# !!!!on my knees with wireless please help!!!! SOLVED

## iainvt

I have been at this three days there seems to be so much conflicting material out there from Gentoo handbok to wiki to linux questions, wlan forum etc etc, I have been all over this stuff like a rash, here is 1,=. the update as where  am and 2. the current issue seeking a resolution.

1. I have a hp pavillion dv 1000 this has onboard wireless PRO/wireless 2200, on the laptop is a button that activates the hardware for wireless, this came on a cute blue colour with xp, with gentoo no go so took out 4k stack support from kernel and emerged ndiswrapper and then installed the .inf and .sys windrivers in /lib/windrivers ndiswrapper loads on boot and hey presto I get a blue light.

iwconfig shows a wlan0 as there,  but no essid or access point xp showed that my essid is NETGEAR so I did iwconfig wlan0 essid NETGEAR I then get wlan0 with iwconfig but this time with an access point and the access point can be turned off and on with the shiny blue button.

I have also emerged ipw2200 and ipw2200-firmware because this was one of the conflicts I got when reading some used windrivers some used these in portage?

I have not altered my /etc/conf.d/net it is set for eth0 for dhcp and I can use this fine

2. How do I see what essid are available, especially when roaming?

What should I put in my /etc/conf.d/net (or should this be wireless or both)

How do I get to use the wlan0 instead of eth0 (can I symlink wlan0 to eth0 and add eth0 at default run level

Any help really appreciated, I feel I am nearly there.[/i]

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## iainvt

*bump just want to keep in view

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## nobspangle

my advice is to use wpa_supplicant and the ipw2200 drivers.

I'm afraid I can't offer you anymore than that, this setup works great for me with wpa-psk encryption.

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## iainvt

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Wireless_Configuration_and_Startup

did you follow this?

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## nobspangle

yes

don't forget to emerge wpa_supplicant and also add the ipw2200 modules to modules.autoload

the conf.d/net entry should look like this

```
modules=( "wpa_supplicant" )

wpa_supplicant_eth1="-Dipw"

wpa_timeout_eth1=60
```

I'm guessing your wireless should be eth1 most are as the lan will be eth0 providing you compiled support into your kernel.

I think the device name depends on the type of device (whether it's ath or eth or wlan)

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## iainvt

thanks I will try later mine is wlan0

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## MrUlterior

 *iainvt wrote:*   

> 
> 
> 2. How do I see what essid are available, especially when roaming?
> 
> 

 

```
iwlist <WLAN INTERFACE> scan
```

eg.

```
iwlist wlan0 scan
```

 *iainvt wrote:*   

> 
> 
> What should I put in my /etc/conf.d/net (or should this be wireless or both)
> 
> How do I get to use the wlan0 instead of eth0 (can I symlink wlan0 to eth0 and add eth0 at default run level
> ...

 

All of this depends on the version of baselayout you're using. A new baselayout gives you /etc/conf.d/wireless which should contain any wlan specific functions and/or variables. The older version has no /etc/conf.d/wireless in which case you should use /etc/conf.d/net

There are many other threads containing this info; have a read through them you will find lots of useful info (especially the thread titled "Wireless The Gentoo Way (part 2) or something to that effect)[/code]

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## iainvt

After an essid scan I get NETGEAR, I have done

# iwconfig wlan0 essid NETGEAR

so now iwconfig gives me 

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"NETGEAR"

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:0F:B5:79:89:44

          Bit Rate:54 Mb/s

          RTS thr:1600 B   Fragment thr:2304 B

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:off

          Link Quality:68/100  Signal level:-23 dBm  Noise level:-256 dBm

          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

so I have an access point but really I have no idea where to start getting the inet, broadcast address and netmask set, I know what they are for my ethernet connection from the same router, any one got any ideas, I am really confused when it comes to /etc/conf.d/wireless or net????

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## MrUlterior

Okay, edit your /etc/conf.d/net and copy the line listing all your parameters for eth0 and create a new entry for wlan.

Eg.

```
iface_wlan0="dhcp"
```

(If you're using the old baselayout)

If you have both eth0 plugged in and you want to switch to your wireless LAN, do the following:

```

/etc/init.d/net.eth0 stop

/etc/init.d/net.wlan0 start

```

And do the reverse if you wish to switch from ETH0 -> WLAN0

IMO, having both interfaces on the same network is a bad idea tho.

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## iainvt

I have ditched the windrivers in favour of the ipw2200, this also now gives nice shiny blue light but only the newer version, I still have essid NETGEAR with access point found so I can poll ap's but I still cannot find how to get net up and running, ipw 2200 now uses eht1 instead of wlan0 and ifconfig eth1 up or dhcpcd eth1 causes complete systerm freeze? 

I do not have the ipw2200-firmware is this needed? ( I thought as I get the access point I did not need it)

Do I really need to follow uberlords threads and emerge the newer baselayout etc, or can I just edit /etc/conf.d/net?

If I get up and running, to stop my neighbours poaching bandwidth can I set a network key or is that the idea anyway?

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Gentoo_on_HP_Pavillon_dv1067

I found the above and this guy had no issues apparently?

Could the system freeze be an irq conflict as described here?

Could the system freeze be an irq conflict as decribed here https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-287447-highlight-.html

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## MrUlterior

I can only help with ndiswrapper. Soz

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## iainvt

this is well wierd , I decided to start over with a fresh install from 2005.0 disk, modprobed ipw2200 pcmcia, and I have no light but I have wireless

lsmod I have copied and kept for ref, how do I check the live cd kernel config?

lsmod edited

ipw2200

firmware_class

ieee80211

ieee80211_crypt

pcmcia

rtc

yenta_socket

rsrc_nonstatic

pcmcia_core

q. is firmware_class the ipw2200-firmware

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## nobspangle

firmware_class is the ipw2200 firmware but I don't have it on my system.

install wpa_supplicant and set the ap_scan to 0 or 2 (depending on your access point) and let the ipw module take care of everything. I don't even need to bring eth1 up it comes up by itself when it finds a network.

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## iainvt

The whole issue was fairly simple to solve as it turned out, thankyou for everyone pointing me in the right direction

made sure pcmcia support, yenta bridge and wlan wireless 32 bit support, and 3 various crypt options in crypto in the kernel were compiled,

emerged ipw2200 and ipw2200-firmware

put ipw2200, firmware_class, ieee80211 and ieee80211_crypt  in /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6

rc-update add pcmcia default

rc-update add net.eth1 default (after symlinked eth1 to eth0 in /etc/init.d)

iface_eth1="dhcp" in /etc/conf.d/net

reboot, it picked up my ap automatically

and presto all is good, just need to get this crap graphics driver working properly now then all functions on this laptop are go.

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