[CentOS] Wireless DELL M90 with CentOS 5.1 - pb with key encryption

[Michael Simpson]

On 2/7/08, MOKRANI Rachid <Rachid.MOKRANI at ifp.fr> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a laptop DELL M90 with an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG card.
>
> I'm using centOS 5.1 kernel 2.6.18-53 i386.
>
> I installed ndiswrapper v 1.52
> I installed the driver http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R164255.EXE
> The wireless-tools is v 28.2
/snip

ndiswrapper is ok if there is no native support for the wifi card
which isn't the case with the 3945 but it does seem to be working
so...

Have you installed NetworkManager which should cope with the WEP encryption?

yum install NetworkManager\*
service NetworkManager start
service NetworkManagerDispatcher start
chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManager on
chkconfig --level 345 NetworkManagerDispatcher on

if you reboot or restart X + service network restart
then you should have a wee icon on your desktop that you can click on
and enter your WEP key.

Personally i would get rid of ndiswrapper and use the dkms-ipw3945
package from Dag's repo.
I never had consistent wifi access (with a broadcom card) using
ndiswrapper and have had total stability using the bcm43xx/b43 in
fedora 8 so would always go with the "non-hack" method. Intel seem to
have particularly progressive in terms of opening up their FOSS
support.

hth

mike