viewing wireless networks

Can’t find any help on viewing wireless networks. A search in the Firefox ‘help’ menu for “wireless” returned 0 results. Can’t find any info on where the wireless switch is on my lenovo T61 laptop. I found one switch, but there is no label saying what it does, and when I toggle it, the bluetooth light comes on.

There is a wireless light next to it that does not come on.

And there is no manual that comes with this laptop for reasons that are beyond me.

lenovoT61

Go to Yast - Network devices - Network Settings
Config your wireless device in there by highlighting it, then choose edit, and enter your settings.

In the panel on your desktop there should be a network manager such as knetworkmanager

right click and edit connections

I run a lenove R61e, it works fine but the wireless light does not come on with me either and the bluetooth does, but don’t worry about that.

There are manuals on the Lenovo site by the way.

first, palin won

ok, I have done everything, including calling netGear to help setup my router. We set up WPA-PSK (TKIP). Still don’t see any entries in the network manager popup. This is a netGear WNR3500 router. The ‘wired’ connection to the router works fine. Just not the wireless. It is a brand new router, and I’ve confirmed that it shows up in ‘view wireless networks’ on my windows machine.

So it looks like the wireless card on this laptop is not setup correctly, or is not working.

Stephanie

nice place to have a look is the stickies at the start of this section,gives lots of useful info

Andy

You need to set up allowed access via access points in the router config, assign an IP in the allowed range to your wlan MAC address.

lenovoT61 wrote:
> first, palin won

Totally inappropriate.

How do I do this?

Also, ‘iwconfig’ was not a recognized command on my machine, and I am new to linux (Suse 10, SLED).

I am going to call Lenovo this morning and see if they can at least get me at a point where I can see wireless networks in the Network Manager, thus confirming that my wireless card works.

lenovoT61

Log in to your router. I’m not familiar with your model, but you can download the manual from Netgear.
Open a web browser and in the in the http address bar, clear it and type the ip address for the router.
Mine is 192.168.0.1
Yours may be the same.

login on most netgear models, default is;
admin
password

probably look for wireless settings
and in there setup access list

then in LAN IP setup also add your address reservation

Read the netgear manual, and once you log in to the router, there are help sections to view.

Caf -

Are you throwing curve-balls because she said palin won?:smiley:

[Edit: Oops, there I go again, posting before Caf clarifies. Sorry.]

Well, it’s probably not the best thing if you can use your laptop while sitting in your bathtub, but yes, I am now wireless as I speak.

What the fix was I’m not quite sure. Why I was asked for my default keyring password, I don’t know either. I guess it kept asking me for it (and eventually I hit ‘deny’) because it was not the keyring I thought it was - Evolution email account setup thingy.

So I hit ‘deny’ and I was connected. And left-clicking the connection icon on my taskbar brought up a list of 30+ available wireless networks in my apartment community (hmmm).

But before I got this popup for keyring, I added ‘access points’ as described above. Even though the descriptive help for this feature (called ‘Access Control’) calls it ‘added security’.

And although I see 30+ wireless networks when I left-click, I only see my router when I right-click (the connection icon) and select ‘edit wireless networks’.

So what got me to a solution?
(1) Nothing that I did with the command line. All was done with GUI tools. Actually, I kept getting a ‘unrecognized command’ message for both ‘lspci’ and ‘iwconfig’ commands. Perhaps I need to be in the correct directory for these commands to be recognized??

(2) Rebooting the laptop. Obviously, since taking ownership of this linux machine back in June, I rarely have to reboot due to the infamous ‘blue screen of death’. I blame this on the fact that I now forget this option in my troubleshooting tree logic. And it was tech support at Lenovo that got me to do that. Even though the tech support was for Windows only (even though the tech support person only admitted this after 10 minutes trying to convince me he knew what he was talking about). Rebooting the laptop resulted in the wireless indicator to start blinking (0.4 Hz rate), regardless of Fn+F5 presses, which only seemed to control the bluetooth indicator.

So, my cats don’t know if or when I’m on the computer now, and I can do what I want without feeling compelled to show them how to program. In reality, they think I’m spending too much time alone, or just plain ignoring them.

Thanks for all the help. I will let you know of any issues that come up (like they always do).

Sitting in my bathtub,

Stephanie

I have heard of taking toys in the bath, but really - a laptop! I take it - it’s on batter power! The mains could be a bit too much!

