Laptop WiFi manual

[Karl Larsen]

    I have been working on this and I think it's close.


        How to get WiFi working on your lap-top

    It has been hard to get the wifi that works so well on your Windows 
XP to work when you select Linux at boot time. Windows XP has nothing 
that helps you to get Linux working. In this paper you will see that 
there is a step by step process that is essential to getting your system 
working.

I:    First you MUST learn what the name of your WiFi hardware. This can 
usually be done from a root Terminal and you call # lspci. This will 
print a list of all the pci things in your laptop. Here is part of mine.

00:09.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 
802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI7420 CardBus Controller
00:0f.0 IDE interface: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE (rev c4)
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. 
RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)


This is what my SONY laptop printed out from lspci. Notice there are two 
items called Ethernet controller. But notice the Atheros says it handles 
802.11abg which is what WiFi is, So now we know this laptop has hardware 
made by Atheros Communications, Inc.

II:    The second step is easy. You need to find out what Linux software 
is written for your hardware. The easiest is a great web page at:

http://linux-wless.passys.nl/

You should find your WiFi driver. If not there try Google with good 
search calls. One is "fedora 7,Atheros" and like that. You learn the 
software I need is called "madwifi" but your not done yet. Keep looking 
for the module name that is used by modprobe to put it into the kernel. 
In this case it is "ath_pci". Listed below are four hardware systems I 
know about.

  Hardware              Software        modprobe    

  Atheros Comm           madwifi        ath_pci
   
  Intel old              IEEE80211      ipw2200   

  IntelPro 3945          IEEE80211      ipw3945   

  Broadcom BCM 4318      MAC80211       bcm43xx



If a reader knows about other Linux software please write. If you have a 
laptop that is working and you forgot what you did, do this:

# lsmod and find the ones that sound like wifi stuff. Or look at 
/etc/modprobe.conf and you should see them there. 

III:    Now find a kernel that has your drivers in module form. Start 
with your current kernel and as root type modprobe ath_pci in my case. 
If nothing happens your lucky, your kernel has the driver you need. 
Check with # lsmod and see what modules were installed. A more general 
case modprobe says "no such file". Then you need to find a kernel with 
your modules. Try older and newer kernels.

IV:    There is a new network system available in at least Fedora Core 6 
and Fedora 7 called NetworkManager. You will want to set that up at 
least on your laptop. I have it on both computers. Caution! Turn off 
network if your using NetworkManager.

    Do this, cd /etc/rc.d/init.d/ and you will see a lot of applications 
listed. Now as root do # chkconfig network off and then
# chkconfig NetworkManager on and # chkconfig NetworkManagerDispatcher 
on. Reboot and the new system will be working.

V:    If you have the right kernel you can now use # modprobe ath_pci 
and that will work. Look at the two tiny computers near your name on the 
top edge and click on them. It will tell you about what it is doing. 
Also use the # nm-tool which will show you what Internet it is working 
on and what is turned off. Often your laptop will suddenly have wifi 
Internet. This is a good moment.

Karl Larsen