Had to save myself

I decided to take a break from the WPA problems and move onto something that I can fix. I think I'm getting frustrated. So I decided to tackle the display. The display is capable of doing 1280x800 and that's what I want. So I had to do some research.

Found that by using 915resolution I can trick the system into having this available to me. So I download and install without a hitch. I then run

# 915resolution 38 1280 800

and it displays the correct resolutions being available. I get out of X and restart it and I can't select the resolution. I figure it must need to be rebooted, so I put the above line in my /etc/rc.d/rc.local file and reboot.

Still can't get the right resolution. I then find that /etc/X11/xorg.conf controls the available resolutions. So I change this file to include my resolution. I also decide that my depth should go to 32 as well. Well, this is a mistake. I reboot and X starts to come up and fails. Says it's not supported and I need to correct the problem. But the real problem is it won't allow me to log in to correct it.

Luckily I have a SLAX CD and I was able to boot off that to correct my file. It's really cool to be able to do this. I always knew I could do it, but didn't know how. Messing with Linux has made it possible for me to be a better all around tech. Now I should be able to correct just about any issues on the machines.

But back to the current problem. I see there are other xorg.conf files in that directory. For instance, there's one for VESA. Since my machine occasionally says that it's showing VESA, I changes that file. Still nothing. I'm going to have to do more research on how to get the display correct. Hopefully by the time I'm back to school, I'll be up and running just fine.

I'm on-line

Yesterday I installed Zenwalk and thought that today I'd get the wireless configured and running. Well, that's happened. I can get online on my network, but only if all security is turned off. I need to figure out how to get it running in a secure way. Today's Blog focuses on how I've gotten to this point.

First, I installed Zenwalk. I was able to find a couple posts that basically stepped me through setting up the wireless card. These were on Slackplanet and on LinuxQuestions forums. I'll restate them here.

First, apparently Zenwalk does not include the kernel source on the CD. No big deal with the fast connection. So after getting booted up and online with the ethernet cable, I needed to get the source downloaded. Netpkg is really cool. I just launched that and selected the kernel-source that matched my kernel. Five minutes later and I was ready to go on.

Now I needed to download and install the software for my wireless card. I needed the Linux Tools v28. Also the ipw2200-1.0.8 drivers. Finally, I needed the ipw2200 firmware.

I put this all into the /usr/src/work directory, then the following.

A. cd /usr/src/work
B. tar zxvf [pathtopackage]ieee80211-[ver].tar.gz
C. cd ieee80211*
D. make
E. su -
F. make install
G. cd ../ && tar zxvf ipw2200-[ver].tar.gz && cd ipw* && make
H. su -
I. make install
J. cd /lib/firmware && tar zxvf [pathtopackage]/ipw-fw-2200-[ver].tar.gz
I. modprobe ipw2200

This got my wireless card up and running. It connected me right up to my neighbor's network. Not exactly what I wanted, but that would do for now. I found the next page that told how to configure WAP which I'm running on my network. So I did the following.

WPA-PSK

This is the security that my WAP offers, it�s a lot better than WEP but needs a helper daemon to work: WPA Supplicant. Download it to your /usr/src/ directory if you want, or wherever you store your source files. Unzip the archive and peer inside:

tar -xzf wpa*
cd wpa*

The README file contains lots of interesting information about WPA, but really you just need to head to the bit that tells you how to create the .config file that it uses to build wpa_supplicant to your�well�configuration. If you just want to use WPA-PSK then you�ll might be able to make do with my .config file. I�m not sure what the hell most of it means, but it works:

CONFIG_DRIVER_WEXT=y
# CONFIG_DRIVER_BSD=y
# CONFIG_DRIVER_NDIS=y
CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXTENSION=y
CONFIG_IEEE8021X_EAPOL=y
CONFIG_EAP_MD5=y
CONFIG_EAP_MSCHAPV2=y
CONFIG_EAP_TLS=y
CONFIG_EAP_PEAP=y
CONFIG_EAP_TTLS=y
CONFIG_EAP_GTC=y
CONFIG_EAP_OTP=y
# CONFIG_EAP_SIM=y
# CONFIG_EAP_AKA=y
CONFIG_EAP_PSK=y
CONFIG_EAP_PAX=y
CONFIG_EAP_LEAP=y
# CONFIG_PCSC=y

Though what I do know is that you have to remove or comment out anything that�s like this: CONFIG_DRIVER_IPW. Just make sure you have CONFIG_DRIVER_WEXT=y as above. So copy and paste all of that, or make your own configuration file, and install it:

touch .config
pico .config (i.e. put some stuff in it)
make
make install

This will install the daemon and some other things to /usr/local/sbin. Now to generate the string that your wireless adapter will beam out to your WAP for authentication. When you administered your WAP you�ll remember that you set a Network Key for WPK-PSK to use. For instance when I log into my WAP I go to the field that says �Network Key (8 ~ 63 characters)� and there�s my key. You�ll need this number in a minute.

