Linux is a pile of poo.

[Torben]

Disabling the wired card made no difference. I can ping BBC - Homepage at the command line and get a reply but once I stop Gnome it no longer works. I'm guessing that Gnome looks after the wireless key. Looks like the 50M network cable may be the only way.

Mike.

Disabling the wired card *shouldn't* make a difference, if your routing is configured correctly (which it should be by default)--only enabling the wireless one will. What does 'ifconfig' say? What is the output of '/etc/init.d/networking restart' (run as root)? What are the contents of /etc/network/interfaces?


Torben

[Edit- Ignore this; I was writing it while you wrote your other response. ]

 

[Torben]

How do I redirect the output of ifconfig to a file?

$ ifconfig > ifconfig.out

/etc/network/interfaces is an empty file!!!

Mike.

Argh. OK, then I think your problem may be Network Manager dying on you.

What happens if, as root, you put the following into /etc/network/interfaces and then run '/etc/init.d/networking restart'?

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface wlan0 inet dhcp
auto wlan0

Torben

 

[be80be]

Mike did you try this go to system and then administration then click
hardware drivers and let it install it for you here a pic

 

[Pommie]

Output of ifconfig,

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1648 (1.6 KB) TX bytes:1648 (1.6 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:19:5b:d0:d0:b2
inet6 addr: fe80::219:5bff:fed0:d0b2/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:3394 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2728 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:2163570 (2.1 MB) TX bytes:541544 (541.5 KB)

wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-19-5B-D0-D0-B2-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

and changing interfaces and network restart yields,

mike@mike-desktop:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
* Reconfiguring network interfaces... Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.1
Copyright 2004-2008 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit **broken link removed**

wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
Listening on LPF/wlan0/00:19:5b:d0:d0:b2
Sending on LPF/wlan0/00:19:5b:d0:d0:b2
Sending on Socket/fallback
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.1
Copyright 2004-2008 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit **broken link removed**

wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
wmaster0: unknown hardware address type 801
Listening on LPF/wlan0/00:19:5b:d0:d0:b2
Sending on LPF/wlan0/00:19:5b:d0:d0:b2
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 20
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
* if-up.d/mountnfs[wlan0]: waiting for interface lo before doing NFS mounts
[ OK ]

But, it broke my connection so I changed it back.

Mike.

 

[Pommie]

Mike did you try this go to system and then administration then click
hardware drivers and let it install it for you here a pic

Burt,

I get the same empty box.

Mike.

 

[be80be]

Most new wireless cards use lib that lets it use proprietory drivers

 

[Torben]

Most new wireless cards use lib that lets it use proprietory drivers

I think you're talking about ndiswrapper, which lets Linux use the equivalent Windows driver instead of the Linux driver for the same device.

Might help but kind of a last resort thing. I still think ditching Network Manager and letting Wicd handle the wifi setup would be a better idea.

Unfortunately the way I do this is to use the CAT5 to do this over the wired Ethernet. Mike, if you have the 9.04 install CD you may be able to pop that into the drive and use that so you don't need the network to remove Network Manager and install Wicd in its place.


Torben

 

[Pommie]

Is there any way to use a second wireless computer as a bridge? Like, PC-CAT5-Hub-CAT5-PC-Wireless. I have a second computer in this room running ubuntu with a wireless connection.

Mike.

 

[be80be]

Mike you down load from nvida or sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx and then
sudo apt-get build-dep nvidia-glx

 

[Torben]

Is there any way to use a second wireless computer as a bridge? Like, PC-CAT5-Hub-CAT5-PC-Wireless. I have a second computer in this room running ubuntu with a wireless connection.

Mike.

Absolutely! Unfortunately the family BBQ saw a few glasses of wine find their way down my throat and I'd be a bit skeptical that I was giving clear instruction at this point. But if I remember correctly you should just need to plug it in and set the gateway on the machine you're trying to fix to be the address of the wired interface on the "bridge" machine (the one with working wireless).

Try plugging it all in and on the victim (the machine you are trying to fix) run

% route add default gw 192.168.0.10

. . .except replace '192.168.0.10' with the wired interface address of the bridge machine (you can find this address by running 'ifconfig' on the bridge and looking for the IPv4 address for eth0).


Torben

 

[Pommie]

I've managed to get the wireless hub close enough to use a cat5 cable. I have used a different phone socket and a long phone extension. Hopefully it'll work now.

Mike.

 

[Wonka]

...The problem with your argument is that by calling it a "DOS equivalent" ...
...Calling Linux at the command line or on a 486 a "DOS equivalent" just means you don't know what DOS *or* Linux is.
....Torben

Yeh Torben I guess you're right and you give some helpful justifications in your post. The jobs you ask of your computers is very different from mine as a user. I think that does it for me

 

[Ghosty_Ghoul]

I've used Linux before and was quite impressed with the speed, the trouble is proprietary software and hardware often get in the way. It also isn't the most user friendly system when it comes to installing new software and hardware.

 

[unclejed613]

try this (as root)

ifconfig

you should get output something like this:

root@linbox:/home/jed# ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1e:90:fb:da:9a
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:19 Base address:0xdead

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:200 (200.0 B)  TX bytes:200 (200.0 B)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:d0:41:b5:18:f3
          inet addr:192.168.0.29  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::2d0:41ff:feb5:18f3/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1942 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1888 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:1682635 (1.6 MiB)  TX bytes:398433 (389.0 KiB)

wmaster0  Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-D0-41-B5-18-F3-6C-6F-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

you should hava a wlan device in the listing if your wireless card is working if not you need to run the network part of your install again. you should have the wireless card services started by either inetd or wicd.

 

[Salgat]

Linux is great when it works. Even when it doesn't work perfectly, you can't blame it on Linux. Unlike Linux, Microsoft gets all the support it needs from hardware manufacturers. Linux usually has a lot of people who reverse engineer to make things work. As it is becoming more adopted, it is doing more and more amazing. I love Linux, and can't wait to see it gain more support in the future.