Wifi

This article describes the setup of a Wifi network device.

Gentoo Install via WIFI
If installing Gentoo and a wifi connection is needed for installation:

The Gentoo minimal install CD has a limited set of wifi drivers available, and will require manual wpa_supplicant setup for WPA/WPA2/Enterprise connections. If your card is not supported there, or you would prefer an interactive frontend to configure wpa_supplicant, you should use an alternative livecd. A good example is the System Rescue CD (http://sysresccd.org/Download), but be sure to take note of the special steps that may be needed for installing from non-Gentoo livecds: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Installation_alternatives#Installation_from_non-Gentoo_LiveCDs.

Hardware Detection
First detect the Wifi controllers. You can use lspci or lsusb for this task. If a linux (livecd/usb) is booted that makes a wifi connection:

The driver will be identified at "Kernel driver in use:". If a linux is booted that does not make a wifi connection:

The driver may be identified by copying the list of PCIID's that the command produces and pasting at http://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl/.

may produce pciid manufacturer make model chipset. Of these, the chipset may be the most useful information. Googling linuxwireless.org is often the shortest way to find a usb NIC driver and firmware name.

IEEE 802.11
Dependent on your hardware you need to activate the corresponding kernel options:

WEXT
To enable wireless extensions, compile your kernel with the following option (this will support old wireless-tools & iwconfig):

LED Support
To enable LED triggers for different packet receive/transmit events, compile your kernel with the following options:

Firmware
Besides the kernel driver, you will also need firmware, expand section to see firmware/hardware table and notes of supported devices:

b43
Install the required package, e.g for :

linux-firmware
Install the required package, e.g for :

If there is no package, you have to download the firmware and move it to yourself.

Testing
After a reboot with the new kernel or after loading the modules, check that the device is ready using one of following methods:


 * Using :


 * Using :


 * Using if your driver supports the wireless extensions stack. Non-wireless interfaces will be listed with "no wireless extensions":


 * Using ,if your driver supports the nl80211 stack

If not, check dmesg for errors: