CentOS - Aug 2008 - CentOS 5.2 -- how do I choose a wireless network?

Hi.   We have a Windows laptop that has gotten too slow, it's
borderline unusable, so I burned a CentOS 5.2 32-bit Live CD, just to
try it out in the home.

It boots up fine, but it does not connect to the Internet...     Now
we normally connect through a wireless network, there are several
around here -- on the Windows box we choose the network to which to
connect...  but on CentOS there is no such menu?

I went to Administration -> Network, and enabled the wireless
interface, set to Auto and to DHCP, but it said, unable to assign IP
address, and no connectivity...

How do I connect to a wireless network, please?

Thanks,
Aleksey

Good answer.  Thanks, Spiro!   I'll try Ubunto.

Aleksey

On Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 9:53 PM, Spiro Harvey, Knossos Networks Ltd
<spiro at knossos.net.nz> wrote:
>
> CentOS is aimed as a server distribution, and I don't recommend it for
a
> home machine. You would do better to look at Fedora or Ubuntu. They are
> designed as home distributions and are far better for getting going on a
> home network.
>
>
> --
> Spiro Harvey                  Knossos Networks Ltd
> 021-295-1923                    www.knossos.net.nz
>
>

I have had a terrible time with NetworkManager.....

Johnny Hughes wrote:
> Aleksey Tsalolikhin wrote:
>> Any suggestions on how to make this work under CentOS?   I'd prefer
to
>> have CentOS on my laptop, to keep it the same OS as our servers.    I
>> don't want to learn two flavors of Linux...
>>
>> Thanks,
>> -at
>
> It normally just works on most wireless cards (centos in general, not 
> necessarily the live CD).
>
> I will burn and boot the live CD on my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop and 
> see how NetworkManager works here and get back to you.
>
> What kind of laptop is it?
I have pretty much given up on NetworkManager.  I try it time to time 
after a clean boot, but most of the time, it will just NOT connect.

I am an 'old had' at modifying /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf, 
and I have simple scripts (for themost part) to run things.  I have a 
script called wlan:

ifconfig eth1 up
/usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant wpa_supplicant -B -dd -K -D wext -i eth1 -c 
/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf


That works well with the Intel card in my HP nc2400.  The ifcfg-eth1 is 
fairly simple:

TYPE=Wireless
DEVICE=eth1
HWADDR=00:1b:77:43:09:78
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NETMASKDHCP_HOSTNAME=nc2400.htt-consult.com
IPADDRDOMAINONBOOT=no
USERCTL=no
IPV6INIT=yes

I do find that the BOOTPROTO=dhcp does not 'work' and I have to run 
dhclient eth1 to get a lease.

If I get into a new area (did that a LOT these past couple weeks), I run 
/usr/sbin/wpa_cli and do a scan and scan_results to get the SSID, edit 
the wpa_supplicant.conf file, the a reconfigure within wpa_cli.

All works; all manual.  But I clean everything out and NetworkManager 
just does not seem to work for me.....