wireless-tools

Duminas · n00b Joined: 07 Sep 2005 Posts: 68

Is wireless-tools (specifically, I need these for ndiswrapper to compile and install it by hand, or so I hear--I hope I'm not missing other packages it needs?) available on the Packages CD?

Having searched, I came across this, but monkey89 said that the livecds do not come with iwconfig/wireless-tools anymore, hence the prior question. I want to make sure I don't completely run out of options with this install. As I am completely unable to use any sort of wired connection from my current location, the wireless is needed at some point after the stage3 install finishes.

Thank you for your time, and apologies if this was a bad place to ask. ^_^
I hope I phrased this right.

m4rqz · Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2005 2:12 pm Post subject:

You could download the ebuild(s) and distfile(s) for wireless-tools and the drivers for your network adapers and put them on a cd and copy them over to your system after stage3 installation.

wrc1944 · Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 3:15 am Post subject:

As widespread as wireless is becoming, I really wonder why there's no (or limited) wireless support on the universal 2005.1 live cd. I just did a fresh install on a wireless box, and it was a big PITA.

I needed the madwifi packages for my Atheros based card, and couldn't find the required versions of tools and drivers tar.gz's matching the portage version on the 2005.1 cd anywhere on the web to download. I didn't dare simply download a current portage tree with a knoppix live cd and copy it over to my incomplete Gentoo install, as last time I tried that during my old dialup days, I ran into a nightmare with the distfile packages on the live cd not all matching the new portage I got off the net. (Imagine fixing that on dialup).

Finally, I got wireless up by copying over only the net-wireless ebuild folder from another current Gentoo box's portage tree into my new install portage tree, got the newer madwifi and other wireless tools matching what's in net-wireless (burned them to cd), copied them over to distfiles, did iwconfig ath0, and dhcpcd ath0, and was up.

Anyway, my point is that I just can't understand why the devs choose not to include a full compliment of wireless tools and card drivers on the universal install cd that match the included portage tree, so that users don't have to go through all these steps. Is it just an oversight, or deliberate? It sure would make things a lot easier having the required wireless packages to emerge during the install.
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cbradney · Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 9:22 pm Post subject:

Same situation here, exactly. I face 2 more new boxes and one reinstall, all requiring wifi, and I'd prefer to do it from install, not screw with some wired card and remove it later. Updating the cd locally is always an option, will have to search for the howto. Anyone got a quick link?
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mwilliamson · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Jul 2005 Posts: 83

I recently installed a laptop using the 2005.1 universal live cd with a wireless card in it. It worked great, the ipw2200 mode and wireless-tools (iwconfig) were on the cd.

Duminas · n00b Joined: 07 Sep 2005 Posts: 68

wrc1944 · Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 1:47 am Post subject:

Duminas,
What PCI wireless adapter card do you have? The "wireless-tools" are on the cd, and after you chroot over to your /mnt/gentoo environment, you should be able to emerge wireless-tools. My problem was that my card's drivers (Atheros based card, madwifi tools and drivers) & tools aren't on the universal cd. You might luck out, but probably not- it depends on what card you have, and what's on the gentoo cd.

Duminas · n00b Joined: 07 Sep 2005 Posts: 68

As to wireless, I have a TrendNet TEW-423PI. I can get it up and running with ndiswrapper, but I just need wireless-tools to control it, since our router doesn't act as a DHCP server (I have to configure everything manually).

I also have sources for ndiswrapper, so I should just be able to follow instructions on their site and get that installed, no?
There were some instructions on the 2005.1 documents about network interfaces I need to go back and read (I believe it had something to do with configuring the interface), but that part shouldn't be hard. Getting ndiswrapper installed and up will likely prove to be the worst.

By the way, this is somewhat unrelated, but why do I lose links after I chroot, if you've got any idea? I have to use the CD-based documentation, and that's not too fun when I lose links (but eh, the first part of the install was very pleasant, and the Live CD environment is nice and not boring to look at).

Have a good evening~

wrc1944 · Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 6:16 am Post subject:

Got curious and looked around some.
Maybe this will help:

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=6408583&forum_id=31812

Also found this on some forum page- might be out of date though, after looking at the above page.

Strengths: Price. Performance. Design.
Weaknesses: Chipset not Linux friendly.
Summary: I have been pleasantly surprised by how well this card performs. It handily outpaces pcmcia + pci adapter units I've used. An added benefit is the removeable antenna with a reverse SMA connector for coax or a high-gain screw-on antenna.
The only thing that disappointed me was the TI chipset, which has no native Linux support (note that I was unable to make it work w/ ndiswrapper either).

Summary: (Edited March 22nd by rodneypong) Installation and configuration is easy. No problem for Windows XP SP2. The included wireless utility is handy and informative.
It is based on TI TNETW1130 chipset. Linux driver should be coming. Check sourceforge.net and acx100 project for more details.
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Main box- AsRock x370 Gaming K4
Ryzen 7 3700x, 3.6GHz, 16GB GSkill Flare DDR4 3200mhz
Samsung SATA 1000GB, Radeon HD R7 350 2GB DDR5
OpenRC Gentoo ~amd64 plasma, glibc-2.36-r7, gcc-13.2.1_p20230304
kernel-6.8.4 USE=experimental python3_11

koenderoo · Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 8:16 am Post subject:

When I installed my Gentoo box a few months ago it was still under 2005.0. I am not familiar with the new 2005.1 installation, but assuming the following is still possible:

My workaround with ndiswrapper and wireless-tools was simply using emerge -fp wireless-tools and emerge -fp ndiswrapper to figure out what files where going to be downloaded. I then downloaded them on a different pc from that weblocation and placed them on a floppy. Both packages don't exceed the 1.4 Mb. I then copied the files from the floppy into the /usr/portage/distfiles map and emerged both ndiswrapper and wireless-tools.

You need to do the -fp option to know which version your snapshot wants.

And I do agree with several of you that wireless networking should be fully included on the live-cd's or maybe make a different set of ISO's with these included just for wireless users if the ISO's are to full already.

wrc1944 · Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 9:33 am Post subject:

koenderoo,
My problem was that the versions of madwifi stuff the universal 2005.1 cd wanted were not available anywhere, and I really looked- so I had to jump through some hoops with replacing the madwifi ebuild, and getting the packages into distfiles. In my case, the packages were larger than a floppy.
_________________
Main box- AsRock x370 Gaming K4
Ryzen 7 3700x, 3.6GHz, 16GB GSkill Flare DDR4 3200mhz
Samsung SATA 1000GB, Radeon HD R7 350 2GB DDR5
OpenRC Gentoo ~amd64 plasma, glibc-2.36-r7, gcc-13.2.1_p20230304
kernel-6.8.4 USE=experimental python3_11

koenderoo · Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 10:28 am Post subject:

I have a failsafe for that situation: edit the ISO of the universal CD.

AFAIK the ISO is not filled up to 700 Mb (yet) and there's a little room left open to squeez some additional files in. You may even consider dropping not needed packages from the ISO, but I would not recomment that.

I've been using a program under Windows which gave me an explorer like view of the content of the ISO and was able to change that content. I think it was called MagicISO. I think it's freeware, but am not sure.