[PLUG] Understanding Networking Components

[John Jason Jordan]

On Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:31:41 -0700
Russell Senior <russell at personaltelco.net> dijo:

>We don't even know for sure that the cafe Rich is going to has a
>captive portal.  They are fairly unusual in coffee shop scenarios
>these days, since small operations mostly just buy an AP and plug it
>in.  I understand that FreeGeek is using NoCatAuth (as we do), but I
>have no idea about Rich's random coffee shop.

Yet when Rich was at the last Clinic my laptop (Fedora 16) was
connected to the Free Geek wireless without a problem, and nevertheless
we failed to figure out how to get his to connect. And when I say mine
was connected without a problem, trust me when I say that I know zero
about how this stuff works. If I can get my laptop connected just by
cluelessly poking at GUI stuff, then there is something indeed strange
going on.

I have been following this thread, albeit without understanding most of
it. I do note that several command line diagnostics have been
suggested. Were Rich and I at the Clinic again we could run those
commands on my computer and his and see where they produced different
results. This might at least give us a clue where the problem lies.

I also want to thank Rich for sharing his pain with PLUG. Per aspera ad
astra (through difficulties to the stars). Tough problems are learning
experiences for everyone.