wpa_supplicant on linux

Tired.

Hanying around on https://wiki.archlinux.org for a while this afternoon.

One of my very old computer needs get accessed to internet.

I install Xubuntu10.04 which is the only one suitable for the old machine produced about in 2002.

It's too slow.

even though it has a celeon 2.4Ghz CPU and 512 DDR (266Mhz) RAM.

The old disk of 80GB was produced in 2003. And the monitor was produced around 2003. I was in middle school at Grade 6 or 7.

I have a wireless card whose core-chip is RTL8187L. 

the driver for RTL8187 is probed automatically by default. 

But it can't make the machine get to internet coz something's messy over there already.

I made the old machine be a server about half a year ago. 

I changed the file /etc/network/interfaces  to make eth0 to get a static IP.

Now I changed it back to dhcp which means it could get IP from the router automatically in order.

wpa_supplicant (this tool is really killing brains)

to have it. we need to do those things.

　　1. install packages of it's dependencies ( coz it's not with internet, i had to use SD card to transfer packages by hand, the most painful thing is to find out the dependencies)

　　2. wpa_passphrase to generate the PSK (Password Secret Key)

　　　　　　　　We could use  　　　　wpa_passphrase "wireless_ssid" "secretkey" >> /etc/wpa_supplicate.conf

　　3. add something more in /etc/wpa_supplicate.conf ( we would need this for help https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wpa_supplicant#Configuration_file)

　　　　　　　　　　they have an example like this:

  

Complete example

wpa_supplicant.conf

ctrl_interface=DIR=/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=wheel
fast_reauth = 1
ap_scan = 1

network ={
    ssid     = "mySSID"
    proto    = RSN
    key_mgmt = WPA-EAP
    pairwise = TKIP CCMP
    auth_alg = OPEN
    group    = TKIP
    eap      = PEAP
    identity = "myUsername"
    password = "********"
}

4.

# ip link set wlan0 up

 to make wlan0 up

5. then

　　　　wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

　　　or you may need more options 

# wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf 

 (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wpa_supplicant#Connection)

6. dhcpcd wlan0   

　　or

　 dhclient wlan0

_________________________

And I used wpa_gui also to make this complecated processure more easily.

you could:

sudo apt-get intall wpa_gui ( no internet you cant)

so i downloaded all the packages of it's dependencies for wpa_gui of Lucid 10.04.

Transfer those packages by hand. :(

I mean USB stick or USB card. (painful)

so many packages, you need to decide which one should be installed first to avoid the issure of lacking dependencies.

After trying many times, 

 the wpa_gui ( written in Qt) was finally installed!!!

But it showed me that " Could not get status from wpa_supplicant"

　　so. it failed again...

i googled a lot.

Here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1696024

Here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/wpa_gui-could-not-get-status-from-wpa_supplicant-850609/

Here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=19853

finally got bored , haha :O

they didn't have a good solution to this question.

I also have a raspberry pi. painful to attach anything from the bottom.

I was proud of myself to be an Archlinux user. But now I prefer to have a very neat and stable environment to develop things.

For those people who are knee to updating linux kernel, I want to say that spend more time on developing rather than on chasing the sense of superority.

I stick with Linuxmint13 coz it will be supported for 4 years.

If some functionalities have to be added, I would compile them from source. :)