Hi everyone,
Sorry for my late response. I was somehow busy the last days.
I promised a How-to but have very little time in the moment.
Therefore, I write here just some quick and dirty hints.
1. Find out whether your network card is correct installed after insertion.
The Zaurus should show the card correctly after insertion if you are unsure, please type
dmesg inside the konsole-window. There you should see what's going on with your WLAN card.
2. If your WLAN cards works correct, create a new network connection under Settings->Network. Go tab by tab. Add a suitable name at first. Type the SSID of your WLAN-network instead of Non-Spec ESS-ID. Do not add WEP settings. All other information should be the same as for your "normal" computers. Mostly you only have to set-up TCP/IP and DNS (ignore all other tabs). Again choose the same settings as for your other machines (if you have to define a IP address of course choose a new resp. free one for your Zaurus)
3. Save the settings.
4. Follow the steps described here already to change the two files.
Add WPA=y at /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.opts
You have to search for the setup which you created before under the network settings. The Keyword INFO= will be the same as the name you choose for your network.
MOST IMPORTANT: Never use the GUI again to change settings for this network from now on, since it will overwrite your WPA=y settings. If you do so (e.g. if you change your IP address with the help of the GUI) you have to repeat step 4 again !!!!!
You can use the midnight commander (or any other text-editor) to change the file.
However, you require root privileges. Therefore use su or sudo
sudo mc -e /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.opts
# start the midnight commander in root mode and open the file.
# To use the menu-keys you have to press ALT-Number. ALT is the second Japanese character beside Ctrl.
# Add
WPA=y
# Inside your network connection This should result in
qpewlan0,*,*,*)
INFO='My Network name'
..... # more settings about your network
WPA=y # this line you have to add by hand
;;5. Edit /etc/wpa-supplicant.conf. This file contains a good set of examples. Don't worry about all the preface. Just look at the example and try the one which is as close as possible to your WLAN settings. You can check your WLAN Settings on your access point or on one of the "big" computers in your network.
The easiest way to create a hopefully working configuration file is the following:
type
cp /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.bak
# just to backup your old file.
sudo wpa_passphrase your_ssid your_password > /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
# this generates a new file with the minimum-settings. In addtion your password is not written in clear-text which increases security.
more /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
# should result in
network={
ssid="your_ssid"
psk="your decrypted password in hex-code"
}If your access point does not broadcast the SSID (check your access point settings) you might have to add the following line to your wpa_supplicant.conf file.
network={
ssid="your_ssid"
psk="your decrypted password in hex-code"
scan_ssid=1
}This tells your WLAN-card to communicate with your "hidden" access point even if it can not receive any SSID information at the beginning.
After that reject and insert your WLAN-card again. Now you should be able to connect to your access point. If not check again both files. The standard settings for the wpa_supplicant.conf file will try to use all possible combinations, unless we define a specific one. Therefore, I assume less is more in this case. That means do not try to make to many settings at once. E.g. for me the above example works fine for a WPA-TKIP connection with PSK decryption even without defining specific TKIP and PSK.
I hope all this helps. Furthermore, many many thanks to Anton again, who make all this possible.
Thanks Anton. Remember, if you are successful and happy to access the Internet with your Zaurus, go to
Anton's Webpageand click on the "Make a Donation" button to show him that his work is valuable and important for you. Please consider, that for other PDA-Platforms e.g. under Microsoft-OS you have to pay horrible amounts even for stupid little apps which allow you to connect your access point by WLAN. You can decide how much you like to support open source operated PDAs by place a donation to Anton. This will give him more time for further development.
Two little hints at the end. It seems some WLAN cards need a firmware update before there are able to run in WPA mode. Check this forum for more information.
For me the automatic connection is not useful and sometimes brings me in trouble. I switched it off, since I like to decide whether I will be online or not. Power consumption of a unused but online WLAN connection is a second argument for manual connection.
Bye
Torsten
