This is how I manually start my wireless card & connect to the internet in Slackware
Go to terminal. Make yourself root, if you aren't already.
# su root
Then enter:
# ifconfig
See What the results are. Mine look like this:
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:480 (480.0 b) TX bytes:480 (480.0 b)
Notice only my loopback process is currently working.
Type this command to turn on your card, if your wlan is already up skip to the next command.
# ifconfig wlan0 up
Then check it:
# ifconfig
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:480 (480.0 b) TX bytes:480 (480.0 b)
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:C0:A8:F5:33:E9
inet addr:192.168.2.16 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:7059 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:7061 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:6087692 (5.8 Mb) TX bytes:1457569 (1.3 Mb)
This shows the card is up but not connected to a network. I then type a command to look for available networks. I store the results in a file so I can browse through them.
# iwlist wlan0 scan >> users.txt
You can then open the users.txt file to see what available networks.
# pico users.txt
If you got a good scan you should see available networks. Here is the first entry of my file:
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: C0:C1:C0:33:15:A0
Channel:1
Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
Quality=51/70 Signal level=-59 dBm
Encryption key
ff
ESSID:"Available_Network"
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
Mode:Master
Extra:tsf=00000187ae75818f
Extra: Last beacon: 1493ms ago
IE: Unknown: 00074D75646B69707A
IE: Unknown: 010882848B962430486C
IE: Unknown: 030101
IE: Unknown: 2A0104
IE: Unknown: 2F0104
IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (2) : CCMP TKIP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
IE: Unknown: 32040C121860
IE: Unknown: 2D1AFC181BFFFF000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
IE: Unknown: 3D1601001300000000000000000000000000000000000000
IE: Unknown: 4A0E14000A002C01C800140005001900
IE: Unknown: 7F0101
IE: Unknown: DD810050F204104A00011010440001021041000100103B00010310470010C482204C2B61E8508D2361B71C41926B1021000C 4C696E6B73797320496E632E1023000D4C696E6B737$
IE: Unknown: DD090010180201F0040000
IE: WPA Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (2) : CCMP TKIP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
IE: Unknown: DD180050F2020101800003A4000027A4000042435E0062322F00
IE: Unknown: DD1E00904C33FC181BFFFF000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
IE: Unknown: DD1A00904C3401001300000000000000000000000000000000000000
I pick the network I want to use and make a note of it's ESSID. I then bring down the card briefly:
# ifconfig wlan0 down
I then load my wireless card with the ESSID name of the network I want to use. If you are trying to get onto a network with an encrypted key you will have to load the key as well.
If key is off:
# iwconfig wlan0 essid "Availabl_Network"
If there is a key is on I type:
# iwconfig wlan0 essid "Available_Network" key 123456
Now you have to bring the card back up:
# ifconfig wlan0 up
You can check with ifconfig command again if you like, or just try and connect to the net with dhclient.
# dhclient wlan0
You can then check your connection with the ping command:
# ping
www.google.com
If you are live you should get a ping response similar to:
PING
www.l.google.com (74.125.157.104) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from gy-in-f104.1e100.net (74.125.157.104): icmp_req=1 ttl=52 time=30.5 ms
64 bytes from gy-in-f104.1e100.net (74.125.157.104): icmp_req=2 ttl=52 time=31.5 ms
Just hit Ctrl z to exit.
You should also probably shut off the ping process so you are not wasting processor energy
# pkill -9 ping
That is it! Hopefully you are on the internet. I can not guarantee this will work for every situation, but works with my card.