Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, SecretSquirrel, notfred
DreadCthulhu wrote:Defiantly get 7.10. With my laptop, (a cheap Compaq) I wasn't able to get wireless to work in 7.04. I just tried putting 7.10 on it, and it asked right away to download the right firmware to run the wireless, and a few minutes later it was working.
amphibem wrote:What's the point of having speed such that you can use a month's bandwidth allowance in under 6 hours? What's the advantage over "traffic managed" plans (other than reliability you mentioned) when you don't have enough of a traffic allowance to download much of anything anyway? The only real point of those sorts of speeds, as far as I'm concerned, is in moving large amounts of data around. For browsing and similar usage who really cares if it's that fast?It's the best you can do for a reasonable price ($NZ50 for 10GB @ 4Mb/2Mb), except for some traffic managed (read Bittorrent throttled) DSL plans. And they aren't as fast or (from what I hear) as reliable. Anyway getting off-topic Updating now, gonna take a while at 100kB/s
amphibem wrote:Anyway back on topic, up in running 7.10 and no better. Still no 'Radio on' LED. Can't get even get the signal using iwconfig like before.
At a loss here because all my other function keys (hibernate/sleep, screen brightness) all work fine.
bitvector wrote:amphibem wrote:Anyway back on topic, up in running 7.10 and no better. Still no 'Radio on' LED. Can't get even get the signal using iwconfig like before.
At a loss here because all my other function keys (hibernate/sleep, screen brightness) all work fine.
The Intel 2200BG certainly works; it is a well supported chipset. Besides function keys what are you using to configure your wireless settings? You should probably try using NetworkManager since it is supposed to do all of the things you need.
In newer wireless stacks, it is often the case that the radio won't turn on until you bring the interface up using ifconfig (iwconfig just configures the wireless parameters but doesn't necessarily "activate" it -- this lets you power down the interface separately from configuring it). For instance, on my wireless card, if I was doing it manually I'd do:
iwconfig <iface> essid "<whatever>"
iwconfig ... (other settings)
ifconfig <iface> up
(now the radio turns on)
dhclient <iface>
You could also run ifup on the interface if you've configured the settings in /etc/network/interfaces. Running dhclient directly on an interface will also bring it up. These complexities are a good reason to use NetworkManager. Sometimes you also have a hard on/off switch that is not software controlled.
Also, the radio on LED doesn't necessarily signal wireless activity. For instance, on my laptop (with the iwl4965), the driver doesn't do anything with the wireless light at all, even when it is connected/sending or receiving data, the light stays dark.
amphibem wrote:2. How does one use NetworkManager? I setup my ESSID and passphrase in Network Settings but this doesn't give me an off/on control
amphibem wrote:3. What do you mean by <iface>? Can I use 'ifconfig <iface> up' to turn the radio on if I have entered the wifi settings in Network Settings?
bitvector wrote:Aren't there checkboxes to allow interfaces to be enabled/disabled? First try using the Fn combination to enable wireless, then try configuring in NM and using the checkbox to enabled the interface.
bitvector wrote:Could you also post the contents of the file /etc/network/interfaces?
/etc/network/interfaces wrote:auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
#iface eth0 inet dhcp
auto ath0
#iface ath0 inet dhcp
auto wlan0
#iface wlan wlan0 inet dhcp
iface eth1 inet dhcp
wireless-key **********
wireless-essid FLAT
auto eth1
iface eth0 inet dhcp
bitvector wrote:Okay, you've got a lot of entries in there. Did you configure any of those manually?
bitvector wrote:Go to System -> Administration -> Networking and select Properties of your wireless connection. Uncheck "enable this connection" for it and then log out. Log back in and try configuring your wireless again in NM. Also, post the contents of your /etc/network/interfaces after you log in but before you try reconfiguring. If it hasn't changed we may need to edit it manually.
/etc/network/interfaces wrote:auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
#iface eth0 inet dhcp
auto eth2
#iface eth2 inet dhcp
auto ath0
#iface ath0 inet dhcp
auto wlan0
#iface wlan wlan0 inet dhcp
iface eth1 inet dhcp
wireless-key **********
wireless-essid FLAT
iface eth0 inet dhcp
auto eth0
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
#iface eth0 inet dhcp
#auto eth2
#iface eth2 inet dhcp
#auto ath0
#iface ath0 inet dhcp
#auto wlan0
#iface wlan wlan0 inet dhcp
#iface eth1 inet dhcp
#wireless-key **********
#wireless-essid FLAT
#iface eth0 inet dhcp
#auto eth0
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
#iface eth0 inet dhcp
#auto eth2
#iface eth2 inet dhcp
#auto ath0
#iface ath0 inet dhcp
#auto wlan0
#iface wlan wlan0 inet dhcp
iface eth1 inet dhcp
wireless-key **********
wireless-essid FLAT
#iface eth0 inet dhcp
#auto eth0
amphibem wrote:Btw I not certain I am reading my handwriting for my WEP key properly, would I get an error if it connected but the key was wrong? I've tried the different combinations of 'zero' or 'O' anyway, don't think thats the problem.