[Discuss] Wireless on Laptop

[John Blomfield]

Murray Strome wrote:
> John Blomfield wrote:
>> Murray Strome wrote:
>>> John Blomfield wrote:
>>>> Murray Strome wrote:
>>>>> Some time ago, I asked for help in trying to get a Live CD or DVD 
>>>>> LINUX distribution that would properly recognize and configure my 
>>>>> wireless card, which is:
>>>>> Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
>>>>>
>>>> I have an Intel Pro/Wireless 2915BG in my laptop and Fedora 8 Live 
>>>> KDE and Fedora 8 Live Gnome makes it work right out of the box. No 
>>>> problem.
>>>>
>>>> John Blomfield
>>>>
>>>>> I had no luck with Knoppix nor with Ubuntu (though Ubuntu at least 
>>>>> recognized the card).
>>>>>
>>>>> On a whim, I just downloaded Mandriva One 2008 CD and tried it. It 
>>>>> worked flawlessly!  Also, my sound card works great with it, as 
>>>>> does Flash with Firefox.  For what I have tried to this point, it 
>>>>> appears to be faster than either (K)Ubuntu or Knoppix. Admittedly, 
>>>>> I haven't tried too many things.
>>>>>
>>>>> Although I have come to like a lot about Kubuntu, at least for 
>>>>> now, I will likely be playing with Mandriva on the laptop.
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Steve Nelson wrote
>>>>>> Hmmmm
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have the same card in my Dell XPS laptop and Kubuntu recognized 
>>>>>> it out of the box -- I did have to download the restricted 
>>>>>> drivers, but that is no big deal either.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It seems weird that it didn't work for you with Kubuntu.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Steve
>>> Steve: Did you INSTALL Kubuntu, or were you using the Live CD/DVD?  
>>> That might be the difference.  I have not tried Fedora.
>>> John: With Live KDE Fedora, is it relatively easy to make it 
>>> "persistent", i.e. use an external drive to save all configuration 
>>> changes, install new software, update old software, and save 
>>> documents etc. in /home/<user>?  If so, I might give it a try when I 
>>> get time.
>>>
>> I have installed Fedora 8 using a Live KDE CD on three computers so 
>> far, including and laptop but I have been experimenting with just 
>> running the Live KDE (not installed ) prior to taking it on my 
>> travels.  In fact I created a Live version on a 2G Pen Flash Drive 
>> and the pen provides some "persistent" storage,  In the case of the 
>> Live CD you can save data also by using a USB Pen Drive or presumably 
>> a USB external drive, just mount the drives in the normal way and 
>> copy files to them.  I am not sure about whether you would be able to 
>> access a eSATA external drive?  If you are using a Live CD I don't 
>> think it would be possible to update any software because the "old" 
>> packages are on the read only CD and can't be changed but on a Pen 
>> Drive it may be possible?  My laptop BIOS treats the Pen Drive like 
>> another Hard Drive and not as a "removable drive".  In the boot 
>> sequence you have to set the Pen Drive as the 1st Hard Drive to get 
>> it to boot, it will not recognize the Pen Drive as USB media.  All 
>> this is very BIOS dependent; my main computer is now 3 to 4 years old 
>> and its BIOS will not boot from a Pen Drive, it just does not 
>> recognize it at boot time either as USB or HD.
>>
>> I have also been looking at Fedora's "livecd-tools" which enable you 
>> to create a custom CD iso which you can then burn on a CD or Pen 
>> Drive as a Live image or a normal Install image.  livecd-tools 
>> creates the iso by downloading the packages you want using Red Hat's 
>> kickstart file format for administrator network installs etc.  This 
>> of course means you get the latest packages at the time of creation.  
>> The tools ensure that all the dependencies are taken care of and 
>> there are sample kickstart files to ensure you get a basic working 
>> system that you can add to or subtract from.
>>
>> John Blomfield
>>
> I have downloaded Fedora Core 8 Live DVD.  I cannot figure out how to 
> set up the wireless card.  If I look at network configuration, and try 
> to activate the wireless card, it fails.  If I go to the wireless 
> settings tab, I cannot find anything to enable me to detect my 
> wireless settings.  
> I couldn't find any clear instructions in the Fedora help, nor on the 
> Fedora website.
> I am probably looking in the wrong places!  Could you (or someone) 
> please point me in the correct direction?
> Thanks.
>
> Murray
>
I assume you are talking about the Live KDE CD ( not DVD? ).  If so then 
the wireless network is managed by knetworkmanager which is a KDE wrap 
for NetworkManager.  There should be a small icon on the bottom right 
hand side of the panel.  It looks like a staircase!  Right click on the 
icon and a popup will give you some options to enable wireless. If you 
double click on the icon it will pop up a dialog to list available 
wireless networks and configuration of encription etc.  I also add an 
applet to the panel that gives information about connection signal 
strength etc and shows if you are connect properly.

Good Luck!
John