configure and use a new network adapter.
<sigh> I dislike having what I call CRS, especialy while I'm in transition from my
home of the last 14+ yrs, thus currently being without access to the notes & files
on my desktop computer... And mostly using the local donut shop's WIFI to get at my
email, etc...
* CRS :"Can't Remember Sh^Htuff" : In my case this means that unless I
* do something the same way every day for a LONG time, or have examples
* of how I did it before (where I can still find them), I usually wind up
* scratching my head the next time I need to do a non-daily task. Or for
* that matter, to remember what I was doing before the durned phone rang etc...
Perhaps some kind hearted antiX user would be so kind as to help me remember/learn
how to configure my NEW usb/network adapter... I seem to be stuck.
If the information below isn't useful, just tell me what command you'd like to
see the output of...
The built in wireless adapter never really worked on this Vista era laptop, Not
even with the Vista that came on it... I have vague memories that I used
to have fight with various Linux installations to get them to use an old trendnet
usb/network adapter without getting hung up on the existence of the
non-functional built in. I do remember that I usually had better luck with
wicd, than with which ever network manager was installed by default. The
exceptions being opensuse where I had to let"yast" itself manage the network
with what it called traditional methods to get it working. I dislike yast's user
interface {preferring to update opensuse with zypper} So I don't intend to try to
get opensuse to use a new network setting, or adapter till I have my own router
connected to broadband again.
Eventually when I installed Mageia, I found that their"draknetcenter" worked.
As it happens, both opensuse, & Mageia have running dist-upgrade methods that
have saved me from having to configure them to use that usb adapter in a LONG time.
The only other Linux currently installed to the laptop is antiX, which I
installed in 2011. Since I chose the testing (rolling release) sources
configuration, I haven't had to actually configure that usb adapter in a long
time here either. My laptop's antiX is, I note, configured to use wicd.
For assorted reasons I decided I needed a spare network adapter and ordered a
new low cost usb device from amazon, which described the device as:
"Realtek 8191 300Mbps 802.11n/g/b USB Wireless WIFI LAN Network Card Adapter"
It featured an external antenna that's supposed to improve reception... So I
was hoping it would be able to use weaker WIFI signals, but that hasn't
worked out that way...
I can get Mageia to"connect" to a strong WIFI with it, using their
draknetcenter. But it hangs up way to easy. And I can't seam to figure out how to
get antiX to use it at all.
The output of commands like ifconfig & iwconfig are somewhat different between
Mageia and antiX.
Mageia doesn't seem to even see the bad built-in device. And will refer to
either usb/network adapter as wlan0.
AntiX calls the bad built-in wlan0, it calls the older trendnet adapter wlan1
And whether the trendnet adapter has been attached or not, it calls the new
device wlan2. Antix seems unable to list the the new device at all with ifconfig.
And wicd also doesn't find it.
NOTE: all quoted iwconfig & ifconfig outputs reflect the network adapter{s}
state when there are no available WIFI networks for me to actually"connect" to...
With iwconfig the bad built-in and the old trendnet usbnetwork adapter have
identical reported values:
Code: Select all
wlan1 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:on
The new usb adapter is listed by iwconfig as:
Code: Select all
wlan2 unassociated Nickname:"rtl_wifi"
Mode:Auto Access Point: Not-Associated Sensitivity:0/0
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
to"Managed", nor it's"Retry" to"short limit:7" And I don't have the
slightest clue about those"Rx invalid" listings...
As I said, antiX doesn't find the new adapter with ifconfig, But from my
Mageia installation I get this for the new adapter:
Code: Select all
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0D:81:AC:D4:7D
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)
BOTH antiX AND Mageia see the old trendnet adapter with"ifconfig" as:
Code: Select all
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:D1:37:5B:B2
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)
that antiX calls this device"wlan1"
Suggestions welcome!