Wireless Internet Access on IBM T40
Posts: 15
Hi,
I have tried to access internet via wifi on a T40 with internal wifi adapter and also 3COM PCMCIA adapter and neither works!!!! I have just started using MEPIS after years using Windows. In Windows this is a breeze but in MEPIS well I don't know !!!
I get a message "cant Connect" when I run IWCONFIG its shows Wifi on eth0 and wifi0 though it says on lo "no wireless extensions" ?????
Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
T40 Wifi Adapter
Posts: 15
Hi, the lspci entries are as follows:
Ethernet Controller: Intel Corp 82540EP Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Mobile) (Rev 03)
Network Controller: AIRONET Wireless Communications Cisco Aironet Wireless 802.11b
Hope this is enough info
Thanks
Simon
That's promising. lo is the
Posts: 365
That's promising.
lo is the loopback interface. It doesn't go outside the motherboard so it has no wireless extensions.
wifi0 is a special port that the Cisco Aironet card uses when you are reading raw 802.11 frames in RFmonitor mode. Ordinarily you can ignore it.
etho is the port that should be connecting to your AP.
The fact that they show up at all means that Mepis has installed the airo driver for your card so that's good.
So let's start simply. Are you using WEP or WPA encryption? If so, turn it off for now on your wireless router until you can connect. It'll make it easier to troubleshoot things.
Open Mepis Utilities. It's found at K -> System -> System Configuration (Settings) -> System Administration -> Mepis Utilities - or you can just hit <Alt>F2 and type in mutilities rather than going through all the menus.
Click on Network Interfaces, then on the WiFi tab. Enter your ESSID and click Apply so it will take.
Go to the eth0 tab and make sure Start at System Boot & Use DHCP for IP are selected. Then go back to the Status tab and try to Start eth0 (stop it first if necessary).
If this doesn't work let us know what problems you have and we'll go from there.
No change :(
Posts: 15
Hi,
Tried removing encryption, ensured wifi set correctly and starting etho again, I just get the message "can't connect" in the Network Status!!
OK, lets see how your card
Posts: 365
OK, lets see how your card is set up. Try running these two commands from a Konsole and paste the results back here.
iwconfig eth0
iwlist eth0 scanning
That will tell us if the card is seeing any access points, and what the various card settings are.
results
Posts: 15
Hi,
iwconfig eth0
eth0 no wireless extensions.
iwlist eth0 scanning
eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.
Anyone else got any ideas???
Posts: 15
Anyone got any ideas how I can get this to work, I'd hate to go back to Windows but at least Windows works !!!!!!! 
IBM shipped the T40 with
Posts: 365
IBM shipped the T40 with three different internal Wifi cards. I think they can all be made to work, but the procedure varies depending on the card.
If I'm not mistaken, 3Com has also made wireless pc-cards with several different chipsets.
The first step is to find out what wireless chipsets you have. Open a Konsole terminal and run the command lspci (that first character is a lowercase L not an uppercase i).
There will be one or more entries listing Ethernet or network controllers. Do this once without the 3com card, and once with it (so we can tell which one is the pc-card) and give us those controller entries.
Someone on this forum is bound to have installed at least one of the two you have and will be able to help once they know what it is we're dealing with.