Linux: Connect wireless during boot-up

Please read entire post before modifying your system.

Notice: Use this information at your own risk, make sure you have current backups and know how to restore them. This cannot be overstated.

You should disable Network-Manager before starting. You can always fall back to using it if desired. Right click the network-manager icon and untick “enable networking” to disable your connection to the net. Re-tick it to reconnect.

In order to bypass the Network Manager in Ubuntu, and most other Linux flavors, and have your wireless connection configured and brought up during boot you need to configure the /etc/network/interface file.

The settings you use depend in part on the make and model of your wireless adapter and the settings for your LAN. This example presumes an Intel 3945ABG card. For other cards you may need to change the driver from ‘wext’ to whatever is appropriate for you. More info can be found in this thread on the ubuntuforums.

If it’s not already on your system you will need to install wpa_supplicant. Add it by doing:

sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant

You should also make a backup copy of your interfaces file.

To do that issue this command:

sudo cp /etc/network/interfaces /etc/network/interfaces.$(date +%y%m%d-%H%M%S)

this will give you with a copy of your interface file with the current date & time appended.