My Wifi Woes

[Brian McKee]

On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 8:58 AM, Raquel <raquel at thericehouse.net> wrote:
>  Last night I found a hint and edited
> my /etc/network/interfaces file.
>
> I changed it from:
>     auto lo
>     iface lo inet loopback
>
> and added:
>     auto wlan0
>     iface wlan0 inet dhcp
>
> Once I did that, my new laptop found the neighbor's 2 wireless
> networks.  Now I can go ahead and setup my new wireless router.

Hi Raquel

Glad you got it working to this point.

I thought I'd make a comment here so you understand what you've done a
little better.  (If you do already, ignore the rest of this note ;-)

The entry in /etc/network/interfaces is the 'traditional'
Debian/Ubuntu way of configuring networking.  It works fine, it's
reliable etc, but it can be annoying to change it  every time you
start using a new network that requires different settings.  This will
become more obvious if/when you require encryption on your wireless
connections (WEP, WPA)   You can set those up using the interfaces
file as well, but it can be annoying to do, especially if you have to
change the file everytime you move from the coffee shop to home to the
library etc.

Network Manager was designed to handle that kind of thing more
automatically.  Since it wasn't working for you, it's obviously not
any 'easier' or automatic :-)

Network Manager does not use the /etc/network/interfaces file, and if
you have an entry in there and try and use Network Manager as well it
will not work.  So, as long as you are using the interfaces file,
avoid network manager.

If you find setting up WEP/WPA etc using the interfaces file
difficult, then I'd repeat the suggestion made earlier about trying
WICD.  It seems to have the advantages of Network Manager and be more
reliable to boot.

Brian