On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 2:53 PM, Mick <[email protected]> wrote: > On Monday 26 Sep 2011 16:03:10 James Broadhead wrote: >> > On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 7:12 AM, Spidey / Claudio <[email protected]> >> > Between the Gentoo Handbook and Google >> > (... )I didn't even know there was a better way of managing wireless >> > networks! >> >> This is exactly the problem. >> >> I'm working on rewriting the Handbook's page on setting up wifi, but >> I'm going to need some time to get into the Live-Environments to test >> that my new version works :P I'll post a draft here & would appreciate >> comments before I submit the bug report. >> >> On 26 September 2011 15:51, Mick <[email protected]> wrote: >> > On the other hand reading through the examples/comments for >> > /etc/conf.d/net and wpa_supplicant.conf takes the whole of 10-20 >> > minutes. >> >> I absolutely disagree with this - while editing /etc/conf.d/net is >> fine, wpa_supplicant.conf requires a pretty solid understanding of >> both the network that you're trying to connect to, and the various >> protocols/encryption mechanisms available. Back when I was first >> trying to get wireless working on my systems, it was a major stumbling >> block. >> >> The gentoo install is pretty tough going for the average new user, >> with a lot of separate areas of new competence without getting into >> wireless (assuming that they have a reasonable understanding of >> computing to start). An additional 10-20 minutes of user intervention >> is quite significant overhead. > > I have to agree that for a beginner who needs to install Gentoo getting the > network connection going without a (major) problem or delay is quite > important. Otherwise, it can act as a disincentive of carrying on with the > installation. Therefore I would support the easy way to get there, but would > also leave the manual configuration in there - for those who need to configure > more convoluted set ups or are interested to look at what's happening under > the bonnet. > > -- > Regards, > Mick
Speaking as someone experienced in running Gentoo but certainly not a power user - I don't write scripts or program at all - I gotta say I don't like that way this is all working on my system so far. TO BE CLEAR, I am SURE that I don't have everything configured as well as it could possibly be, but I also suspect that would be true for the majority of new wireless users on Gentoo after only a day or two. My experience so far: 1) As discussed earlier, needing to mess with routes when changing which network I'm using. Sad when both options actually point to the same address. 2) If I start with wlan0 turned off and switch to root to disable eth0 and enable wlan0, I get a message that wlan0 is up but 'not active'. Indeed, as a user if I start a browser it doesn't work. However, if as root I ping the router I immediately get a response and then my browser works fine. 3) If I disable wlan0 and then reenable it it doesn't work until I restart wpa_supplicant 4) So far wpa_gui cannot find any networks, or at least doesn't display anything when I attempt a scan. I don't understand at this point how to make this work for normal users. Anyone in my family of three might want to pick this laptop up and go to a different part of the house, or even go out of the house and use the laptop with some public network. I haven't a clue yet how anyone is supposed to change networks when they aren't root. I understand that flies in the face of typical Linux security, but it seems to me that a well thought out wireless environment could figure out how to do that, and possibly has already but I haven't found the info. Anyway, I am THRILLED to have wireless working at all and appreciate all the help I got getting there. Without question I couldn't have gotten here without it. Thanks, Mark
