Installation report for Acer TravelMate 8100

[Cef]

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 00:14, ford42 wrote:
> I love this laptop, but I am getting frustrated already with the linux
> install.  I also have a problem with the wireless card under Win XP not
> seeing my Access Point.  It sees my neighbors (warned him about it many
> times), but not mine.  I have other devices that can link to my AP with
> no problems.  My AP is set up to use WEP, filter an access list, and not
> transmit its ESSID.  I added the MAC into the list, added the key to
> WinXP, and even had it connected at one point, but then I lost the
> connection, and it is not seen anymore.  Still can see the AP and
> connect with other devices, though.  The fun of getting a laptop with
> all the current stuff.

Most of the scanning dialogs use Broadcast ESSID to find the Access Point, and 
in many cases Windows XP will not connect if another AP is available. It's an 
annoying problem, but then XP doesn't make it any better - The wireless 
dialog is broken in many respects, particularly if you're trying to set up a 
decently protected connection (encryption/authentication).

Broadcast ESSID does not really provide a lot of security, as your ESSID is 
still transmitted in almost every data frame. Something like Kismet will 
still detect these networks, but only when they transmit data. Some AP's 
allow you to change the interval that Broadcast ESSID's are transmitted, but 
this may not help much.

Unfortunately to get autodetect working, you really need to turn on Broadcast 
ESSID. I'm not sure if this applies 100% to Linux , as each driver may also 
list networks picked up by passive scanning, but I'm guessing that would be 
on a driver by driver basis, and I haven't looked into the driver code myself 
(lately). However the Broadcast ESSID would make it a lot faster and reliable 
to autodetect the network.

Bottom line, if you want to protect your network from drive-by sniffing, place 
your AP in an optimal spot for coverage and turn down the output power to the 
lowest level that will give you the coverage you need.

Note: Most of the autodetect tools for Linux use the 'scanning' interface of 
the wireless tools. From a command-line you can use the 'iwlist' tool (eg: 
'iwlist eth0 scanning'), assuming your network card supports scanning. 
Unfortunately for me, the current version of madwifi (used for Atheros based 
chips) that ships with Hoary doesn't support the 'scanning' interface. 
Hopefully the next version will make it into Ubuntu before Hoary ships.

-- 
 Stuart Young - aka Cefiar - cef at optus.net