# Missing wireless.example file- need a copy[Done!]

## wrc1944

Could someone please post their /etc/conf.d/wireless.example file?  

Mine are somehow missing on all of my Gentoo installs.   :Sad:   I've searched for 2 hours on the internet and the forum, and can't seem to locate one.  I'm having a problem with Gentoo wireless settings on one box with a new router, and need it for reference.

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## cach0rr0

here you go

http://pastebin.ca/1711542

just uploaded from mine - dunno why you need it, but it's there  :Smile: 

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## wrc1944

Thanks much, cach0rr0!   :Very Happy: 

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## d2_racing

Hi, I don't know what you need, but if you want to use your wireless, I recommend that you use WICD,NetworkManager or wpa_supplicant.

Wireless-tools is old stuff  :Razz: 

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## wrc1944

My main problem for 3 years has been a marginal signal between the bedroom cable modem/router and the little office on the far side of the house, where I have another system.  I've had many many distros on this box, and connections have never been reliable on any of them.  The problem is basically the line-of-sight from the router to the office system is blocked by a large fridge, large oven, microwave oven, dishwasher, and huge ceiling to floor AC/heater installation (all metal items), not to metion two bathrooms with tiling.  I was lucky to get any connection at all. 

Believe me, I've tried every conceivable iwconfig setting, router/antenna placements, third party antenna, home-made antenna, new router, /etc/conf.d/net tweaks, plus every wicd, NetworkManager, netcfg, and various distro configuration tools, all of which usually worked, but not reliably- totally unacceptable. 

However, today I finally got so fed up I decided as a last resort before giving up and wiring the house with ethernet cable to try and run the new router in bridge mode with the old main router, and it was pretty easy to set up. 

Put the bridge router in the living room, and it worked like a charm- I'm getting a rock solid 82% signal strength for the last 12 hours on Gentoo, Mandriva, Arch, and Linux Mint, where as before I never got more than 12%-25% at best, and that was constantly dropping connections every 2-30 minutes.

Anyway, I wanted to check the wireless.example file just to make sure I wasn't overlooking any net setting. Still don't know when, how, or why mine was lost. Maybe at some time I messed up and etc-update.   :Rolling Eyes: 

One weird thing- maybe someone knows why upon connection the MTU has apparently "self-corrected" itself to only 576, but both routers are set to 1500 default.   :Surprised:  

```
gentoo-audio wrc # dhcpcd wlan0

dhcpcd: version 5.1.3 starting 

dhcpcd: wlan0: rebinding lease of 192.168.1.101

dhcpcd: wlan0: acknowledged 192.168.1.101 from 192.168.1.1 `ÿ'

dhcpcd: wlan0: leased 192.168.1.101 for 7200 seconds          

dhcpcd: wlan0: MTU set to 576                                 

dhcpcd: forking to background
```

I'm surely not complaining about a 576 MTU, as long as I'm now getting my normal wired connection speeds on the office wireless system, and the connection is apparently rock solid- just curious.  Is this a normal factor when bridging routers?  One (the main AP) is only a b, and the other (the bridge) is a b/g, and the atheros wireless card is b/g.

Hmmm. I would swear the lease time has also dropped from 17200 to 7200.

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## cach0rr0

the configuration tools you used were not your issue - which you seem to be aware of having pointed it out yourself

so by that same token any reason to write off use of said configuration tools? 

now that the infrastructure is fixed, methinks trying out wicd (or similar) again would be worthwhile. just seems batty to go with wireless-tools this long after they've all but died ;x

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## d2_racing

In fact, WICD is way much easier.

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## wrc1944

I did try wicd before, and it had problems- I only got it to work one time.  I liked it, but it didn't work well, and I at least could get connected with /etc/conf.d/net settings, and /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 start (and restart, and restart   :Rolling Eyes:  ), and dhcpcd wlan0. Wlan0 would come up in boot and get a lease, but by the time I got booted it usually had dropped out, and I'd have to do an /etc/init.d/net.wlan0 restart.  

But like I said, I think all my problems were mainly due to the marginal signal weakness.  Now that that seems to be fixed, I'll give wicd another try, and hopefully things will go a lot smoother now.

I wasn't aware that wireless-tools was now sort of obsolete- I was just going by the Gentoo Docs and other distros that said wireless-tools was needed.  Thanks for the tip.   :Smile: 

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## d2_racing

No problem, now that you have a wireless connection, good luck for the rest  :Razz: 

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## wrc1944

Just a quick thank you for suggesting Wicd!   :Very Happy: 

Have installed and configured it on 3 Gentoo installs, Arch, Mandriva, Mint Linux, Default Ubuntu,  Pclos, and WinXP, which I keep installed for my kids, grand kids, and other relatives. 

Had to download each distro's Wicd and deps on another wired computer, and transfer them via Flash drive to their specific package cache locations, but it was a breeze.

In my case, I was trying to use two routers with one bridged so as to get around a serious signal blocking area in my house. I had to use a different static IP on the bridge router, but with its gateway and essid  being set to the same as the source router's IP address and essid (once I realized that was the trick I had missed before).   :Rolling Eyes: 

I first removed all previous connections, network manager software, and config files, rebooted to clear out everything in RAM, and Wicd made this effortless on all above systems.  I can't believe I struggled for so long, with both manual configurations and other so-called "Wireless NetWork Manager" applications.  IMO, Wicd is obviously the best by far, and should definitely be the default on all Linux distros.

I can't see any point in messing around with any other method.

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## d2_racing

Nice  :Razz: 

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