thelinuxportal,

Let me add a few lines to your excellent howto. I have been trying out a number of Live CDs and have a few items to add regarding the rt2500. I too do not address ndiswrapper; Andrew has an excellent howto in the wireless subforum for ndiswrapper @ http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?showtopic=17317.

Addendum:

Is My Wifi Card Supported? See: http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?showtopic=22476

I'll be using my card ID, just substitute yours and all this should work for you (but not ndiswrapper). I have used a static setup because it is the toughest to accomplish.

1st, if you are brand new to Linux, let's find out what your wireless card is, then you can go looking for help. Folks don't like to help when a newbie asks for help and can't tell them what card is installed.
In a terminal as root
"lspci -v" here is part of mine"
Now we know exactly what card we have (RaLink RT2500 802.11g), so let's press on.

Still in the terminal:
"lsmod" which finds all the kernel modules loaded, of course we are looking for the rt2500 module, here's part of mine:
(Note: If you see rt2500pci, I recommend doing "rmmod rt2500pci" and installing the rt2500 cvs module, see: http://linux.wordpress.com/2006/05/14/suse...wi-fi/#more-614
The SuSE rt2500 driver of the distro installed rt2500pci is broken with respect to the smp kernel; do the install.)
Now, if you don't see rt2500, do:
"modprobe rt2500" and when the computer is done, do "lsmod" again, it should be there if it is in the kernel.

Now, assuming we have the correct driver module, let's find out what the system says about it. I am going to be using some commands that you can only use if you have the wireless-tools rpm installed.
Still in the terminal:
"iwlist scan" here's mine (I have my card working by the way):
Note that it returns all the interfaces, but only the ones with wireless extensions will have detailed information next to it.
Note that mine comes up wlan0 whereas thelinuxportal''s was ra0, no big deal just remember it.
Note the capital M in Mode:Managed.
Note that Cell 01 - Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx provides the access point "AP", useful for later on.

Now switch on your wireless card:
"ifconfig wlan0 up"
Now do:
"iwconfig" here's mine from my running system with a static setup & WEP activated:
So your's doesn't have that, there's a lot of empty spaces, what to do???
Let's start at the top & tell it:
iwconfig wlan0 essid myessid
iwconfig wlan0 nick "nameoflaptop"
iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
iwconfig wlan0 channel n <--from iwlist
iwconfig wlan0 freq 2.437G
iwconfig wlan0 key 1234567890 restricted

Now do "iwconfig" again and see if you get the AP & Link Quality=something decent.
if not,
Enter the AP from iwlist
iwconfig eth0 ap 00:60:1D:01:23:45 <--straight from man iwconfig, use your's from iwlist scan
The two should now match Cell 01 - Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx and Access Point: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

Now let's get to the router, you need to get these #IDs from your router setup:
"ifconfig wlan0 192.168.0.110 broadcast 192.168.0.255 netmask 255.255.255.0 up"
"route add default gw 192.168.0.5"

We should now be able to "ping" the router, (see "man ping"):
"ping -c4 192.168.0.5" example, use your gateway, here's mine"
To further reach the ISP you need to know the "nameserver" which you can get from the ISP or use some tools later on to find them. These nameservers need to be entered into /etc/resolv.conf like:
On a temporary basis, you can enter them with (example):
"echo nameserver 192.168.1.10 > /etc/resolv.conf
echo nameserver 212.135.1.47 >> /etc/resolv.conf
etc."
Note that the first line will OVERWRITE (>) the resolv.conf file, the second command will APPEND (>>) 'nameserver 212.135.1.47' onto the end of it!
Or you can just edit /etc/resolv.conf and add them.

After a few seconds,
"ping -c4 212.135.1.47(from above example, use your ISP), here's mine:
You should now be able to fire up Firefox and the web is yours.




Let's finish:
There are a number of tools that help you get the nameserver info, find the networks and even help you get logged on.

If your distro supports "dhclient", you can:
"dhclient wlanO" and it will do the nameservers for you.
From man dhclient"": The Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client, dhclient, provides a means for configuring one or more network interfaces using the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, BOOTP protocol, or if these protocols fail, by statically assigning an address.

If your distro supports "pump", you can:
"pump -i wlan0"
From "man pump":
NAME
pump - configure network interface via BOOTP or DHCP protocol.

In SuSE, you can use "NetworkManager" after you get the card up.

An alternative to NetworkManager for those who want profiles
It's called "WIFI Radar"; see http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?showtopic=24390.

I'm sure that there are others.

Finally, with thelinuxportal's howto and this addendum, you should be able to go to any wireless on any computer and get it up including Live CDs (except for "ndiswrapper" cards and even there once the driver is installed you can use most of these wireless tools to get online).

Links:
List Of Wifi Downloads And How-to's @ http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?showtopic=22475
Title: HowTo: Configure a WiFi Card on SuSE @ http://www.suselinuxsupport.de/wikka.php?w...oConfigWifiCard
Howto: Configure Network Cards @ http://forums.remote-exploit.org/showthrea...hlight=wireless
If you have any other good links add them!

Hope this helps down the road.

Have fun...