Intel Pro Wireless 3945

[Kevin J. Cummings]

Oliver Ruebenacker wrote:
>     Dear friends,
> 
>  Thank you for the help. After installing those packages, Fedora now
> recognizes the existence of the IPW adapter and even sees some
> networks. At least, that is progress. However, I can not connect to
> any wireless network (although I easily can under Win XP).
> 
>  I tried Menu > System > Administration > Network, which lists eth1
> as wireless and inactive. When I try to activate it, it says
> "Determining IP information for eth1... failed; no link present.
> Check cable?" Apparently, the tool is not aware that wireless does not
> have a cable ;)

I think that message comes from the dhcp client software which doesn't
know squat about the type of network (wired/wireless) and was written
before wireless was popular.

>  Interestingly, under Menu > System > Administration > Services, when
> I select the entry "network", there is a comment mentioning eth1 as
> active.

It runs system-config-network, which may conflict with NetworkManager
and friends.

>  When I click the icon in the upper right corner, I get a list of
> available wireless networks. When I select one, it tries to connect
> for some seconds and then stops without giving a reason (if eth0 is
> connected, it goes back to that, otherwise, it stays unconnected).

The icon in the upper RH corner is nm-applet, an is an interface to
NetworkManager.  It writes to your log files.  Do you see any messages
in /var/log/messages relating to your wireless stuff (I think you'll
find a *lot* of messages, and you'll have to figure out what is
important and what isn't).

On my laptop, connecting to my wireless is not reliable.  The applet
will often lose, then find the wireless networks in my neighborhood
(including my own).  If it loses them while it *is* connected, it drops
the connection.  I often have to try multiple times just to get a
wireless connection in the first place.  So much so, that I often give
up and just plug an ethernet cable into my laptop.  I can guarantee that
if nm-applet doesn't see my network, I can't connect to it.  Even if I
select "Connect to other wireless network" from the applet.  I can issue
the commands in the ifup-wireless script by hand, and they seem to
succeed, but it doesn't help me bring my wireless up any quicker than
just trying with the applet.  After I do get connected, I usually have a
solid connection, and can go anywhere in my house without a problem.  My
problem is in getting the connection in the first place.

I haven't tried under windows because my windows runs under VMWare.  So
I don't know if I have a hw problem or not.  I also don't know if my
results are typical or atypical with this driver.

I'm running:  ipw3945-1.2.0-18.2.fc6.at.i386 and friends, all from
ATRPMs.  Oh yeah, in case anyone is interested, my AP is a Linksys
WRT-54G and *it* works fine with my daughter's Windows XP laptop.

>  Thanks for your help!

I'm not sure if this was helpful or not, but I always like to hear from
different data points when *I* have a problem!

>     Take care
>     Oliver

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome at rcn.com
cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us
Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org)