toy with wpa_supplicant. 

It's very frustrating for my system to simply not show any networks available... I'd love to get an error message to throw in google and solve the problem. But since I don't have one I'm remaining offline on that system until somebody can help me out.

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## Gusar

The reason you're messing with wpa_supplicant is that if a high-level app fails, you go low-level. The chances of spotting the error are higher this way.

As for dmesg... redirect it's output into a file, copy it onto a machine that has internet.

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## eArquilla

Now i'm super confused. i tried putting the file onto a flash drive but got the error message "An error occurred while accessing 'USB DISK', the system responded: The kernel driver for this filesystem type is not available: Error mounting: mountwrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdc1"

What doesn't make sense is that it mounts fine on my desktop and I made sure to have the 'filesystem' part of the kernel exactly the same. Until I figure this out now I can't get you the dmesg.

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