wireless connection to linksys from Inspiron laptop

[Derek Broughton]

Nigel Ridley wrote:

> Derek Broughton wrote:
>> Nigel Ridley wrote:
>> 
>>> I just got my Linksys WRT54GL delivered today and set it up to connect
>>> to a pppoe connection. The wired connection works as advertised (beware,
>>> if your pc/laptop is already configured with a static ip address, then
>>> you won't be able to connect using http://192.168.1.1 - I had to stick
>>> the Hardy live CD in and then it connected!!??).
>> 
>> What's with the ??  Of course it won't connect.  You can't have two
>> devices on the network with the same IP, and your WRT would need to use
>> that static
>> IP address.  Of course, the simple solution would have been to just
>> remove all settings, and Network Manager (actually, dhclient) would have
>> set you up via DHCP.
> 
> All our home network is configured using 192.168.0.xx not 192.168.1.xx

I misread the original post - afterwards it became clear that you didn't
have a static IP from your ISP.

> It would seem that the Linsys router would only 'talk' to a computer
> that was set up with DHCP.  

Not really.  The router will only _talk_ to a computer on the same subnet. 
Linksys default to using 192.169.1.x, but you could change that.

> The simpler solution to reconfiguring my computer's ip settings was to
> stick in the Hardy 'Desktop' CD and run it 'live'.

Except, that it's not a solution, it's a temporary workaround.  The solution
is to abolish static IPs and use whatever the Linksys gives you.

>> So why would you uninstall the supported and (mostly) functional network
>> manager for an unsupported program?  I'm not saying that it's a bad idea
>> - I've finally got frustrated enough with NM to give wicd another try -

Which wasn't worth the trouble...

>> but if you know nothing about wireless, jumping in with unsupported
>> software is
>> a really bad start.  For most users, NM works just fine.
> 
> I returned to using KNetworkManager and it works flawlessly :-)

Great.  I still think network-manager was introduced to Ubuntu before it was
ready for prime-time, but it's the "blessed" way to network in Ubuntu, and
I wouldn't consider replacing it unless you had problems (as many do...)
-- 
derek