| First thing you need to do is purchase a wireless | | | | wireless networks.If you type in iwist scanning it |
| adapter card with a prism2 chipset. Just go to | | | | will give a out of all wireless networks available to |
| google and type in linux wireless adapters and | | | | you with an output like this: |
| track one down.If you are using a fairly good | | | | wlan0 Scan completed : |
| wireless distro it should pick up the card | | | | Cell 01 - Address: 00:14:BF:75:31:FD |
| automatically.Ok, Now you have the card now | | | | ESSID:"Len" |
| what, you plugged it in and look to the bottom | | | | Mode:Managed |
| write where the Windows XP wireless Icon usually | | | | Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11) |
| is and find nothing.There is no Zero config utility | | | | Quality:2/94 Signal level:-84 dBm Noise level:-154 |
| with linux, but they do have built in tools to help | | | | dBm |
| connect to wireless networks.Now you need to | | | | Encryption key:on |
| find the Command line terminal, it usually looks like | | | | Bit Rate:1 Mb/s |
| a window with a shell because it is a shell.Now let's | | | | Bit Rate:2 Mb/s |
| test to see if you have your card working. Type | | | | Bit Rate:5.5 Mb/s |
| in iwlist at the command prompt. If it doesn't let | | | | Bit Rate:11 Mb/s |
| you, then you might have enter administrator | | | | Bit Rate:18 Mb/s |
| mode.You can enter administrator mode by | | | | Bit Rate:24 Mb/s |
| typing su at the command prompt. Then you will | | | | Bit Rate:36 Mb/s |
| be asked for the administrator password.Now | | | | Bit Rate:54 Mb/s |
| type in iwlist at the command prompt. This will | | | | Bit Rate:6 Mb/s |
| give you a ton of tools to work with. Once you | | | | Bit Rate:9 Mb/s |
| have typed in iwlist and nothing happens then you | | | | Bit Rate:12 Mb/s |
| probably don't have the right card or it's | | | | Bit Rate:48 Mb/s |
| configured wrong.Check and make sure you don't | | | | Extra:bcn_int=100This gives you the Network |
| have any other wireless network adapters active | | | | Name, MAC address, Frequency, encryption and |
| and disable them if they are. Also make sure that | | | | much more. This information can be used to join |
| your wireless adapter is set to start up at boot | | | | your preferred network.If you are monitoring |
| time. You need to look for your system utilities | | | | certain access point you can type in iwlist |
| area..it's like the Microsoft control panel called | | | | accesspoints and get the listing of each nearby |
| Yast.By the way your wireless adapter should be | | | | access point with the MAC address.Once you |
| named wlan0The iwlist command will give a list of | | | | have located the access point you want to |
| options that look like this: | | | | connect with it' time to start using another |
| usage: iwlist [interface] scanning | | | | command called iwconfig.iwconfig is used to |
| [interface] frequency | | | | configure your wireless adapter so you can |
| [interface] channel | | | | connect it to your preferred network. You can |
| [interface] bitrate | | | | configure every thing from the ESSID to the |
| [interface] rate | | | | transmit power of your wireless |
| [interface] encryption | | | | adapter.sYNOPSIS |
| [interface] key | | | | iwconfig [interface] |
| [interface] power | | | | iwconfig interface [essid X] [nwid N] [freq F] |
| [interface] txpower | | | | [channel C] |
| [interface] retry | | | | [sens S] [mode M] [ap A] [nick NN] |
| [interface] ap | | | | [rate R] [rts RT] [frag FT] [txpower T] |
| [interface] accesspoints | | | | [enc E] [key K] [power P] [retry R] |
| [interface] peers | | | | [commit]The syntax for using the iwconfig |
| [interface] eventAll of these options can give you | | | | command is: iwconfig (interface name) then what |
| various detailed information about surrounding | | | | ever you want to configure. |