Finding hotspots with Wireless Assistant
Monday, October 24, 2005 10:24 AM
Wireless network access with Linux can still be a bit of black magic to get working, but more tools are becoming available to ease the pain of connecting a Linux system to a wireless network. One such tool is Wireless Assistant, a little KDE application that can be used to connect to various wireless networks.
Wireless Assistant is available for download at http://wlassistant.sourceforge.net/. It does require the KDE development packages to be installed in order to compile, and the installation process is a simple:
<code>
$ ./configure --prefix=/usr
$ make
$ su -c "make install"
</code>
Once it is installed you can invoke it by executing the following code on the command-line as root:
<code>
# wlassistant
</code>
You should run the program as root because if you switch networks, you will need root privileges to reconfigure the network interface.
When you run the program, it will present you with a list of wireless networks that it found. It displays the ESSID name, the link quality, and whether or not it is configured with WEP security. Select the network you want to connect to and click the Connect button. The first time you connect, you will be taken through the First Connection Wizard, which asks a few questions regarding the connection, such as whether or not to use DHCP or a static IP, which WEP mode to use (if WEP is required), and the WEP key.
Switching wireless networks used to be a hassle, but with tools like Wireless Assistant, it's as easy on Linux as it is on other operating systems.
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