Ubuntu

Cisco Aironet CB21AG-A-K9 Help!

Asked by cdma

Hi,

I am also new to Ubuntu.

Just installed Ubuntu 6.10 in my IBM T30 Laptop. The Laptop is equipped with a Cisco Aironet CB21AG wireless card. To my surprised, I was able to connect to the internet after the installation and the the PC was rebooted.... This is fine, but I know I am not on my network, my home wireless network uses WPA security, so I must be on somebody's elses open Wi-Fi network, which I don't want to do, I want to be in my network only.

I am having a hard time configuring the Cisco card, in fact, I am not quite sure how to do it. Do I need additional SW or drivers?. Any information would be mostly appreciated.

Thanks. CDMA

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Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄
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Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey) said : 		#1

NetworkManager is a nice tool for managing connections to your (and other peoples :) ) wireless access points.. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/NetworkManager

I believe it supports WPA but haven't used that part myself.

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cdma (jferro) said : 		#2

Thanks Alan,

After a couple of tries and reboots NetworkManager was able to allow me in my network using WPA, the only issue I have is that the signal strength is very low (~30%), when the Cisco card is in my other Windows XP T-30, the signal strength is about 100%, so it seems my Cisco Wi-Fi card may not be configured properly, it must be in some default sate. Do you know where to look to find the card and check is configuration or know of any application that could help configure the card for optimal performance.

BR,
CDMA

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Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey) said : 		#3

Oh that's good news so far.

I'm sorry I don't know of any "Make it go faster" switches you can flick I'm afraid. Is the signal strength it's reporting actually affecting the bandwidth between you and your base station though? I know it's always nice to see a full 100% bar, but if you're still getting the maximum that your card will go, does it matter. That's just my personal point of view.

If you open a terminal with Applications --> Accessories --> Terminal and then type the following command:-

iwconfig

Do you see a "Bit Rate" that you would expect? You should also see a value for "Link Quality" in there.

It's also possible that the driver under Linux cannot read the signal level correctly or even at all, and is actually erroneously reporting the value the card gives. A friend of mine reports that he used to get 110% signal rate under Linux for one wireless card - because it didn't actually give the right value.

So personally, I'd take that value with a pinch of salt. It may well just be wrong, and you have the best wireless setup in the world ;)

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cdma (jferro) said : 		#4

Hi Alan,

I agree with you. I think the issue is related to the way the signal strength is being reported, I did a few speed tests around that house and did not seem to matter and never lost the connection. Also checked the link quality as you suggested and it shows on average 60 to 100% good depending how close or far away I am from the router, I consider this normal behaviour.

I did the "iwconfig" command and everything seems good (good command to know!), I will add this to my new linux command library.

I think this request has been answer properly and in a timely matter. I thank you for that.

Hope you have a good Thanksgiving break (if you are taking one).

Br, CDMA

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Douglas Liudahl (dwliudahl) said : 		#5

My name is Doug Liudahl and I'm new to Linux. I have just gotten a nice new Toshiba laptop. I am so surprised to find how hard it is to find out where to get drivers for the equipment on my laptop. I installed a SuSE version of Linux on my laptop and while it would recognized a CD it would not recognize a DVD. My sound and video cards aren't on the the support list on the computer so I have no sound nor will I ever. I have decided that unless I have the drivers for my equipment first I won't be installing any Linux distributions.
I just got out of a nice little situation where my BIOS got flash and my computer would got to grub. Appearantly my MBR got messed up too. I had to learn how to boot my computer's OS from grub. It's surprising how little information there is out there on grub.
Anyway I need to find out where to get the drivers for Linux.