Wireless Networking

[opiumJ]

Apologies if the question is most basic:

I managed to isntall Gentoo using the LiveCD - but at stage 1 I could not get the laptop to pick up the wireless connection. So I plugged an ethernet cable in, went to net-setup, and bang...working fine.

So I finished the install, emerged gnome, then emerged wicd to try and connect wirelessly.

My laptop will not pick up any wireless networks. At all.
I unplug the ethernet cable and click refresh and still, wicd can't find any wireless networks.

ifconfig -a shows:

[gentoo_dude]

You need to setup up wpa_supplicant if you use encryption. wpa_gui is good to manage the wireless connections from a gui interface.
Also to start the wireless link net.lo to net.wlan0, just as net.eth0 is, and then add net.wlan0 to default runlevel using rc-update.

[chithanh]

wicd should be able to configure wpa_supplicant properly. Maybe you have an rfkill related problem. emerge rfkill and see if your wireless needs to be unblocked.

Also don't run both Gentoo net scripts and wicd at the same time. They will fight over the network devices and not give you a working connection.

[derk]

also if using wicd do not use the wpa_supllicant or the dhcpcd init.d scripts as wicd calls those programs directly .. as needed

[opiumJ]

Sorry - I'm not really understanding what to do.

I don't know how to link net.wlan0 and net.lo.

It seems that all the sites I look at are asking to do different things. I have the following info and that's all I know really

[Hu]

Link net.wlan0 to net.lo the same way you set up your other network cards: cd /etc/init.d && ln -s net.lo net.wlan0.

Are you sure that you need the proprietary Broadcom driver? Many, though not all, of their chipsets are supported by the mainline kernel.