[frgeek-michiana] VL 5.9 on Compaq Evo 600 laptop

From: Tom Brown <tbrown46628@xxxxxxxxx>
To: frgeek-michiana@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:00:10 -0700 (PDT)
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   :: Battery
   
   
The battery is holding up well. Although the battery was not charging at first 
and required a recalibration, it charges to 100% and lasts a several hours. 

   
:: Display
   
   
The display has a pink tint on boot up. After a while, the tint diminishes 
considerably but never quite goes away.
   
   
:: Swap
   
   
Swap wasn't turned on, probably a mistake during VL 5.9 installation. The swap 
partition was available but not formatted or turned on. I cured that at the 
command line.
   
   
  mkswap /dev/hda1
      swapon -a
   
   
I also added a missing line to /etc/fstab.
   
   
   /dev/hda1  none  swap  sw  0  0
   
   
:: Wireless
   
   
Wireless has been the biggest problem. My Atheros based D-Link card worked just 
a few times using Vasm and just once using desktop utilities. 
   
   
I downloaded and installed Madwifi thinking there wasn't an Atheros driver in 
the base VL load. However, when I installed Madwifi version 0.9.4, it prompted 
me to remove the previous version...oops.
   
   
Still, wireless works reliably now. I wrote my own activation script based on 
the newbie howto at Madwifi. There are a couple of weaknesses. I'd like the 
script to run from my user desktop; so far, only root can run it. The script is 
specific to one WAP but is easily modified for other WAPs.
   
   
#!/usr/bin/bash
   #
   # Madwifi Atheros wifi card activation script
   #

   
   
   # install Atheros chip kernel module; probably not required 
   modprobe ath_pci
   
   
# turn on wifi card
   ifconfig ath0 up
   
   

   # install WAP scan kernel module; also probably not required
   modprobe wlan_scan_sta
   
   
# scan for specific WAP
   
   # the example is WEP based; WPA requires different approach
   iwconfig ath0 essid <"your_essid"> key <"s:your_text_key">
   
   
# add route
   route add default gw <your_gateway_IP>
   
   
# request DHCP
   dhcpcd ath0
   
   
####
[frgeek-michiana] VL 5.9 on Compaq Evo 600 laptop

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