Help with wireless networking

[Henk Koster]

On Thu, 06 Jul 2006 16:55:38 +0100, Daniel Carrera wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I've put in a new wireless card on my laptop (PCMCIA). Ubuntu detects it
> correctly, but I can't seem to connect to the local wireless network.
> And I feel like I don't have many tools to diagnose the problem.
> 
> I'm using the GUI network manager, and I see the wireless card, so I go
> to properties. There I see that Ubuntu has located the network because
> it has the right entry in the network name (ESSID). I enter the WEP key
> (yes, this is a secured network, Ubuntu is supposed to support this).
> Then I set the card to use DHCP. Click OK.
> 
> Then the card takes forever to activate and in the end it still has no
> IP address. That is, if I run ifconfig I see the card there (wlan0) but
> it has no IP.
> 
> I don't really know what to try. Any ideas?
> 
> Cheers,
> Daniel.

The kernel modules for some wireless chipsets are still billed as
experimental, and don't really work yet. A point-in-case are devices based
on the RealTek 8187 chips, for which the r8187 kernel driver module is
available, and in fact loads upon inserting the device but then takes
forever to establish the link, just as you have experienced.

You might try to use the ndiswrapper work-around (be sure to blacklist the
offending module in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist).

Too late now (but may be useful for others contemplating buying a PCMCIA
or PC-Card wireless device): get one based on the Atheros chipset, using
the madwifi driver in the linux-restricted-modules package).