[Sussex] Debian /etc/network/interfaces

[Alan F]

On Fri, Apr 22, 2005 at 03:52:45AM +0100, Steve Dobson wrote:
> Alan
> 
> May I suggest a different approach.  At a place I use to work a 
> friend used "divine" to do what you're trying to do.
> 
> Here is it's description:
>   A utility to locate current network address via arp requests
>   and perform light reconfigurations based on its findings.
>   
>   "divine" is intended for laptop users or people who use their
>   machines in different networks all the time. It is meant to
>   be run from the PCMCIA network initialization scripts.
> 
>   For more information see: http://www.fefe.de/divine
> 
> There is also the package "intuitively" that aims to do the
> same thing (and there maybe more).
>
That looks great for an ethernet network, but I'm quite sure it
wouldn't work on a wireless network, as the wireless adapter needs
instructing what network to connect to before it can receive ARP
packets, at which point it's already known which network you're on.
:-)

As much as I hate to say it, Linux does sort of stink at wireless
autoconfiguration. Like WinXP (unfortunte comparasin), I and other
people want to be able to switch on my laptop or roam around, and for
the system to automatically connect to the best available access
point, either an open AP or closed one which it has the key for. When
it knows it's successfully connected, it should try to get a DHCP
lease.

Right now, finding an access point to connect to in Linux involves
starting kismet, using iwconfig to choose an ESSID, then running
dhclient while having little idea if it's connected or not. Also,
scanning requires the card to go into promiscous mode, which then
makes normal operation with the card impossible. Every distro I've
seen with any wireless support does it with simple scripts that are
totally unaware of nearby access points. They'll blindly try to
connect to an AP you've defined in some config and then get a DHCP
lease, which then makes your boot time drastically increase if you're
not in range.

I like using Linux as much as any of you, but there's no point
pretending this isn't a serious shortcoming. The whole point of
wireless networking is that it's supposed to be *simple*. I don't mind
configuring something like a webserver, or even my desktop menu's with
a text editor; this is completely different.

Sorry if this sounds like a rant. If anyone can correct me on anything
I've said here please do, I'm just going off what I've used and the
fact a few google searches don't show anything better.

Alan