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====How to configure wifi from the commandline - Intro====
**Puppy's Network Wizard** is one of the best in the business.  It supports all currently available Linux wifi drivers including the unconventional linux-wlan-ng (prism2) drivers, plus ndiswrapper.  And it fully supports WPA and WPA2 encryption via wpa_supplicant, even with the Ralink drivers, which out-of-the-box are not normally compatible with wpa_supplicant.

In a [[http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20071008#review DistroWatch review of Puppy 3.00]]

Susan Linton said this -
""
~Quote:
~The network wizard requires several steps and clicking back and forth, but it works even with Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). I've tested maybe three distros with graphical network configurations that actually work for my chip. It's an amazing accomplishment.


But it's worth knowing the commands that operate behind the Wizard, especially if you need to troubleshoot a problem, or you have an unconventional setup.

First it's worth knowing what module (driver) is being used for your wifi device.  The correct module is NOT determined by the manufacturer of the wifi adaptor, but by the CHIPSET contained within the wifi adaptor.

From version 2.12 onwards, Puppy Linux includes EXTENSIVE wifi driver support, including many Linux drivers written by independent development projects not aligned with the official Linux kernel.


For wifi chipsets not supported by a native Linux driver, Puppy also includes ndiswrapper, which will "wrap" a Windows driver.  Obviously, you must supply the Windows driver files.

ndiswrapper is a workaround solution, but sometimes it's the ONLY solution.

Usually, Puppy will automatically detect your wifi device, and load the suitable driver from its "zdrv" compressed driver collection.

Run this command to see which modules are currently loaded
%%lsmod%%

When a wifi module loads, it creates a network interface, which will be called "eth0" "wlan0" "ra0" "ath0" or "rausb0".

But if you also have an ethernet interface, this has probably taken the interface name "eth0" so the wifi interface will be "eth1".

First check that your wifi module has created an interface, with these 2 commands

%%ifconfig -a%%
%%iwconfig%%

For the sake of this example, let's assume your wifi interface is "eth1".

It's often necessary to "bring up" the interface unconfigured with this command

%%ifconfig eth1 up%%

Continue to-
[[HowToWifiFromCommandWEP PART 1: WEP encryption.]]
[[HowToWifiFromCommandWPA PART 2: WPA encryption.]]
[[http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=159339#159339 PART 3: WPA encryption with Ralink devices (pre-Puppy 4.1 ONLY)]]


==Related Webpages==
[[http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=22469 How to configure wifi from the commandline thread]]

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==Categories==
CategoryTutorial
CategoryNetworking