[nflug] [Fwd: [social] Wireless Networking in Linux - Redux]

Thu Oct 20 14:26:43 EDT 2005

I was hoping you'd chime in! :-D  Thanks for the advice, and sort of 
confirmation that it's not to be undertaken lightly. I just wish I was 
competent enough to help this guy!
-Greg

Cyber Source wrote:

> I really have not had much (if any) trouble with wireless in Linux and 
> I find it to be extremely stable when running. I have had zero 
> problems with PCI cards and the only time I have had troubles was with 
> USB wireless (impossible). If native drivers aren't available then the 
> ndiswrapper is an easy, workable solution. No, installing one is not 
> an exercise for a Linux newbie, but plenty of help is around (nflug). 
> The wpa, wep stuff can be a drawback if it's not supported for your 
> card as this will leave you to open up your router a little more but 
> it's really not a concern for Linux boxes and there are other ways to 
> tighten up your router (static ip's, limited number allowed, etc.) so 
> windows boxes might be a little more secure (if that's possible ;) ).
>
> anthonyriga wrote:
>
>> Yea I know your pain. I have some sucess with Knoppix
>> and wireless, But you are right its a nightmare
>> getting wireless to work . Drivers are the big issue.
>> --- Greg Neumann <DadNeumann at verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>  
>>
>>> Just for comments:
>>> This poor guy's been fighting this for awhile. My
>>> instinct is that hardware is the core of his issue. Windows specific
>>> hardware has always been a nightmare for Linux. Any comments or ideas??
>>>
>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>> Subject:     [social] Wireless Networking in Linux -
>>> Redux
>>> Date:     Wed, 19 Oct 2005 11:57:44 -0500
>>> From:     Rod Engelsman
>>> Reply-To:     social at openoffice.org
>>> To:     social at openoffice.org
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Gentlemen, Comrades, Friends, and Associates:
>>>
>>>   I have a statement to make that you will all
>>> probably find provocative -- perhaps even offensive -- but I
>>> believe it is true nonetheless.
>>>
>>> "At the current state of the art, the Linux
>>> operating system is a security hazard when employed on computers
>>> communicating via wireless networks."
>>>
>>> Which is to say, unless you are a) very lucky or
>>> very careful in selecting hardware, b) reasonably proficient with
>>> the command line and configuration scripts, and c) willing to do a 
>>> BUNCH
>>> of homework and experimentation, setting up a secure wireless
>>> network is probably beyond your capabilities and may be entirely 
>>> impossible.
>>>
>>> We all know that an unsecured network is... well,
>>> insecure, duh. And WEP is easily broken with modern hardware and freely
>>> available GNU/Linux hacker tools. The only decent wireless security is
>>> some flavor of WPA, preferably WPA-RADIUS with 802.1x authentication.
>>> This provides 256-bit encryption with rotating keys and centralized
>>> challenge-response authentication. For home users WPA-PSK (which
>>> utilizes pre-set keys for authentication, rather than a central 
>>> server) is
>>> reasonably secure.
>>>
>>> I have three computers in the house -- four if you
>>> count this dual-boot box as two, which it is in a very real sense, 
>>> since
>>> what is a computer without an OS? A Dell laptop that came with a
>>> wireless card, a Toshiba laptop that I stuck a Linksys card into, 
>>> and this
>>> box with a D-Link wireless pci card. The Dell runs XP and the Toshiba
>>> runs FC4. The dual boot box runs both.
>>>
>>> Frankly, it was enough of a trick just to get the
>>> wireless cards working at all under Linux. Fortunately, the D-Link 
>>> card has
>>> an Atheros chipset so it will work with mad-wifi. I "only" had to
>>> install a custom kernel and screw around for half a day to get WEP 
>>> to work.
>>>
>>> The Toshiba required a distro with ndiswrapper to
>>> use the Windows drivers since there are no Linux drivers for that
>>> card. First I tried Ark Linux. That would only get a little way through
>>> the install before it would eject the cdrom and reboot for no apparent
>>> reason -- it's now a shiny coaster. Then I tried Mepis. I got it to
>>> actually install the drivers and it worked unsecured, but for some odd
>>> reason every time I would log into KDE it would launch three -- not 1,
>>> not 2, but 3 -- instances of KWiFiManager that would sit there and
>>> blink and tell me it couldn't connect, even though I could close 
>>> them out
>>> and use Firefox just fine. Weird.
>>>
>>> So I got tired of trying to figure out where Mepis
>>> keeps the config files -- what little I know of Linux is
>>> Redhat/Fedora -- and then the stupid thing totally locked up on me, 
>>> for about the
>>> 5th time -- requiring a power-off reboot. Got out my FC4 discs
>>> and installed something I halfway understand. Then I had to
>>> sneakernet a few packages over to it and got the wireless working --
>>> unsecured. Let it do about 198 updates -- no exaggeration -- and 
>>> then installed
>>> ndiswrapper and wpa_supplicant from ATRPMs. I have spent probably a
>>> week and a half now Googling, asking around on newsgroups, and studying
>>> the sample config files, etc. trying to get this all to work together.
>>>
>>> And that's where I stand. I'm not an expert at
>>> Linux, but I'm also not stupid, and I actually DO know a thing or 
>>> two about
>>> networking. This is just too hard, too convoluted, too poorly
>>> documented, and consists of entirely too many moving parts. I have 
>>> to face the
>>> reality that this particular combination of hardware, software, and
>>> protocols simply may not be capable of functioning.
>>>
>>> Wireless networking is not particularly new. It's
>>> not an odd corner of computing that one should maybe expect to have
>>> trouble with. How many people out there have laptops that they would 
>>> like
>>> to connect wirelessly to the Internet? More and more every day. The 
>>> Linux
>>> community HAS to get a better handle on this.
>>>
>>> It baffles me why some of the major distributions
>>> don't tackle this head on.
>>>
>>> Rod
>>>
>>> BTW, it takes all of about 10 minutes, tops, to set
>>> up a secure wireless network with "that other" OS.
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> nflug at nflug.org
>>> http://www.nflug.org/mailman/listinfo/nflug
>>>
>>>   
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>     
>>        
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