easys v2.1

Networking

My laptop has built in wireless card. Configuring it through KDE Control Center is not possible because it was not recognised. I got message:

“Unable to autodetect wireless interface.”

In terminal I entered command:

root@t-notebook:/#lspci -v

and found that kernel did recognise my laptops wireless device. I haven't set it up yet, but  I hope instructions could be found on Internet.

To setup network you need to use netconfig utility which is started in terminal:

root@t-notebook:/#netconfig

It has several steps to do it:

1. Enter name of your computer

2. Enter domain name of your network

If you don't know ask your network administrator, or else enter whatever you want. Domain means that your computer belongs to the certain group of computers, like some organization, firm, etc.

3. Set IP (or Internet Protocol) address

Choosing DHCP it will be done automatically without much of your interventions. DHCP server, if present on your network, will dedicate IP address to your computer. If there is no DHCP server, choose static IP to do it manually.

4. Enter staticIP address (if not using DHCP)

You can ask your network administrator for available IP address. The address entered below is reserved (aka. private) network address and is not routed across Internet.  If there is no one to ask, you can use this address for your own private networks.  The available range is 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255. Each group of three numbers that are divided by dots can have decimal value from 0 to 255. Try not to use numbers 0 and 255, because they are reserved.

5. Enter subnet mask for your network (if not using DHCP)

You can use this network mask. Each IP address consists of two parts: network part and host part. Network mask helps to determine which is which in IP address.

6. Enter gateway for your network (if not using DHCP)

Gateway  is a point at which traffic from your computer is routed to another network (usually to internet).

7. Enter DNS (Domain Name Server) for your network (if not using DHCP)

Nameserver resolves the address you typed in browser (like www.distromania.com) to IP address which computer understands. You wouldn't want to type 12 numbers to access some web page. For humans, it is easier to type and remember words (like web page names). Select <yes>.

Then type IP address of your DNS server (or servers):

8. Confirm by pressing <Accept>

9. Select <OK>

After exiting to command prompt we can check if the setup was really accepted. Why really? Well, I tried entering ifconfig command in terminal and got nothing for my network card (eth0) configuration.

In file manager open /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf

Use right click -->open with... Kwrite to open it. Check that the IP address you entered during setup is in section  # Config information for eth0:

This is what my rc.inet1.conf looks like:

# /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf
#
# This file contains the configuration settings for network interfaces.
# If USE_DHCP[interface] is set to "yes", this overrides any other settings.
# If you don't have an interface, leave the settings null ("").

# You can configure network interfaces other than eth0,eth1... by setting
# IFNAME[interface] to the interface's name. If IFNAME[interface] is unset
# or empty, it is assumed you're configuring eth<interface>.

# Several other parameters are available, the end of this file contains a
# comprehensive set of examples.

# =============================================================================

# Config information for eth0:
IPADDR[0]="192.168.1.2"
NETMASK[0]="255.255.255.0"
USE_DHCP[0]=""
DHCP_HOSTNAME[0]=""

# Config information for eth1:
IPADDR[1]=""
NETMASK[1]=""
USE_DHCP[1]=""
DHCP_HOSTNAME[1]=""

# Config information for eth2:
IPADDR[2]=""
NETMASK[2]=""
USE_DHCP[2]=""
DHCP_HOSTNAME[2]=""

# Config information for eth3:
IPADDR[3]=""
NETMASK[3]=""
USE_DHCP[3]=""
DHCP_HOSTNAME[3]=""

# Default gateway IP address:
GATEWAY="192.168.1.1"

# Change this to "yes" for debugging output to stdout.  Unfortunately,
# /sbin/hotplug seems to disable stdout so you'll only see debugging output
# when rc.inet1 is called directly.
DEBUG_ETH_UP="no"

## Example config information for wlan0.  Uncomment the lines you need and fill
## in your info.  (You may not need all of these for your wireless network)
#IFNAME[4]="wlan0"
#IPADDR[4]=""
#NETMASK[4]=""
#USE_DHCP[4]="yes"
#DHCP_HOSTNAME[4]="icculus-wireless"
#DHCP_KEEPRESOLV[4]="yes"
#DHCP_KEEPNTP[4]="yes"
#DHCP_KEEPGW[4]="yes"
#DHCP_IPADDR[4]=""
#WLAN_ESSID[4]=BARRIER05
#WLAN_MODE[4]=Managed
##WLAN_RATE[4]="54M auto"
##WLAN_CHANNEL[4]="auto"
##WLAN_KEY[4]="D5AD1F04ACF048EC2D0B1C80C7"
##WLAN_IWPRIV[4]="AuthMode=WPAPSK EncrypType=TKIP WPAPSK=7B1ABEEB5D197741923ED26727569C365E31212096A0EAFAD563B268BAD01CAF TxRate=0"
#WLAN_WPA[4]="wpa_supplicant"
#WLAN_WPADRIVER[4]="ndiswrapper"

## Some examples of additional network parameters that you can use.
## Config information for wlan0:
#IFNAME[4]="wlan0"              # Use a different interface name nstead of
                                # the default 'eth4'
#HWADDR[4]="00:01:23:45:67:89"  # Overrule the card's hardware MAC address
#MTU[4]=""                      # The default MTU is 1500, but you might need
                                # 1360 when you use NAT'ed IPSec traffic.
#DHCP_KEEPRESOLV[4]="yes"       # If you dont want /etc/resolv.conf overwritten
#DHCP_KEEPNTP[4]="yes"          # If you don't want ntp.conf overwritten
#DHCP_KEEPGW[4]="yes"           # If you don't want the DHCP server to change
                                # your default gateway
#DHCP_IPADDR[4]=""              # Request a specific IP address from the DHCP
                                # server
#WLAN_ESSID[4]=DARKSTAR         # Here, you can override _any_ parameter
                                # defined in rc.wireless.conf, by prepending
                                # 'WLAN_' to the parameter's name. Useful for
                                # those with multiple wireless interfaces.
#WLAN_IWPRIV[4]="AuthMode=WPAPSK EncrypType=TKIP WPAPSK=thekey TxRate=0"
                                # Some drivers require a private ioctl to be
                                # set through the iwpriv command. If more than
                                # one is required, you can place them in the
                                # IWPRIV parameter (space-separated, see the
                                # example).

To connect to internet using dial-up connection you can use kppp utility. It is not placed in the K-->Internet menu. You need to invoke it entering command in terminal:

root@t-notebook#kppp

Using kppp you can setup modem connection to internet.

First be sure that your modem is recognised and supported by linux kernel.

root@t-notebook:/#lspci -v

this command will display information about all PCI buses in the system and all devices connected to them. This is what my computer output looks like:

Search the internet to find if your modem is supported by kernel.

If you are behind a firewall in the corporate network, and using proxy, you can setup your browser (firefox) to use it:

Ask your administrator for information about proxy name (or address) and port number to use.

If you need to access Windows network, there is no unique application (like LinNeighborhood or similar) to easily do it in graphical environment. Each time I tried to do it using KDE Control Center - it crashed.

It is possible to do it by commands in terminal (type smb and hit tab key once or twice to have all commands starting with smb). Before that you have to create and edit smb.conf file (/etc/samba/). You can use smb.conf-sample file available there. After that you need to start samba.