Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE DESKTOP 10 SP1 - KDE 14-05-2007, Manual, Page: 211 / 354

To establish Internet connections automatically, use dial on demand (DoD). If this
mode is selected, KInternet automatically connects to your Internet service provider
(ISP) as soon as a request is submitted. After a certain time-out, the connection is ter-
minated. A DoD connection is evident from the blue D at the bottom right corner of
the KInternet icon.
WARNING: Cost Control
Note that DoD only makes sense if you have a flat rate Internet account. If that
is not the case, connecting and disconnecting all the time can become very
costly.
To use a wireless network card as your connection to the Internet, configure it using
YaST as described in Reference and make sure that the device activation in YaST is
set to User Controlled. As soon as the interface is configured, you can use KInternet
to control your wireless network connection.
To access the WLAN functionality of KInternet, right-click the icon to open the menu.
Select Wireless Connection to open a window with two tabs. First, scan for suitable
wireless networks to which to connect. Select the tab Scan for Wireless Networks and
start the scan with Start Scan. For KInternet to continuously scan the network environ-
ment, also select Auto Refresh. Activate acoustic feedback for each connection found
with Acoustic Scan. Any connection found is displayed in the list window. Select one
and click Connect to connect to the selected network. If additional configuration efforts
are needed to connect to the selected network, click Start YaST to launch the YaST
network module for wireless network devices.
With the Current Connection tab, monitor the state of your current wireless connection.
The left-hand view of this tab offers a summary of all connection parameters for network
address and ESSID, signal quality, signal and noise level, channel frequency and speed,
and encryption parameters, such as type of encryption and key length. Select any of
these parameters in the tree structure to see the details displayed in the right part of the
window.
13.3 Troubleshooting
Connection problems can occur. Methods for resolving and preventing these problems
depend on the tool used.
Managing Network Connections 199