wireless in linux

wireless in linux

[Heyendal, Carl]

I'm a somewhat of a newbie to Linux. So far I have been impressed with the information that I have been able to readily find to get things done in Linux amongst all the reference books, on-line tutorials, and various Linux communities. However wireless in Linux has been a different story.

A few weeks ago I was asked to provide wireless functionality for an embedded system. A simple USB wireless adapter to connect to an access point was all. I thought it shouldn't be too much of a challenge. However adding wireless capability has truly been a formidable challenge. I'm still not there yet. I'm staring right now at the latest wpa_supplicant readme with all the choices that I need to make. I'll be lucky if it works. It's really been a piece-meal effort so far. 

The only information I can find is very limited to it's context and is geared to individuals who have intimate knowledge of Linux wireless. How does one get up to speed with wireless-linux with the apparent lack of good general information regarding what's needed in a wireless linux kernel? 

Are there any reference books, tutorials, howto's, wireless enabled kernels...anything that someone can point me to that would help?

/carl

Re: wireless in linux

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Heyendal, Carl
<CHeyendal@stanleyworks.com> wrote:
>
> I'm a somewhat of a newbie to Linux. So far I have been impressed with the information that I have been able to readily find to get things done in Linux amongst all the reference books, on-line tutorials, and various Linux communities. However wireless in Linux has been a different story.
>
> A few weeks ago I was asked to provide wireless functionality for an embedded system. A simple USB wireless adapter to connect to an access point was all. I thought it shouldn't be too much of a challenge. However adding wireless capability has truly been a formidable challenge. I'm still not there yet. I'm staring right now at the latest wpa_supplicant readme with all the choices that I need to make. I'll be lucky if it works. It's really been a piece-meal effort so far.
>
> The only information I can find is very limited to it's context and is geared to individuals who have intimate knowledge of Linux wireless. How does one get up to speed with wireless-linux with the apparent lack of good general information regarding what's needed in a wireless linux kernel?
>
> Are there any reference books, tutorials, howto's, wireless enabled kernels...anything that someone can point me to that would help?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Linux+wireless

  Luis

Re: wireless in linux

[Larry Finger]

On 11/30/2010 04:16 PM, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:

> http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Linux+wireless

Good one.

I have a separate question about compat-wireless. I need to backport to kernel
2.6.21. I have fixed most of the problems, but I'm stuck on the case where
something has been added to a struct since that kernel. I looked at all the
compat-XXX patches, but I don't see what has been done previously. Is that
written up somewhere, or is there a prescription?

Thanks,

Larry

RE: wireless in linux

[Heyendal, Carl]

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Luis R. Rodriguez [mailto:mcgrof@gmail.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 5:16 PM
> To: Heyendal, Carl
> Cc: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: Re: wireless in linux
> 
> On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Heyendal, Carl 
> <CHeyendal@stanleyworks.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'm a somewhat of a newbie to Linux. So far I have been 
> impressed with the information that I have been able to 
> readily find to get things done in Linux amongst all the 
> reference books, on-line tutorials, and various Linux 
> communities. However wireless in Linux has been a different story.
> >
> > A few weeks ago I was asked to provide wireless 
> functionality for an embedded system. A simple USB wireless 
> adapter to connect to an access point was all. I thought it 
> shouldn't be too much of a challenge. However adding wireless 
> capability has truly been a formidable challenge. I'm still 
> not there yet. I'm staring right now at the latest 
> wpa_supplicant readme with all the choices that I need to 
> make. I'll be lucky if it works. It's really been a 
> piece-meal effort so far.
> >
> > The only information I can find is very limited to it's 
> context and is geared to individuals who have intimate 
> knowledge of Linux wireless. How does one get up to speed 
> with wireless-linux with the apparent lack of good general 
> information regarding what's needed in a wireless linux kernel?
> >
> > Are there any reference books, tutorials, howto's, wireless 
> enabled kernels...anything that someone can point me to that 
> would help?
> 
> http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Linux+wireless
> 
>   Luis
> 
> 

Yes. Ha-ha. To bad there's nothing good out there for newbs.

RE: wireless in linux

[Heyendal, Carl]

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Luis R. Rodriguez [mailto:mcgrof@gmail.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 5:16 PM
> To: Heyendal, Carl
> Cc: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: Re: wireless in linux
> 
> On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Heyendal, Carl 
> <CHeyendal@stanleyworks.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'm a somewhat of a newbie to Linux. So far I have been 
> impressed with the information that I have been able to 
> readily find to get things done in Linux amongst all the 
> reference books, on-line tutorials, and various Linux 
> communities. However wireless in Linux has been a different story.
> >
> > A few weeks ago I was asked to provide wireless 
> functionality for an embedded system. A simple USB wireless 
> adapter to connect to an access point was all. I thought it 
> shouldn't be too much of a challenge. However adding wireless 
> capability has truly been a formidable challenge. I'm still 
> not there yet. I'm staring right now at the latest 
> wpa_supplicant readme with all the choices that I need to 
> make. I'll be lucky if it works. It's really been a 
> piece-meal effort so far.
> >
> > The only information I can find is very limited to it's 
> context and is geared to individuals who have intimate 
> knowledge of Linux wireless. How does one get up to speed 
> with wireless-linux with the apparent lack of good general 
> information regarding what's needed in a wireless linux kernel?
> >
> > Are there any reference books, tutorials, howto's, wireless 
> enabled kernels...anything that someone can point me to that 
> would help?
> 
> http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Linux+wireless
> 
>   Luis
> 
> 

This is more what I was complaining about.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22linux%20wireless%20for%20newbs%22

;-)

Re: wireless in linux

[Holger Schurig]

> I'm staring right now at the latest wpa_supplicant readme with all the
> choices that I need to make. I'll be lucky if it works. It's really been
> a piece-meal effort so far.

This has nothing to do with being a newby. Newbies use distributions. Go and 
install Fedora, SuSE, Ubuntu, whatever. They compiled wpa_supplicant for 
you.

Okay, I see that you work in the embedded space. Maybe I can point to to 
bitbake and www.openembedded.org?  Here there's a recipe that cross-compiles 
wpa_supplicant for you. While OpenEmbedded itself isn't something for 
newbies, using it takes away some of the decision-making ("Which config 
option do I need?" from you.

But I wouldn't call any embedded work a work for a newbie ...


> Are there any reference books, tutorials, howto's, wireless enabled
> kernels...anything that someone can point me to that would help?

http://wireless.kernel.org

For wpa_supplicant questions, even when it comes to compiling, try the 
hostap mailing list. This list covers both hostap and wpa_supplicant.


BTW, I agree that queries like "Linux wireless introduction" or "Linux 
wireless HOWTO" will reveal lot's of outdated stuff.

-- 
http://www.holgerschurig.de