How can I "turn on" Wifi?

Hooray!
The good news is that I installed 11.2 as a new installation on top of the old 11.0, which I had decided was a “temporary” step for me. The installation was trouble-free and took less than an hour. The new look of 11.2 is great. I am especially glad for the new KDE, free of a few pernicious errors which bothered me in ver. 4.0. The crisper high resolution look which seems possible under 11.2 (and maybe it’s because I this time installed the 64 bit version – appropriate to my Acer Aspire 5520-5891 – rather than the 32 bit version, which I chose to use under 11.0 because I had heard that there were some problems with the 64 bit environment) is welcome. The OpenOffice software is improved. I initialized the system this time under a different user name than previously. The /home files from my previous persona under 11.0 were still intact. I have begun to move some of the folders from the oldme to the newme, which allows me to construct [read “more logical and efficient”] a better hierarchy than I had on the /home of oldme, since, as I said above, I had regarded as “temporary,” even though it grew like topsy in its own disorganized way. All that is good. Very good. Then comes the nonworking Wifi service.

From reading the chart on the web page HCL/Laptops/Acer - openSUSE I was really hoping that “All hardware was detected correctly.” would be as true for me as it had been for the person who entered that encouraging comment at the right-hand side of the 5520 row. Unfortunately, it was not.

I downloaded and unzipped the detailed documentation from Novell/openSUSE. I consulted (in book_opensuse_reference.pdf) the instructions in section 32.5 (“Configuration With YAST”). I read on the top of page 510, that step 2 says that I should find a “Network Devices,” and thence a “Network Settings,” dialog in my YAST control center. My YaST2 main form does not have such a “Network Devices” listing. I looked high and low in the RPM Groups tab for a package group which might get me a new program which would let me connect my WLAN with the local access point of my choosing. To no avail.

Even a View > Search on “Network Devices” showed only five programs, none of which seemed to be what I was seeking.

With my ethernet cable unplugged, the bash command sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan DOES let me see the desired access point, so I think there is hope for me, but how to connect?

I’m probably overlooking something very simple, but can anyone offer a suggestion of where I might look for the settings control to bring my built-in wireless chipset to a communicable status?

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If you are seeing your WAP then it sounds like you just need to let
Network Manager do its thing. In yast are you using Network Manager or
Traditional mode? The former is for you. This should be visible here:

sudo /usr/sbin/yast lan

Once you confirm you are using Network Manager mode go ahead and abort
from there. There should be a Network Manager icon on your machine (in
Gnome it is down in the lower panel and looks like two computers, one
offset behind another, when wired and looks like four bars (signal
strenght) when wireless. This lets you configure your wireless quickly…
does WEP, WPA, VPN stuff, etc.

Good luck.

3bitsShortOfaByte wrote:
> Hooray!
> The good news is that I installed 11.2 as a new installation on top of
> the old 11.0, which I had decided was a “temporary” step for me. The
> installation was trouble-free and took less than an hour. The new look
> of 11.2 is great. I am especially glad for the new KDE, free of a few
> pernicious errors which bothered me in ver. 4.0. The crisper high
> resolution look which seems possible under 11.2 (and maybe it’s because
> I this time installed the 64 bit version – appropriate to my Acer Aspire
> 5520-5891 – rather than the 32 bit version, which I chose to use under
> 11.0 because I had heard that there were some problems with the 64 bit
> environment) is welcome. The OpenOffice software is improved. I
> initialized the system this time under a different user name than
> previously. The /home files from my previous persona under 11.0 were
> still intact. I have begun to move some of the folders from the oldme to
> the newme, which allows me to construct [read “more logical and
> efficient”] a better hierarchy than I had on the /home of oldme, since,
> as I said above, I had regarded as “temporary,” even though it grew like
> topsy in its own disorganized way. All that is good. Very good. Then
> comes the nonworking Wifi service.
>
> From reading the chart on the web page ‘HCL/Laptops/Acer - openSUSE’
> (http://en.opensuse.org/HCL/Laptops/Acer) I was really hoping that
> “All hardware was detected correctly.” would be as true for me as it had
> been for the person who entered that encouraging comment at the
> right-hand side of the 5520 row. Unfortunately, it was not.
>
> I downloaded and unzipped the detailed documentation from
> Novell/openSUSE. I consulted (in book_opensuse_reference.pdf) the
> instructions in section 32.5 (“Configuration With YAST”). I read on the
> top of page 510, that step 2 says that I should find a “Network
> Devices,” and thence a “Network Settings,” dialog in my YAST control
> center. My YaST2 main form does not have such a “Network Devices”
> listing. I looked high and low in the RPM Groups tab for a package group
> which might get me a new program which would let me connect my WLAN with
> the local access point of my choosing. To no avail.
>
> Even a View > Search on “Network Devices” showed only five programs,
> none of which seemed to be what I was seeking.
>
> With my ethernet cable unplugged, the bash command sudo
> /usr/sbin/iwlist scan DOES let me see the desired access point, so I
> think there is hope for me, but how to connect?
>
> I’m probably overlooking something very simple, but can anyone offer a
> suggestion of where I might look for the settings control to bring my
> built-in wireless chipset to a communicable status?
>
>
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