WiFi Internet

[Gene Heskett]

Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Gene Heskett <gene.heskett <at> verizon.net> writes:
>> There is, we're told, some progress on a reverse engineered kernel 
>> module to drive this family of chips, but getting info on how to setup 
>> this driver is a bit like finding a lifetime supply of hens teeth. 
>> Those were, and still are AFAIK, apparently made out of pure 
>> unobtainium.
> 
> Err, actually the bcm43xx driver is supposed to be in FC5. It's disabled by 
> default because it doesn't work for everyone yet (and goes as far as locking up 
> the system when loaded on systems it doesn't work on - so you definitely want 
 > modprobe it by hand before configuring it to be on by default), but
> bcm43xx-fwcutter in Extras has instructions for how to enable it. If you're one 
> of these people for whom it doesn't work, you'll have to wait for it to get 
> fixed, but in principle it's there.
> 
>         Kevin Kofler

Well, TBT I got it to working with ndiswrapper the same night I started 
to see if I could, 2 weeks before I took off on this trip.  Now I've 
heard of this method, but frankly, with all the hardlinks that exist in 
that area, there seems to be no well explained method of making a 
preserved copy of what is currently working so that the newer method can 
be reverted if it cannot be made to work.  I cannot see what the 
reasoning behind having 3 copies of these config files in various 
directories, all hardlinked to the same inode, and if you cp one of them 
to a backup name, then edit what you think is a new file in the old ones 
name to try another idea, your edits go into a black hole on the 
"service network restart", AND your edits are carried over into what you 
THOUGHT was a backup copy stashed well out of the  way, so not only is 
it not working, but your carefully made backup copy is also equally 
fubar'd.  This rather effectively prevents any experimentation since you 
can edit ifcfg-wlan0 all you want, but you cannot actually change it 
except by accident or luck maybe, to try your newer idea.  Every time 
you try something and it doesn't work a bit different than it did 
before, and you then go back to double-check your  editing only to find 
that what you did is gone without a friggin trace, it gets damned 
frustrating.  So frustrating that once I'd managed to make it work with 
this motels wifi, which took almost 2 weeks of screwing around because 
of disappearing edits, there's little or no chance I'll putz with it now 
till I go home again and have to or plug in an ethernet cable.  Whomever 
is responsible for all those hardlinks scattered around in the subdirs 
of /etc/sysconfig should IMO be taken out behind the woodshed and 
introduced to the board of education.  We need ONE, and ONE only, copy 
of ifcfg-(eth0/wlan0/etc0) to worry about.  Life is too short to have to 
deal with someone more concerned with his job security because he's the 
only one who knows how it REALLY works, than in making it work for all. 
Particularly when you have already used up 71 of your alloted years here.

Decent man pages (man ifcfg-xxxx for instance) would also be a huge plus.

-- 
Cheers, Gene