webbookblog » wireless http://webbookblog.com best viewed at 1024x600 Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:12:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 The Web Without Wires http://webbookblog.com/the-web-without-wires/ http://webbookblog.com/the-web-without-wires/#comments Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:40:15 +0000 Alan Bell http://webbookblog.com/?p=41 Your webbook comes with a wireless card built in, it does 802.11b and 802.11g. I don’t think it does 802.11n but I am prepared to be proved wrong on that one.
The wireless radio circuit can be turned on and off by pressing Fn+F1. By default it is switched off. There is a bit of an issue on the early models, the wifi light on the front of the webbook does not get turned on when the wireless is activated, making it a bit tricky to tell whether wireless is on or off. Don’t worry, there is a fix for this.

press alt+F2 to get the run program dialog and type in

gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/options


gksudo means “I want to be superuser when I do this”
gedit is the name of the text editor (lke notepad.exe but lots better)
/etc/modprobe.d/options is a file where we can pass options to hardware drivers as they are loaded.

Because you asked to edit the file in the text editor as the superuser you will have to put your password in first.

Add a line at the end and type the following

options ipw2200 led=1


this tells the wireless driver that it is also responsible for turning on and off the LED on the front of the webbook. Normally this should flicker every few seconds when active, it will be on constantly when associated with a hotspot.

Later models will have this set by default, unfortunately the first batch escaped without it.

When you have wireless turned on you can click the little computer symbol at the top right of the screen to see a list of hotspots within range. Click on one to join it, you may need to enter a WEP or WPA key.

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