You�re nearly there! Load up a terminal and type the following as root:

/usr/local/sbin/wpa_passphrase your SSID here copy + paste your network key here;

The SSID is the what you called your network (Wireless_Broadband in my case). The other bit is that number I told you�d need in a minute (the minute being now). This will generate a configuration file in this format:

network={
ssid="Your_Network"
#psk="Your_Network_Key"
psk="your very long string"
}

Now make the actual configuration file in /etc/:

touch /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
pico /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf (insert the output from wpa_passphrase)

You should be able to connect to your WAP now! Ergh, what�s that? You want to know how to do that? Ok� this is what does it for me:

ifconfig eth1 up
wpa_supplicant -ieth1 -Dwext -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf &
dhcpcd -h 192.168.0.1 -G 255.255.255.0 eth1
route add default gw 192.168.0.1
iptables-restore < /etc/firewall.conf

You�ll possibly have to edit the following: the eth1 interface name, the dhcpcd bit (I use DHCP�and I know Debian doesn�t use dhcpcd) and the firewall bit, though you should have one configured. ;)

There, that�s it. I hope you find the above somewhat useful. Remember that Google is your friend and that�s where I found all the information above. Oh, and when I did it I had to use a patch to get it to broadcast DHCP packets! So count yourselves lucky that you�re doing all this now and not a few months back when I didn�t know why the fudge I couldn�t get an IP address!

I'm still not on the Internet with my network and WAP. I did disable my WAP to see if I was able to use it and I could without any problems. Turn on WAP and I get errors like it's not accepting the keys. I'm sure that I have the right keys.

So, now I'm temporarily at a standstill. I'll get back to work on this tomorrow.

Zenwalk is installed

I finished my courses and felt confident to install Zenwalk. So far so good. I was able to partition the drive and load up Linux. I was even able to go online to post what I did.

Started with the partitioning.

hda1 FAT32 sharing between OS
hda2 ntfs Windows XP
hda5 / Zenwalk
hda6 none Will be loaded when I decide on another distro to use
hda7 /home
hda3 /swap

Notice that hda6 has not been loaded up. This is for future use. I want to be able to use this partition for some other distro. I will probably load Slackware onto this partition to do some studying how Linux works. I could use Linux From Scratch, but I'm not entirely sure I'm ready for that.

I rebooted the system and got right into Zenwalk. I played around a little and rebooted. Upon coming up to select XP, it told me I needed to remove the disk and reboot. I didn't have any disk in the drive. Didn't take too long to find that the installer set up lilo to boot from hda1. If you look at the partition table above, you'll notice that XP is on hda2. So I editted /etc/lilo.conf and ran lilo. Rebooted and came right into XP.

I found that Zenwalk set up my touch pad automatically. It also allowed me to connect up an ethernet cable and get right online.

What's not working yet? Well, the wireless card isn't working yet. I need to download the drivers and get that all set up. That will be another entry to this Blog. Another problem is this laptop has a nice bright screen that shows great in 1280 x 800. But Zenwalk only will go to 1024 x 768 or something along those lines. I really think that's all I need to configure.

I'm not going to check out the modem. I don't use that anymore, so I don't care if it's supported or not. I will need to write up a nice page on setting this up. I really want to give something back to the community.

Zen may be the way

Class is just about over, so I'll be wiping my drive soon. I've decided to wipe the entire thing. I haven't decided on a partition plan yet, but I think I'll wipe the restore partition. Then it's a partition for XP, one for Linux and a swap partition. I'm undecided on the sizes, but I believe I'll be creating a separate home partition. I can see myself using several distros.

That brings me to the distro. I'd like to use Slackware, but I want to have something that basically sets itself up. I'll be using Zenwalk which is based on Slackware. It's supposed to be really fast. It also installs with the 2.6 kernel so I'll be able to use my wireless. I need to burn some CDs with my school work on it, but it will also have to include some additional software. For instance, I read that the 2200BG is not built into the distro, so I'll have to download that and put it to CD.

I find it strange that my post to the forum that didn't get answered. It's been a bit over a day and nobody has responded. That's kind of disturbing. Linux is user supported, and it's supposed to be easy to get answers from fellow users. If that doesn't happen, this might not turn out to be my distro.