# wireless card and Slackware **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 19, 2009, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-card-and-slackware/500275 "2009-06-19T06:39:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mlai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@mlai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlai)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-card-and-slackware/500275/1 "2009-06-19T06:39:46Z")
I don’t know if posting tech questions is really allowed here, but I figure if it’s not, the thread will get moved/deleted. I’m not really sure how to go from a fresh install to using the Internet, and while I can follow the examples people have posted online, I can’t access anything. I frustrate myself for about 15 minutes every night until I get bored and move on to something else. I have a Lenovo ThinkPad with an Intel 4965 AGN wireless card, running Slackware 12.2 with KDE. I know very little about Linux and next to nothing about wireless cards. This is basically the extent of what I know how to do: > [@iwconfig](#): > > lo no wireless extensions. > > wmaster0 no wireless extensions. > > wlan0 IEEE 802.11abgn ESSID:“tortoise” > Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated > Tx-Power=14 dBm > Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B > Encryption key:off > Power Management:off > Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0 > Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 > Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0 > > eth0 no wireless extensions. > [@rc.inet1.conf](#): > > # Config information for eth0: > > IPADDR[0]=“” > NETMASK[0]=“” > USE\_DHCP[0]=“yes” > DHCP\_HOSTNAME[0]=“” > > ## in your info. (You may not need all of these for your wireless network) > > IFNAME[4]=“wlan0” > > ## IPADDR[4]=“” > > NETMASK[4]=“” > USE\_DHCP[4]=“yes” > DHCP\_HOSTNAME[4]=“hugo” > DHCP\_KEEPRESOLV[4]=“yes” > DHCP\_KEEPNTP[4]=“yes” > DHCP\_KEEPGW[4]=“yes” > DHCP\_IPADDR[4]=“” > WLAN\_ESSID[4]=“tortoise” > WLAN\_MODE[4]=Managed > WLAN\_RATE[4]=“54M auto” > WLAN\_CHANNEL[4]=“auto” > WLAN\_KEY[4]=“the results of wpa\_passphrase tortoise mypassphrase” > #WLAN\_IWPRIV[4]="set AuthMode=WPAPSK | set EncrypType=TKIP | set WPAPSK=a hex number that I’m not sure I should list publicly (also not sure where it came from) > WLAN\_WPA[4]=“wpa\_supplicant” > WLAN\_WPADRIVER[4]=“ndiswrapper” For eth1, eth2 and eth3 above, they’re identical to eth0 with empty quotes under USE\_DHCP= > [@iwlist wlan0 scan](#): > > wlan0 Scan completed : > Cell 01 - Address: 00:24:56:42:4D:C9 > ESSID:“tortoise” > Mode:Master > Channel:1 > Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1) > Quality=90/100 Signal level:-41 dBm Noise level=-127 dBm > Encryption key:on > IE: WPA Version 1 > Group Cipher : TKIP > Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP > Authentication Suites (1) : PSK > Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s > 11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s > 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s > Extra:tsf=0000003434308d5b > Extra: Last beacon: 1816ms ago I also have to go to Network Configuration and manually turn on wlan0 everytime I reboot, which is also annoying. Anyway I can automate this? Thanks in advance! ---
**Author:** ![BorgHunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@BorgHunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BorgHunter)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-card-and-slackware/500275/2 "2009-06-19T13:29:22Z")
You know next to nothing about Linux, yet you’re trying to get Slackware to work for you? I’m a bona fide Linux nerd of five years, and I wouldn’t touch Slackware with a ten foot pole. Sheesh, you must be one of those masochist types I’ve heard so much about. One of the problems with Slackware is that it tends to be somewhat conservative with its packages. For example, that KDE you’re running, I’d bet dollars to donuts that it’s KDE 3.5. That’s a fairly old and outdated version of KDE, and it’s possible that newer versions of KDE have superior wireless management. I wouldn’t know (being a GNOME guy myself), but I know GNOME’s wireless management took a quantum leap forward about nine months ago with GNOME 2.24, and it’s now easy as pie. If you’re not a longtime Linux nerd, I can’t recommend that you stick with Slackware at the moment. I’d recommend that you go with something like Ubuntu, or even Fedora, both of which have easy-as-pie wireless management built in to their default desktop environments. If you absolutely have to stick with Slackware, though, you can create a shell script that simply turns on wlan0 for you, and add it to the default runlevel. I do not honestly know what the preferred way to do this is in Slackware. In Gentoo, it’d be something like “rc-update -add /path/to/turnonwlan.sh” as root, but I think rc-update is a Gentoo-specific thing. Check your distro’s documentation. ---
**Author:** ![mlai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@mlai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlai)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wireless-card-and-slackware/500275/3 "2009-06-19T22:18:58Z")
Yay, it’s running now. Just so there’s a record of it in case anyone else is confused, I followed this: [Configuring your network in Slackware](http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=slackware:network) It’s pretty explicit about what everything is and does. I’ve got Windows XP running on this computer as well, and I have Ubuntu on my desktop (I’m working off of a laptop right now), although because Ubuntu’s so easy to configure, I never really figured out what I was doing most of the time. Right now I’m just playing around with Slackware and trying to figure out what’s what, so it’s not urgent that I get Slackware up and running immediately, but thanks for the advice.