Linux Journal: Polishing Your Linux Laptop Setup

“In my past laptop oriented articles, I talked about procedures
for installing a base Linux system and setting up GNOME 2.2. This
time around, I discuss a few odds and ends that did not quite fit
those other two articles but definitely deserve further
attention.

“Wireless networking is an integral advantage to laptop
computing. In my situation, I never would have gotten involved with
Linux on laptops if wireless networking had not become available.
There’s nothing quite like browsing the Web from your favorite
chair with a cold beverage nearby, the way all computing should be
done. For this example, I’m going to set up a Lucent Orinoco
802.11b PCMCIA card. There are many new and old standards in the
wireless world, but from what I have seen 802.11b is by far the
most popular. Also, you may find it necessary to implement
different layers of security if you live in a populated area.
Plenty of articles already are written that discuss the complicated
world of WiFi security, so I’m not going to dabble in that arena.
If you’d like to learn more about WiFi security, check out the
Resources at the end of this article, and your questions will be
answered.

“As with most network device installs, the first thing you need
to do is make sure the kernel module or modules are installed for
the hardware in question. In the case of the Orinoco, you should
have set the following options in your kernel configuration under
Network device support. If you have not set these options, you now
need to recompile and reinstall the kernel…”

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