I have an old Powerbook G4 12 inch running Debian. I had issues connecting to the wireless if I was not using Gnome. I found out it was because of Network Manager. While Network Manager is running I can not connect to the wireless network from command line. Currently I am using OpenBox so it doesn’t connect automatically to the wireless. Here is a small howto.
First we check module b43 is installed.
[19:16:50] xavi@NewYork:/tmp $ sudo modinfo b43 filename: /lib/modules/2.6.30-2-powerpc/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/b43/b43.ko firmware: FW13 license: GPL author: Michael Buesch author: Stefano Brivio author: Martin Langer description: Broadcom B43 wireless driver alias: pcmcia:m02D0c0448f*fn*pfn*pa*pb*pc*pd* alias: ssb:v4243id0812rev10* alias: ssb:v4243id0812rev0F* alias: ssb:v4243id0812rev0D* alias: ssb:v4243id0812rev0B* alias: ssb:v4243id0812rev0A* alias: ssb:v4243id0812rev09* alias: ssb:v4243id0812rev07* alias: ssb:v4243id0812rev06* alias: ssb:v4243id0812rev05* depends: pcmcia,mac80211,ssb,input-polldev,pcmcia_core,rfkill,rng-core,cfg80211 vermagic: 2.6.30-2-powerpc mod_unload modversions parm: bad_frames_preempt:enable(1) / disable(0) Bad Frames Preemption (int) parm: fwpostfix:Postfix for the .fw files to load. (string) parm: hwpctl:Enable hardware-side power control (default off) (int) parm: nohwcrypt:Disable hardware encryption. (int) parm: qos:Enable QOS support (default on) (int) parm: btcoex:Enable Bluetooth coexistance (default on) (int) parm: verbose:Log message verbosity: 0=error, 1=warn, 2=info(default), 3=debug (int) [19:16:54] xavi@NewYork:/tmp $ lsmod | grep -i b43 b43 138992 0 rfkill 15184 3 rfkill_input,b43 rng_core 7952 1 b43 mac80211 178904 1 b43 cfg80211 72376 2 b43,mac80211 input_polldev 7836 2 b43,ams ssb 51292 1 b43 pcmcia 32336 2 b43,ssb pcmcia_core 40868 3 b43,ssb,pcmcia [19:17:09] xavi@NewYork:/tmp $
Stop Network Manager
bash$ sudo /etc/init.d/network-manager stop
Bring up wireless interface. Wlan0 in my case.
bash$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
Scan the available wireless networks.
bash$ sudo iwconfig wlan0 scanning
Connect to the ESSID
bash$ sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid
Get an IP from the wireless access point.
bash$ sudo dhclient wlan0
Ping an external address to see you are connected to the internet.
[19:31:57] xavi@NewYork:/tmp $ !ping ping -c 3 debian.org PING debian.org (194.109.137.218) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from klecker.debian.org (194.109.137.218): icmp_req=1 ttl=50 time=119 ms 64 bytes from klecker.debian.org (194.109.137.218): icmp_req=2 ttl=50 time=116 ms 64 bytes from klecker.debian.org (194.109.137.218): icmp_req=3 ttl=50 time=101 ms --- debian.org ping statistics --- 3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2002ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 101.768/112.858/119.928/7.940 ms [19:32:02] xavi@NewYork:/tmp $
You should now be ready to go. I will write more on this later on.