wireless client

[Wayne Betts]

Since you posted on a redhat-list, you might try redhat-config-network
or system-config-network as root.  But that's not the traditional Linux
way... :-)

If comfortable and permitted at Linux command line as root
then you can really sink your teeth into this:

First, "man iwconfig".  With the iwconfig command you have  good control
over what's happening, assuming

1. you know a bit about wireless networking (which you probably do)
2. the Wireless NIC is supported in the linux distribution he's using
(maybe - if not it can get pretty hectic, even for linux gurus and
requiring more than this simple post will provide :-(.)  Here's where I
got started a couple of years ago:

http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/

Combine iwconfig with ipconfig (man ipconfig), route (man route) and the
dhcp client (if using dhcp), and you can do wonders.  (several different
dhcp clients have been used in the last few years of Redhat/Fedora
release: dhclient, pump or dhcpcd, so you may need to figure out which
one(s) you have and the basic usage). 

If you try from the command line with iwconfig, but can't get it to
associate and get an address using the dhcp client, then any
user-friendly (aka GUI) configuration routine that you might hope to use
will probably also fail.  I've wasted a lot of time in those GUIs that
could have been replaced by only a few seconds or minutes at the command
line.


HTH,

Wayne


On Thu, 2005-08-18 at 16:20, Bill Tangren wrote:
> I have an 802.11g (linksys WRT54G) router running here at work. Until 
> today, everyone who has wi-fi nics here run either Windoze or Mac OS, 
> and I know how to get those OS's to talk to the router. [They give me 
> their MAC address, and I give them the password.]
> 
> However, today a visiting professor shows up with a laptop running 
> Linux, and he wants to connect to the LAN. As I have never had any Linux 
> computers on which to practice setting up wi-fi clients, could someone 
> point me to references I could read on what programs on his Linux box 
> will allow him to connect to my wi-fi router?
> 
> I have googled, with no luck. All I have come up with was how to set up 
> a LAN using Linux. I have tried man -k too, but that hasn't helped, and 
> isn't likely to, seeing as none of my boxes here have wi-fi nic cards in 
> them.
> 
> TIA,
> Bill Tangren