This is an article to assist people using the default Xandros who can connect manually but who have problems connecting automatically on boot. It does NOT purport to solve general WiFi problems.

On some combinations of eees and routers WiFi won't always connect at startup and has to be started manually. Sometimes the connection is also really slow.

cjdshaw has investigated the the scripts and found the wlan_on_boot.sh script to be flawed. He reports on this thread that, having made the following changes, it has connected very quickly every time.

1. Type this in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+t), pressing [ENTER] after every line.

   cd /usr/sbin
   sudo cp wlan_on_boot.sh wlan_on_boot.sh_backup
   sudo kwrite wlan_on_boot.sh

   and replace the contents with this

   #!/bin/sh
    
   # Initial version from Asus/Xandros distribution - Modified by cjdshaw
    
   IFACE="ath0"
    
   #if by any chance ath0 is not up yet - give it up to 10 second wait 
   i=0
   while [ $i -lt 10 ]; do
       if [ -n "`ifconfig -a | grep $IFACE`" ]; then
           break;
       fi
       echo Waiting for $IFACE to be up - $i...
       sleep 1
       i=$((i+1))
   done
    
   TRIES=1
   while [ $TRIES -le 3 ]; do
   echo "Try $TRIES"
   FOUND_ESSID=""
   WLAN_FOUND=""
   if [ -n "`ifconfig -a | grep $IFACE`" ]; then
       WLAN=`/opt/xandros/bin/xandrosncs-servicedb --list | grep wlan  | sed 's/ .*//'`
    
       /sbin/ifconfig $IFACE up
       VOCAL_WLANS=""
       SILENT_WLANS=""
       SCAN=`iwlist $IFACE scan 2>/dev/null | grep ESSID | cut -d '"' -f 2 | sed 's/.*/"&"/'`
       for i in $WLAN ; do
           ESSID=`/opt/xandros/bin/xandrosncs-servicedb -i $i -g WIRELESS_ESSID | cut -f 2 -d '='`
           if $(echo $SCAN | grep -q \""${ESSID}"\") ; then
               VOCAL_WLANS="$VOCAL_WLANS $i"
               echo "$i - $ESSID will be a high priority search"
           else
               SILENT_WLANS="$SILENT_WLANS $i"
           fi
       done
       WLAN="$VOCAL_WLANS $SILENT_WLANS"
       echo "WLAN list = $WLAN"
    
       for i in $WLAN ; do
       if $(/opt/xandros/bin/xandrosncs-servicedb -i $i -g AUTO_START | /bin/grep -q onboot) ; then
           /sbin/ifconfig $IFACE down
           #assume it is ath0
           #DEVICEID=`/opt/xandros/bin/xandrosncs-servicedb -i $i -g DEVICE_ID`
           #DEVICEID=${DEVICEID##DEVICE_ID=}
           #IFACE=`/usr/sbin/xangetdevices --udi $DEVICEID | grep Network\ Device`
           #IFACE=`echo $IFACE | sed 's/^.*=[ ]*\(.*\)/\1/'`
    
           ESSID=`/opt/xandros/bin/xandrosncs-servicedb -i $i -g WIRELESS_ESSID | cut -f 2 -d '='`
           CHANNEL=`/opt/xandros/bin/xandrosncs-servicedb -i $i -g WIRELESS_CHANNEL | cut -f 2 -d '='`
    
           echo "wlan:$i iface:$IFACE essid:$ESSID channel:$CHANNEL"
    
           if [ -n "$CHANNEL" ]; then
               DELAY=5
               iwconfig $IFACE channel $CHANNEL
           else
               DELAY=15
               iwconfig $IFACE channel 0
           fi
           iwconfig $IFACE essid "$ESSID"
           /sbin/ifconfig $IFACE up
    
           while [ $DELAY -gt 0 ]; do
               sleep 1
               WLAN_FOUND=`iwlist $IFACE scan 2>/dev/null | grep ESSID | cut -d '"' -f 2 | sed 's/.*/"&"/'`
               echo "$DELAY. WLANs found:"
               echo "$WLAN_FOUND"
    
               MATCH_ESSID=`echo $WLAN_FOUND | grep \""${ESSID}"\"`
               if [ -n "$MATCH_ESSID" ]; then
                   break;
               fi
               DELAY=$((DELAY - 1))
           done
    
           if [ -z "$WLAN_FOUND" -a -z "$CHANNEL" ]; then
               echo No vocal WLANs found. Trying next
               break;
           fi
    
           if [ -n "$MATCH_ESSID" ]; then
               echo "Connecting $i on $IFACE to $ESSID..."
               /opt/xandros/bin/xandrosncs-control -i $i start || ESSID=
               FOUND_ESSID="$ESSID"
               break
           fi
       fi
    
       done
    
       rm -f /tmp/onboot_*.scan
    
       if [ -n "$FOUND_ESSID" ]; then
           exit 0
       fi
   fi
   TRIES=$((TRIES + 1))
   done
    
   exit 1

2. Save and reboot
3. If it still doesn't work, let it boot, wait a few minutes, then copy the contents of /tmp/wlan_on_boot.log to this thread for assistance. Please also post a message on that thread if it helped.

For the more technically curious, the changes made are:

• Allowed the script to wait 10sec for the interface to come up. Old version tried to do this but forgot to sleep
• Tried the entire process up to three times. Sometimes connection will fail for no apparent reason. Retrying often fixes this
• Prioritised visible networks. Old script just blindly worked its way through your list, so if you had a lot of “On Boot” networks, it could take a really long time before it tried the one you had access to. This won't help speed up non-broadcast SSIDs, of course, but it also won't slow them down
• Tweaked ESSID handling. It should be more compatible with ESSIDs with unusual characters in them

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