Adhoc Wireless Lan: How?

[davecs]

I've been googling around for days, searching this site, and other Linux help sites, but I cannot find an answer to my problem in a form I can understand.

I've just got two new computers, one is a Shuttle X, and it has a USB Prism 3 wireless lan card, which needs "linux-wlan-ng" to run, I don't expect that to be the problem. Getting drivers and kernel modules loaded is within my capabilities. It also has wired ethernet built in, should run off nvidia drivers.

The other is one of these cheap transmeta-based "Desknote" laptops from PC Chips. It too has both wireless lan and standard ethernet. I don't know the drivers as it is not yet delivered.

My plan is to load Gentoo on the shuttle and Mandrake on the desknote (because it's relatively slow). I would like to be able to plug either of them via the ethernet to my broadband connection, but set up an ad-hoc network when needed via wlan so that I can maybe connect to the internet from the "other" computer, and so the two units can see each other's files. I expect to dual boot Windows 98SE in the shuttle, but it is not important that the network runs under Windows, that will just be for a few stubborn programs I can't substitute or get working under Wine.

I cannot find anything here or elsewhere on the net, and judging by what I did find, quite a few other people have the same problem.

So...

Does anyone know how to go about Ad-Hoc Wlan?
_________________
Gentoo, PCLOS-pre-81a and Windows 98SE.
Shuttle SN41G2V2
Athlon XP2500+ o/c to 3200+, 2x256Mb Geil Value RAM, FX5200.
Ntlworld cable internet via ethernet
and PC-Chips Desknote Laptop (with PCLOS-pre-81a )

[Enderson]

Try this: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=122435&highlight=wireless

It should help.

but about wlan, to test any configuration i just use the iwconfig

[davecs]

Thanks. I had read through that thread already, but I suppose I'd better go through it again, cutting and pasting the useful bits into a wordprocessor and printing them out! Might make it easier.

Maybe I'm worrying unnecessarily about the ad-hoc aspect.

I've had another thought, if I can get a "Stage 3+GRP" setup on the Desknote, perhaps I can get the wlan up and running, and maybe get my Shuttle to build the binaries and transfer them to the laptop!

Is that worth a go?
_________________
Gentoo, PCLOS-pre-81a and Windows 98SE.
Shuttle SN41G2V2
Athlon XP2500+ o/c to 3200+, 2x256Mb Geil Value RAM, FX5200.
Ntlworld cable internet via ethernet
and PC-Chips Desknote Laptop (with PCLOS-pre-81a )

[UberLord]