The configuring Network portion of the Installation guide (Gentoo Handbook) has references to setting up a wifi card using the iwconfig command. This command is not available in the live-cd environment. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.Boot into Gentoo Live-CD 2.Follow installation thru section 3 for a wifi card 3.iwconfig <wifi device> Actual Results: -bash: command not found Expected Results: The instructions should suggest the proper way to configure your wifi card which can be found at ftp://ftp.linux-wlan.org/pub/linux-wlan-ng/README The actual commands for a wifi manual setup need not include the iwconfig command. For instance for my pci card--I followed the README directions by inputing: modprobe prism2_pci wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_autojoin ssid=<your APs SSID> authtype=opensystem ifconfig wlan0 <yourIP> netmask <yourNetmask> broadcast <yourBroadcast> route add default gw <yourGateway> which succesfully configured my PCI card. I then added my nameserver per the Installation instructions and continued. Most wifi users (pcicma, usb, pci) will have to enter a varation of these commands and either a link to the wlan readme or some specifc directions should be available instead of the implied auto-config which will not work for the majority of cards. FOR PCMCIA USERS: A) Edit /etc/pcmcia/network.opts file to set up your IP settings. Note: for a station, the SSID you're connecting to will be appended to the current pcmcia scheme name. You can use this to have different IP setups for different wireless LANs you connect to (e.g. home vs. work). Note2: This only applies if you are using a stock pcmcia-cs package. Most (if not all) distros use their own mechanisms for configuring pcmcia network interfaces, and thus /etc/pcmcia/network.opts may not even be present. B) Restart pcmcia-cs with the command: /etc/rc.d/init.d/pcmcia restart C) Insert the card. For most cards, a solid LED indicates that the SSID you specified was found, a bss was joined, and the firmware completed the authenticate and associate processes. D) Run ifconfig and route to determine if your IP and route settings are listed as you wanted them. It's also a good idea to look at the file /etc/resolv.conf to see if your nameserver address has been set up correctly. FOR USB USERS: A) Make sure your kernel usb support is running B) Plug in the Prism2.x USB device C) Run 'modprobe prism2_usb prism2_doreset=1' to load the driver into memory. D) Run 'wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable' to initialize the driver+MAC functions. E) Run 'wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_autojoin ssid=<your ssid> authtype=opensystem' to enable the MAC in Infrastructure Station mode. F) Run 'ifconfig wlan0 <your IP address>' Or, you can use the provided hotplug scripts, if your distribution has hotplug support. :)
Created attachment 27903 [details, diff] WLAN Readme instructions Instructions for activating wifi cards. Modules are already compiled on the livecd and work fine for PCI cards (only card I;ve tested).
linux-wlan-ng doesn't fully implement the wireless extensions. We might support it (as you figured out) but it's not my intention on describing how to configure all possible hardware that the LiveCDs support. If the iwconfig command is missing, then this is or (1) a bug in the LiveCD, or (2) architecture-dependent. I'll ask the releng team about (1), the reason iwconfig is explained is specifically for PPC (which is (2)). I'll alter the instructions to read that iwconfig isn't available on all LiveCDs and point to the linux-wlan-ng project.
Document updated.
