7. Checking things in case they don't work

1. Be sure to type

ifconfig

You should something like this

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:06:25:A8:AE:64
          inet addr:192.168.1.104  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:35197 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:57676 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:43386657 (41.3 MiB)  TX bytes:2670811 (2.5 MiB)
          Interrupt:3 Base address:0x100

The keys point here are that inet addr:has a real IP address, and that Bcast and Netmask are set up such that they are on the same "wave-length" as your Wireless Access Point.

2. If you don't, you might have had the same problem i did which was that there was no easy script to initiate the wlan0 device setup. That is to say, if the card was recognized but you still did not get a connection and say that ifconfig showed wlan0 present but with no IP address. In other words, you might see something like this:

text:/home/dude# ifconfig

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:700 (700.0 b)  TX bytes:700 (700.0 b)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:06:25:A8:AE:64
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:46 (46.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:3 Base address:0x100

As you can see, the interface device, the Wireless pcmcia card, is noted, but there is no inet addr. The pcmcia software recognized the card, but it has not successfully connected with the Wireless Access Point.

I used the command,pump to send a simple DHCP request to the DHCP server for the device in question. I used

pump -i wlan0

which essentially runs a simple DHCP request to set up that card, wlan0, in this case.

You can get the pump by

apt-get install pump

While I needed to use

pump -i wlan0

on my laptop, I did not need this when I set up the link-sys wireless WPC11 card on my girlfriend's laptop. She has a Link-Sys WPC11 version 2.5 pcmcia card.