Update (070410): Looks like the wireless settings in Ubuntu have been updated again. Now you can use WPA 1 or 2 (enterprise or personal) as well as the previous options. That’s good, because Windows could not successfully transfer data with my router set to use WEP (which is not all that secure) and I didn’t have any luck with online “you’re an idiot, click here” tutorials. It would always connect with “Limited or no connectivity.” I’ve changed the router back to WPA and Ubuntu and XP are both connecting with no hassles.
I’ve been running Ubuntu 6.10 on my desktop for a few months now and have been extremely pleased with it. Unfortunately, I have to keep Windows on my laptop (in one form or another) to test web pages with IE6, so I haven’t just wiped the drive and put Ubuntu on it. I did try to play around with 6.10′s live CD on my laptop though, and I found that it didn’t quite support my wireless card properly. Fortunately, one of the big features of 7.04 (which is currently in Beta) is the upgrade to accessibility for wireless connections.
I am a bit skeptical about installing a Beta operating system on my laptop, because it’s my main computer and I don’t really want to worry about Windows having any more trouble than it already does if the install process goes bad. The Ubuntu ISO creates a CD that can be booted from to test out the operating system, though, and I took advantage of that. After playing around a little bit, I’ve found that the wireless connection works! I had to change the encryption method at the router, but I finally had success. Assuming the router is already setup in a manner that Ubuntu can use (e.g., no encryption or WEP), accessing a wireless network is extremely easy. For whatever reason, I couldn’t take a screenshot with the network list open, so I resorted to my ancient digital camera.
I will now eat some pizza and install Ubuntu. If you don’t hear back from me in 3 days, it’s because I am too lazy to post/eagerly trying out the new Ubuntu. If it’s much longer than that, the entire Internet “fad” must have gone away…
For those who want to try Ubuntu, but aren’t too keen on Beta software either, you can install the “old” version (6.10) and it will let you know when 7.x has been released, so you can automatically upgrade.
I’ll most likely be installing Ubuntu in the near future, so it’s good to know I’ll have someone to turn to for advice if things go wrong
Haha, sure, I can give advice, but I make no guarantee about the quality of that advice! Most things seem easy in Ubuntu so far, but I ran into a problem getting the right resolution on my laptop (uses a Radeon Mobile X1400). After 2-3 hours of searching and trying a lot of things that didn’t work, I finally came across the easy answer (that took only a few minutes). It seems that ATI isn’t always the best at driver support, but there is always that hole-in-the-wall Linux site that has all the answers.
Hiya Gordaen,
I’ve had quite a bit of experience with Debian/Ubuntu and getting WPA going. Been a couple months, but IIRC, the easiest way in Ubuntu is using network-manager, and wpasupplicant (wpa support should’ve been installed by default I think, if not just do “apt-get install network-manager network-manager-gnome wpasupplicant”). Disable Ubuntu’s default network manager, and then do a reboot to activate network-manager. When you log back in, you should see the applet that looks pretty similar to the default. I believe when you right click the applet, you get a menu option to configure a WPA network (might have to select your wireless interface first). Enter your wireless config and it should just connect right up! When you plug in ethernet, it should auto disable your wireless, and switch to ethernet… might be kinda bothersome if you want to use the laptop as a router. Hope this helps!
PS: Long time no see!
Jesse Murphy (aka Saxis)
Wow, long time no see indeed! It’s good to hear from you. Is everyone using Linux these days? Have you been testing the beta version of Ubuntu 7.x? I hadn’t seen any WPA settings previously, but this morning I grabbed the latest updates and when playing around with the wireless settings, I saw the options for WPA and it was a pain-free setup. I’m not sure if the settings have always been there and I’ve just been blind, if the updates this morning added the settings, or if I put in the Konami code, but it works! I’ve seen a few different recommendations for packages that make (wireless) networking a lot easier in Ubuntu, but I’m glad that they are working on the “out of the box” experience.
An interesting thing to note is that when I was having such trouble getting Windows to pass data when connected to the router using WEP, I started to type “windows wep…” into the Firefox search box and all of the suggestions were for cracking that form of encryption. I knew of its limitations, but sheesh!
Yeah, I haven’t done much in the 7.04 Fiesty release yet, aside from playing around a bit on the live CD on a desktop, sans wireless. My NetworkManager suggestion is more for 6.10 Edgy. I knew better WPA support was something they were working on, but I’ve been keeping my work laptop away from Linux after my last HDD failure (and we just have too much Win-only software/hardware to warrant a Linux install).
I also gave up on WEP. Same kind of problems you were having with routers. I switched all of the wireless networks at work and home to WPA, and also reconfigured the routers to act as a WAP, disabling routing and DHCP. Most routers do not “officially” support this, but almost any will do it without problems. This makes things cleaner if you have some other gateway or firewall appliance in front of your wireless router. Usually consists of unplugging the WAN port, set the router’s LAN interface to a static address on your gateway’s LAN, disable routing, disable DHCP, plug the old WAN cable into one of the LAN ports of the router, save changes, let it reboot or whatever it has to do and viola, you have yourself a WAP! Now your wireless devices should draw an IP from your gateway/firewall (assuming DHCP has been setup there). If you want to further restrict wireless devices at your router, this is probably not the best solution, as the router’s firewall rules probably won’t apply to packets no longer leaving the LAN… For most home users, I couldn’t see why they’d want to restrict access specifically for wireless devices. This was a good solution at my work though, where I already have 5 LANs to manage. I didn’t need to DOUBLE that number with a new LAN for every wireless router. I also had no reason to restrict our laptops futher than what our gateway/firewall already does. No need to be the IT Admin at the Department of Redundancy Department.