Wireless problems (slackware 9.0)

[reachingzero]

I finally got Slack9 set up on my compaq laptop, and everything works fine, except my wireless pcmcia card. iwconfig shows that it's eth1, but I don't know how to make it work. I've tried pinging my router, and regular sites (named, and ips) and nothing seems to work.

I also want to be able to have my wireless connect to any available network, because I have one at home, and one at school.

my iwconfig output is this:

lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
eth1 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"" Nickname:"Prism I"
Mode:Managed Frequency:42.9497GHz Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Bit Rate:11Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm Sensitivity:1/3
Retry min linit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0/92 Signal Level:-68dBm Noise level:-133 dBm
Rx invalic nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0


I'm kinda new to the networking aspect of linux, so any help would be appreciated.

[mdwatts]

If your wireless pcmcia card is working correctly and the required modules are loaded, then it's likely a problem with the gateway address or the dns servers.

Check your network config files in /etc/sysconfig/network and ensure the gateway address is defined and then make sure you have your ISP's dns servers in /etc/resolv.conf.

[spurious]

err... Slackware doesn't have /etc/sysconfig/network ... that's a Red Hat / Mandrake setup.

reachingzero, there is a discrepancy in your post. You say that Slack detected your wlan nic as eth0, but your iwconfig output shows that it is eth1. Further, you have no value entered for ESSID.

1. Turn off WEP for now.

2. Do this (as root): iwconfig eth1 essid "your_essid"
where "your_essid" is the ESSID value set on your router.

3. Edit your /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts and enter your ESSID in the appropriate spot. This file will also have your WEP key, eventually (under the value for KEY).

4. As root, run netconfig to set up your network and dhcp. Most routers are set up as dhcp servers by default, so I assume yours is as well.

[reachingzero]

whoops! typo, it did set it as eth1, not 0.

When I run netconfig, and I go through it, and probe for network cards, it only pics up my ethernet NIC that I don't use, which is assigned to eth0. It doesn't seem to pick up my wireless on eth1 to configure.

[spurious]

Did you go through the iwconfig step and edit /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts?

[reachingzero]

I've done everything you said to... and when I do the netconfig, I configure it all, and probe for network cards, it says that my ethernet nic is found, but it never finds my wireless... Would disabling my ethernet nic help in any way, and how would I do that?

[reachingzero]

One of my friends recommeded that I just do a fresh install of 9.1, so I did, and it solved all my problems. Thanks for your guys' help.