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inline:Portal/IDB/icon-wifi-32x32.png This portal deals with the hardware installation of Wi-Fi cards in general. The installation of a card is essentially two steps that are installing the driver (also called the driver or module), and setting up your WiFi network.

Be aware that a WiFi base are operating on an electronic chip called Chipset. We can find the same chip in several different cards. Consequently, the pilot manages this chipset will be the same for all these cards Wifi.

A Wi-Fi interface is an Ethernet interface that also gives access to the configuration parameters peculiar to the Wi-Fi. These parameters are controlled using the ["iwconfig"] program.

• ?TableOfContents(3)

Tools prerequisites

• network-manager (module-assistant

• wireless-tools , tools for manipulating Linux Wireless Extensions

Install Driver

This section presents a list of WiFi cards sorted by manufacturer. It will show you the documentation page of the chip and thus its pilot. We recommend that you retrieve information identifying material.

This list consists of two elements: the device name and the hardware ID. The list is categorized alphabetically by the manufacturer's name and the name of your card.

PCI Cards

This information is derived from command:

lspci -nn

See ["HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI"] for more information

legend: requires non-free stuff (proprietary software, etc). doesn't requires no proprietary stuffs.

USB Cards

This information is derived from command:

lsusb

See ["HowToIdentifyADevice/USB"] for more information

PCMCIA Cards

See ["HowToIdentifyADevice/PCMCIA"] for more information

?Anchor(configure)

Setting your WiFi device

Identify your network

• Network Name
  • Parameter security
  • ["WPA"]
  • Mode: Access Point / ad-hoc

Configure Interface: AP mode

["NetworkManager"] is a user-friendly program to control Network interfaces. It's especially useful for WiFi. (it's available for ["Gnome"] and ["KDE"]).

Otherwise, you can use /etc/network/interfaces. here's a sample fragment of :

• # WiFi card section
  auto eth0
  iface eth0 inet dhcp
  pre-up ifconfig eth0 up
  pre-up iwpriv eth0 set AuthMode=WPAPSK
  pre-up iwpriv eth0 set EncrypType=TKIP
  pre-up iwconfig eth0 essid "WANADOO-1418"
  pre-up iwpriv eth0 set WPAPSK="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

Configure Interface: Ad-hoc mode

You haven't Acces Point, and you want connect 2 PC directly. Image 2 PC: calling hostA et hostB.

Wifi: Configure Wifi on your 2 PC:

• iwconfig ath0 mode Ad-hoc
  iwconfig ath0 essid MYNETWORK

Control on your 2 PC:

• iwlist ath0 scanning
  ath0      Scan completed :
            Cell 01 - Address: 02:0F:B5:4F:74:ED
                      ESSID:"MYNETWORK"
                      Mode:Ad-Hoc
                      Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
                      Quality=42/70  Signal level=-53 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm
                      Encryption key:off
                      Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
                                9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
                                48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                      Extra:bcn_int=100

IP: Configure IP on your hostA

• ifconfig ath0 192.168.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.0

Configure IP on your hostB

• ifconfig ath0 192.168.1.2 netmask 255.255.255.0

Control on your hostB:

• ping 192.168.1.1
  PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
  64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.073 ms
  64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.061 ms
  64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.062 ms
  64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.063 ms
  
  --- 192.168.1.1 ping statistics ---
  4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3001ms
  rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.061/0.064/0.073/0.010 ms

Check the proper functioning

Resources

• ?DebFrWifiTopo (in french)

• ["iproute"].
• ["iwconfig"]

• NdisWrapper - use Windows drivers under Debian/Linux.

External Links

• Wi-fi definition

• http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/#howto The Linux Wireless ?HowTo.

• http://hostap.epitest.fi/

• http://www.linux-wlan.org

• http://stef.tvk.rwth-aachen.de/~nazgul/debian/DWL-650+_Howto.html D-Link DWL-650+ on Debian Linux Mini Howto

• http://www.questier.com/howto.html Linux installation of Wi-Fi card Proxim Orinoco Silver and Belkin ?F5D6020 ver.2 on kernel 2.4

• http://users.pandora.be/nespa/belkin/belkin.html Belkin ?F5D6020v2 on kernel 2.6

• http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8354206794.html DVD over Wi-fi

• http://greenfly.org/fujitsu/#Tips%20and%20Tricks Linux on the Fujitsu P2110 has an example of using [file:///usr/share/doc/ifupdown/examples/pcmcia-compat.sh pcmcia-compat.sh] and [file:///etc/network/interfaces /etc/network/interfaces] to achieve the same end

• http://appaji.livejournal.com/42172.html Appaji shows how to use guessnet to switch between locations.

• Configuring multiple setups and switching between them can be done with ifscheme. You can see a worked example of this at [http://www.alwayssunny.com/blog/?cat=2 alwayssunny.com]. Some people think ifscheme is obsolete, and recommend network-manager instead. Others think the future is netconf

• [http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/wiki/index.php/Quick_HOWTO_:_Ch13_:_Linux_Wireless_Networking Linux home networking wiki page about wireless networking].

• [http://www.sabi.co.uk/Notes/linuxWiFi.html Linux and WiFi]

• [http://sourceforge.net/projects/wifilinux/ ?WiFiLinux] LiveCD.

• [http://intellinuxwireless.org/ Intel Wireless WiFi Link drivers for Linux].

CategoryPortal CategoryNetwork