Wireless Laptop loses some settings

My laptop integrated Ethernet port having given up the ghost, I've resorted
to using wireless. On XP, all is OK, generally, but on Linux, OpenSuse
10.2, it's been a battle.

I'm using ndiswrapper 1.43, and eventually got the cardbus Linksys wpc54g
working, although not 100% OK. Then I tried a couple of usb devices. The
easiest to install was a Belkin F5D7050A. Each can be made to work.

However, following a reboot, neither is fully configured. One or other will
have lost either its essid or its wep key. Checking with Yast, the settings
look OK, but they're not being retained and have to be manually re-entered.

Then, route also is getting lost. On typing route, there can be a long
delay before the settings are output, and the gateway keeps getting lost.

Does anyone have any clues, please?

(Apologies if my cross-posting is incorrect)

Thanks

Allan

allan wrote:
> Then, route also is getting lost. On typing route, there can be a long
> delay before the settings are output, and the gateway keeps getting lost.

If your (wireless) connection to the internet is down, you will see long
delay running `route` with no options as it tries to do DNS lookups to
resolv the IP addresses in its output. If you run `route -n` instead, it
will forego the DNS lookups and will output the routing table quickly.

"allan" <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

>My laptop integrated Ethernet port having given up the ghost, I've resorted
>to using wireless. On XP, all is OK, generally, but on Linux, OpenSuse
>10.2, it's been a battle.

>I'm using ndiswrapper 1.43, and eventually got the cardbus Linksys wpc54g
>working, although not 100% OK. Then I tried a couple of usb devices. The
>easiest to install was a Belkin F5D7050A. Each can be made to work.

>However, following a reboot, neither is fully configured. One or other will
>have lost either its essid or its wep key. Checking with Yast, the settings
>look OK, but they're not being retained and have to be manually re-entered.

Neither will be retained automatically. Your particlular distro may
remember them somewhere but ingeneral you need to do it. On Mandriva/redhat
it is in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 ( or whatever your
wireless is)


>Then, route also is getting lost. On typing route, there can be a long
>delay before the settings are output, and the gateway keeps getting lost.

route -n
You are waiting for dns server.


>Does anyone have any clues, please?

>(Apologies if my cross-posting is incorrect)

>Thanks

>Allan

"Unruh" <unruh-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:TrK1i.9494$V75.8577@edtnps89...
> "allan" <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
>
>>My laptop integrated Ethernet port having given up the ghost, I've
>>resorted
>>to using wireless. On XP, all is OK, generally, but on Linux, OpenSuse
>>10.2, it's been a battle.
>
>>I'm using ndiswrapper 1.43, and eventually got the cardbus Linksys wpc54g
>>working, although not 100% OK. Then I tried a couple of usb devices. The
>>easiest to install was a Belkin F5D7050A. Each can be made to work.
>
>>However, following a reboot, neither is fully configured. One or other
>>will
>>have lost either its essid or its wep key. Checking with Yast, the
>>settings
>>look OK, but they're not being retained and have to be manually
>>re-entered.
>
> Neither will be retained automatically. Your particlular distro may
> remember them somewhere but ingeneral you need to do it. On
> Mandriva/redhat
> it is in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 ( or whatever your
> wireless is)
>
>
>>Then, route also is getting lost. On typing route, there can be a long
>>delay before the settings are output, and the gateway keeps getting lost.
>
> route -n
> You are waiting for dns server.
>
>
>>Does anyone have any clues, please?
>
>>(Apologies if my cross-posting is incorrect)
>
>>Thanks
>
>>Allan
>
>

Many thanks Unruh and Paul

>You are waiting for dns server.

Yes, that makes some sense. The basic problem was the dropping of the
default gateway setting. That may have been related to the other settings
problems.

I eventually noticed that during the boot, the usb adapter was being flagged
as not configured, this tying in with ifconfig not showing it. It was in
fact configured, but I twigged that it was not correctly identified. While
I'd been trying to find how to configure a usb adapter, I'd read that
someone had had to use the usb bus id, which is what I did. So, instead I
used wlan2 and that fixed that problem.

Then, I was having slow response, which cleared when I deconfigured either
one of the two wireless adapters. I don't know if only one is allowed. I
suspect not, but just one is fine for me.

Things seem much better now.

Thanks

Allan