Configuring Wi-fi connection with BSNL DataOne Broadband on a laptop with RHEL 4 and Huawei WA1003A DSL Router

I had installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (WS or Desktop) in HP nx6130 with onboard Intel Pro 2200BG Wireless Card. Rpm ipw2200-firmware (for HP nx6130) is required to be installed in your laptop and can be found at http://rpm.pbone.net If you are using any other card, then firmware for that particular should be installed.

Start the network configuration fron System Settings -> Network. Add a New Device and then select Wireless Connection and press next, your card should be visible here (in my case it was "Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200 BG (eth1)". Select this card and press forward and in the SSID just enter WA1003A and then press forward. In the next, screen you need to put in the network settings. Select static IP address and give the IP Adddress 192.168.1.2 with subnet mask 255.255.255.0 and gateway as 192.168.1.1 In the DNS setting, add the following two addresses 61.1.96.69 and 61.1.96.71 This is all you have to do in the laptop part.

Now you have to configure you Huawei WA1003A DSL router. Connect the LAN (CAT5) cable between the laptop (in the other ethernet(eth0) port) and router. Open the network configuration setting and give the IP Address 192.168.1.3 to eth0 with subnet mask 255.255.255.0 Save the configuration and activate the eth0 Open browser and enter 192.168.1.1 as url and you will get Huawei Configurations page. Enter admin as user and admin as password. Goto Setup and click PVC0 link at the left hand corner. Change the connection type from Bridge to pppoe. You will get an option of username and password. Enter the user name and password you got from BSNL for accessing their DataOne service. Press Apply and goto Advanced and then Tools and press Save All and then press Restart. Ping the address 192.168.1.1 from the laptop after deactivating your eth0 connection and disconnecting your LAN cable. If you get a reply then your Wi-fi connection in the laptop is ready. Start browsing and ENJOY! This procedure may also work for Fedora but I haven't tested it.

Problems faced in Fedora Core 5 for Adding and Removing Software.

I had finished downloading the new Fedora Core 5 a few days back and was very excited to try it out. The installation went off very smoothly and was very pleasing to my eyes. The operating system loading was very fast and I presume it took half the time it used to be in Fedora Core 4.

The problem with the system was the Add/Remove program (Pirut) in Fedora Core 5. It connects to the internet for adding any package or updating it. In my country the internet connectivity is a costly affair. So to make Pirut use the local packages in my CDs, I created a directory /var/yum/Fedora/RPMS and copied all the rpms in the CD nos. 1,2,3,4 and 5 to the folder /var/yum/Fedora/RPMS and the repodata folder in 1st disk to /var/yum/ folder.

Then I edited the file named fedora-core.repo in /etc/yum.repo.d/ and inserted few lines like

[Fedora-Core-5-local-install]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch
baseurl=file:///var/yum
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY

and changed all the other enabled=1 to enabled=0 in this file and all the files with *.repo in /etc/yum.repos.d/ and then I have been able to install packages using Add/Remove Software (Pirut) ever since.

Please note :- Don't forget to copy repodata folder in FC 5 disk 1 or you would be seeing repomd.xml error.