[PLUG-TALK] USB WiFi

Rich Shepard rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Sun Oct 5 15:18:58 UTC 2008


On Sat, 4 Oct 2008, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

> You need to supply a key if the access point has WEP or WPA encryption
> enabled.

Ed,

   That's what I thought. At the motel (with the failed DNS server)
encryption was off; at the Civic Center it was on and I didn't try to get an
IP address because I had no key.

> Yeah, they're pretty cryptic ... if you actually had Internet connectivity
> you could Google for them. :)

   Yup. That's the problem, all right.

> Small Nevada towns have wireless? Are we talking like Denio Junction?
> Fernley? Fallon? Winnemucca? Heck, I've had Linux wireless problems in
> *hotels* in *Denver* and *Salt Lake City*. :)

   Not been at Denio yet, but expect to be in the foreseeable future.
Winnemucca is not a small town, and the motels I stay in there have wired,
DSL connections. Last year it was in Lovelock where I could not get an IP
address even sitting 7 feet from one of the access points hung under the
motel porch roof. This year it was in Battle Mountain. Those are small
towns, along with Eureka and Austin. OTOH, I had wireless problems in the
Corvallis hotel where I'd stay during IMST meetings.

> Try talking to the wireless tech support person without Windows and you'll
> find you're helpless. :)

   Well, that's a direct consequence of them being helpless themselves.
However, the issue of those with Microsoft certification thinking themselves
much more knowledgeable and competent than they really are is for another
time and place. :-)

> BTW, that Belkin driver required a binary firmware download on Gentoo
> Linux. I didn't do any digging when it was running openSUSE because it was
> working, but I assume it required that as well. And I found this out by
> running things in debug mode and looking the error messages up on Google.

   If the issue is not my wireless card then there's no sense in purchasing
another device.

Many thanks for the education,

Rich

-- 
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.               |  Integrity            Credibility
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.        |            Innovation
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com>     Voice: 503-667-4517      Fax: 503-667-8863



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