Good to hear it’s working. The keyring, it’s all about storing passwords. You set it up with a master password - then every time you need or use a password - it can store it. If you, like me have encryption on your wireless - which you should, the pass phrase is a password, the keyring can remember it and use it when you login. I too, didn’t bother with that.

But as you can see, having a secure wireless connection is going to be important. Just look how many other connections there are near you. Only one near me - which is not secure!

Thanks! Looks like there are still some issues though, like awaking from standby. The wireless won’t stay connected for more than a few seconds. Seems like everything has to be so complicated these days :slight_smile:

lenovoT61

I have configured kpowersave to suspend to RAM on lid close. Works perfectly. In fact this laptop is working better in Suse than in XP. The pre-installed Vista has long since gone - it really was hopeless.

What of this applies to you:

ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Express
Adapter
Intel PRO Wireless 3945ABG Mini-PCI Express Adapter (this mine)
Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN
Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN (11n disabled)
ThinkPad 11b/g Wireless LAN Mini-PCI Express Adapter

Same as you… 3945 a/b/g.

I just now got wireless working again:
I deleted an extra entry in my network configuration, and this may fix the problem.

Still need to try to sleep and wake up again and see if it goes back to intermittent ‘wiper’ again. Yes, I saw ‘Flash of Genius’ last night.

Anyway,

lenovoT61 (on Suse 10)

Okay. I have checked my powersave settings (don’t think it is kpowersave though) and it is set to ‘suspend to ram’ on lid close. Perhaps suspending to disk is an option??

And yes, I am still having an intermittent wireless upon returning from sleep mode.

lenovoT61

Okay. I have checked my powersave settings (don’t think it is kpowersave though) and it is set to ‘suspend to ram’ on lid close. Perhaps suspending to disk is an option??

And yes, I am still having an intermittent wireless upon returning from sleep mode.

lenovoT61

Ok. It seems like a temporary fix is to try to connect to a different network from the available wireless networks. When I do this, even with an unsecured network, it reconnects me to my own network. And it stays connected too (the intermittency is gone).

This will work for now.

Until further notice,

lenovoT61

Perhaps the person with the access point moved, but I no longer have a workaround, as the wireless network is no longer available. Although other wireless networks are, but when I try to connect to them it doesn’t work like it did before.

Regardless, I would think it possible to determine the root cause of the problem (intermittent wireless) without too much difficulty.

So, yes, I currently don’t have wireless and am thinking of moving to openSuse 11.0 would be a solution even, although that is sort of running from the problem in my opinion. (if I wanted to transition from SLED Suse to openSuse, would I need to do anything with my data like photos and documents, before making the switch?)

Thanks,

lenovoT61
PS. I haven’t been able to locate a log file for NetworkManager even.

Depends.
Do you have a separate /home

If yes, just keep that, during install do not format option

I used to backup but I never bother now. The suse installer has never got it wrong yet for me.

Use the dvd for install and choose kde3 or gnome
add kde4 later if you want, we can give you the repo details you will need, because you don’t want the dvd ver. of kde4

[edit]
Just to add, because I notice you have network and suspend issues.
My network is fine on my Lenovo
Suspend to RAM though was broken by the latest kernel update, though suspend to Disk was fine. But I rolled back to previous kernel for now.

Not sure what you mean by ‘separate’. In Nautilus, I have a ‘Home Folder’ that shows up as ‘xxxxx’ (where ‘xxxxx’ is my user id) in the file path. The ‘Home Folder’ is at the same directory level as ‘File System’, if that is what you mean.

When I hit the ‘Home’ button in Nautilus, it takes me to ‘Home Folder’.

If yes, just keep that, during install do not format option

I used to backup but I never bother now. The suse installer has never got it wrong yet for me.

Use the dvd for install and choose kde3 or gnome
add kde4 later if you want, we can give you the repo details you will need, because you don’t want the dvd ver. of kde4

[edit]
Just to add, because I notice you have network and suspend issues.
My network is fine on my Lenovo
Suspend to RAM though was broken by the latest kernel update, though suspend to Disk was fine. But I rolled back to previous kernel for now.

I don’t know how to roll back in linux, other than saving the old install directory maybe? Is there a Yast tool for this? Also, I have many downloaded apps in Yast that have dependency issues. But I should probably bring that up in another thread.

Thanks,

LenovoT61 on SLED/Gnome