setup of centrino wireless

Amadeus W.M. amadeus84 at verizon.net
Sat Nov 4 19:07:12 UTC 2006


On Sat, 04 Nov 2006 08:15:03 -0700, kevin.kempter wrote:

> Hi List;
> 
> I just installed FC6 on a laptop with a centrino wireless chip. Can anyone 
> help me with steps how to enable/configure my wireless ethernet device?
> 
> 
> Thanks in advance..
> 
> /Kevin
>

This is a messy topic. I suspect there were some bugs in the gnome network
gui which made things even more confusing. 



Here's a page that describes the process.

http://www.ces.clemson.edu/linux/fc2-ipw2200.shtml



He installs the drivers from source, but there are rpms available at
atrpms:

yum --enablerepo=atrpms install ipw2200 ipw2200-firmware

Note that the 2.6.18-1.2798 kernel that FC6 comes with, already has the
ipw2200 and ieee80211 modules, but these are slightly older versions
(ipw2200 in the kernel is version 1.1.2). You would still need to get
ipw2200-firmware from livna though. 

Some people DID get centrino wireless to work with the kernel drivers. I
did too, on my home network, using a static IP address. I could not
select DHCP. At school, however, it kept telling me to check the cable (on
a wireless card!). It is possible that I had some settings wrong, although
I could see activity on the card (it was able to scan for and detect the
available networks, but just couldn't talk to any of them). 

At any rate, after installing the new drivers from atrpms, I was able to
delete the wireless entry in the network gui
(System->Administration->Network) and create one anew, in which I could
select DHCP, set everything on Auto, and lo and behold, it worked.

With the old drivers, in the GUI the wireless interface was eth1:0, and I
could not select DHCP (this may be a bug in the GUI, not in the drivers).
If I tried to delete eth1 alltogether and create one anew, it wouldn't see
the card. With the new drivers I was able to delete eth1, and re-create
it. I now have a plain and familiar eth1, which works like a charm. 

I'd say try it first with the drivers that come with FC6, then if it
doesn't work definitely try the atrpms drivers. 

Oh, and if your laptop has a switch to turn on the built-in wireless, DO
make sure it's on!




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