My Wifi Woes

[Ray Parrish]

Raquel wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:54:56 -0700
> John Hubbard <ender8282 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> Raquel wrote:
>>     
>>> Three or four weeks ago I bought my very first laptop, an HP
>>> G70-246US.  After opening up the box I immediately replaced
>>> Windows Vista with Ubuntu 8.10.  Everything was fantastic, except
>>> wireless networking.  My wired network came up "automagically"
>>> and when I'd move to another wired network, it "just worked".
>>> The new laptop comes with an Atheros AR928x.
>>>
>>> I asked here and got no joy.  For 2 weeks I read everything I
>>> could find in forums, lists, wikis, blogs and every help site I
>>> could in that time.  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.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> Cool. Is that really all that you did? I am a little surprised that 
>> there wasn't already an entry for your wireless (wlan0). You
>> shouldn't have needed to remove your settings for the loopback
>> divice (lo). Try adding that the loopback section back in and see
>> if everything still works. Glad to hear that you got it working be
>> sure to write down somewhere what you did so that if you ever
>> reinstall you can get it back.
>>
>> -- 
>> -john
>>
>>     
>
> I probably didn't write that correctly.  I never did remove the
> loopback section.  I actually ended up removing the wlan0 section.
> I'm wondering if adding the wlan0 section, and then removing it,
> forced NetworkManager to reconfigure and work properly?
>
> I just got back from a "test" run through town.  There is a community
> network in the small town where we live.  I was able to get on and do
> some browsing.  I also went to McDonalds and logged in there.  
>
> So now, it seems that the computer is working the way it should and I
> can start setting up my new Linksys WRT54GL so I can disconnect from
> the wire here at home.
>
>   
Hello,

I too have had a problem with Network Manager, that make me want to 
switch to something else. I only have a wired DSL connection, and 
haven't ever really needed to open Network Manager for any other reason 
other than curiosity, as it has always worked.

I did open it one day here recently,, and after I unlocked the setting 
so I could see what they were, I checked out all the Network settings, 
then noticed that they have a hosts file editor in it as well. I clicked 
on the hosts file section, and it went into a grayed out condition for a 
really long time. When it finally came back to being responsive. I could 
not see the 127.0.0.1 that is supposed to be on the start of each line 
of the sites I am blocking.

I then opened my hosts file in Gedit, and discovered that Network 
Manager had *sorted* my hosts file, and the numbers were all down below 
the domain names, at the bottom of the file! This is very  odd behavior, 
and breaks my blocking of many malware and other bad sites.

As long as I don't open the hosts file in Network Manger's interface it 
leaves it alone, but it still makes me nervous. For now, any network 
setup I need to do, I will be doing manually, as i have no need to 
change settings on an often basis.

By the way, there are some excellent documents on configuring your 
networks in the following location on your hard drive, if you have been 
installing any of the Linux docs that are available from the Ubuntu 
repositories. I've was amazed when I started reading some of the stuff 
that is in this folder.

<file:///usr/share/doc/>

You may have to start Synaptic, and browse through the three available 
Documentation sections on the left side in order to get them, but they 
are definitely worth having. I have learned more about Linux in the past 
few days of perusing these files, than I had in the last six months of 
asking questions on this group. Get the Ubuntu documentation package, 
the Linux docs,, and the Rute Book for a start, and you will have some 
very good reference works.

There are also some docs on hardening and securing your network, that 
have taught me more than I ever knew about the internet before. Included 
in on of them was a link to a web site online, where a guy was 
explaining what different intrusion log entries in a Firewall log were 
about, and how to tell which ones were actual attacks, and I now know a 
lot more about how the hackers do things thanks to him. 8-)

Ubuntu rocks! Even the network tools that come with it are much more 
capable than anything I ever had on Windows. I installed EtherApe, and 
it shows a real time graphic representation of every connection to my 
computer along with the strength and bandwidth of each connection as a 
line between the connections that  gets wider with increased traffic.

You can double click on any connecting dot that represents another 
computer, and you get a dialog that shows any protocols they are using, 
and the input and output traffic from them, along with their ip 
addresses, and resolved domain name. Windows doesn't have anything like 
that. I was quite amazed at how many connections Google makes to you 
after you hit a site they have ads on.

Anyway, I've rambled on a bit too much here ,so I'll sign off,

Later, Ray Parrish

-- 
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Poetry from the mind of a Schizophrenic
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