[JGZinv]

First off I'm a Linux noob with 0% prior experience, so this is a departure
from Windows land... but I'm in the process of trying to make a web kiosk / HTPC
out of an old and somewhat broken laptop (bad keyboard).

Basically I just wanted to be able to load up Firefox and play streaming media,
mostly watch online TV episodes, which I'll output via the laptop's external monitor support.

I came up with SLAX after doing a lot of searching and deciding a media center was too
much to mess with. Assembled a custom iso build and shoved it in the laptop.
KioskCD is years out of date sadly.

Lo and behold it all seems to work... display, audio, pointing device, external keyboard...
But here be the problem. The wireless and wired connections show they are connected, and
they show that they are receiving and sending very small amounts of data... but I can't get Firefox,
the integrated browser, or anything else internet related to actually reach the web.

I've fiddled with the settings panels, what few there are, as well as anything relevant on the router
end, without any progress.

So I figure I'd ask for help here, I know there's a few that use alternative OS's.

My SLAX build, if it helps:
Suggested modules:
Slax Core
6.1.1
Slax Xorg
6.1.1
Slax KDE
6.1.1
Slax Apps
6.1.1
Slax KOffice
6.1.1
Slax Devel
6.1.1

slackware modules:
sqlite
3.6.6.2-1
guile
1.8.5-1
libtool
1.5.26-1
python
2.5.2-4
gnutls
2.6.2-1
tcl 8.5.5-1
tk 8.5.5-1
 
verified modules:
LFTP+FTP
Pack
Google Earth
4.3
gtk+ 2.0
Change Theme

sandbox modules:
mplayerplug-
in 3.55
jre 6u14
wxwidgets
2.8.9
pidgin 2.5.2
all
libavahi-com
mon3_0
libgconf2-4
libgnomevfs2
-0
Liborbit2
libselinux1
libsepol1_1.
14
Moodin
engine 0.4.2
Gecko SDK
(Gecko 1.8)
Iceowl
Calendar
FileZilla
3.2.4.1
libmspack-20
06024
Firefox
3.5b4 (US
Firefox
3.0.10 +

[castor]

Does the network work for windows?
Do you connect using DHCP?
Are you able to ping 64.92.160.252 (HLP)?
What does ifconfig (root) output?

[JGZinv]

Laptop was running windows Xp - everything works fine there.

DHCP is turned on router side, but all the IPs are set to static addresses for each adapter.

I can't ping anything, or connect to any site. Not sure if I'm using the correct commands
for this either. Konsole vs Win Command Prompt.

ifconfig says (I'll shorten this up)

Eth0 (this is the wired ethernet port - not hooked up)
No errors or anything that looks important unless you want Interrupt 18

eth1
(skipping the identifying info - wireless)
Up broadcast running multicast MTU: 1500 Metric: 1
RX packets 105 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns 0 frame: 0
TX packets 9 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 carrier: 0
collisions: 0 txqueuelen: 1000
RX bytes: 2598 (2.5 KiB)  TX bytes: 3504 (3.4 Kib)
Interrupt: 17 Base address: 0xa00 Memory: dfdfd000-dfdfdfff

lo
Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP Loopback running MTU 16436 Metric 1
RX packets:42 errors:0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 frame: 0
TX packets:42 errors:0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 frame: 0
collisions:0 txquwuwlen: 0
RX bytes: 3750 (3.6 KiB) TX bytes:3750 (3.6 KiB)

[castor]

Aah, you're using just wireless.
Does iwlist scan find any networks?
Also, try iwconfig to get some more info about the wireless interface.

[JGZinv]

Scan shows the network, nothing more than the wireless manager does really.
Seems fine there.

iwconfig shows a few things:

Mode: Managed
Tx-power=20dBm  Sensitivity=8/10
RTS thr: off Fragment thr: off Power management: off
Security mode: restricted
Link quality=84/100 Signal level = -44 dBm Noise level= - 89 dBm
Rx invalid nwid: 0 Rx invalid crypt: 0 Rx invalid frag:0
TX excessive retries: 0 Invalid misc: 0 Missed beacon: 20


Don't see anything of note otherwise.

[castor]

So iwconfig shows the ESSID of your network?
My problems have typically been related to configuring the ESSID and restricted-key on linux side, and setting up the MAC-filtering on the router side. But it looks like all that already works for you. In other words, I'm out of ideas, sorry.

Do you get any errors if you do ifdown -a and the ifup eth1?

[JGZinv]

ESSID shows fine, but I'm not sure what to put as the gateway address for the set IP tool.
Also in the wireless manger, it shows the access point as "unknown"

The other commands you asked about, it just keeps coming up -bash (name of command) command not found.
I've tried several combinations in case it was a matter of spacing.

[castor]

My bad. Forgot that those are just wrappers for some more generic commands, can't remember which.. (running debian here).

[JGZinv]

well I guess we're out of ideas.

one person suggested that it might be driver related, although why it can see and
supposedly connects to the network, but won't go anywhere... is rather odd.

thanks for the help though.