WiFi only connection

[jonclancy]

I'm probably being a bit dull here!! I have an Edimax EW-7811UN Wi-Fi dongle (as recommended for the Pi).

Everything with Rune works perfectly via my Ethernet connection. I can see my SSID in Rune and can connect. I'd like to run my set up in another room, using Wi-Fi only.

Can anyone point me in the direction of how to do this, please? I can see both network connections, but if I try to remove the Ethernet, the Pi disconnects. I just have a power LED showing on the Pi if I boot it without Ethernet and with the dongle only connected. I can see the RuneUI front page, but can't connect to anything.

Should I set the Wi-Fi to a fixed IP address? At the moment, it changes with DHCP every time I reboot the router or Pi.

My aim is to use the Pi as a headless, wireless streamer outputting I2S into a TDA1541A DAC card.

Many thanks for any pointers in the right direction. I can use puTTY, and the editor who's name I forget, but that's about it!

Jon

[cmh714]

I run this way in my Living Room where I dont have a wired connection. It takes a bit of wifi fu to get it working is my experience. I have set it up both with the wire being dhcp and static and my wifi is static wpa-psk. So it will work either way. When I first started testing this with both volumio and rune, I couldnt get it working without using an ethernet loopback, but it may work without one.

There are various utilities to use....I see one called wifi-menu that may be useful to you and walk you through the setup.....the main one is netctl. The config files for netctl are in /etc/netctl/

I had to use something like this IIRC:
netctl disable wlan0
netctl enable wlan0
netctl start wlan0

at which point it gave me an error some of the time.... however doing this and rebooting took care of it

[cmh714]

Heres my /etc/netctl/wlan0 file. I used the wpa_passphrase command from the command line to get a passphrase so I didnt have to have my password in the clear....look at the man page for netctl and you can see the various options

Description='A simple WPA encrypted wireless connection using a static IP'
Interface=wlan0
Connection=wireless
Security=wpa
ESSID='PPWAN'
Key='1018b38ebbef0e088c58d746acad75a26c163992cf57e4b4d8ee023afebc950e'
IP=static
Address='192.168.1.222/24'
Gateway='192.168.1.1'
DNS=('4.2.2.1')
# Uncomment this if your ssid is hidden
#
Hidden=yes

[Peter]

Or you could assign a static DHCP ip to the Raspberry MAC address in your router for each pi. The router would then use a different ip for each MAC address.

[jonclancy]

Thanks for your tips, folks. I'll give them a try and report back.

[johnbanks]

If you have a spare SDHC card it might be worth giving the O.3 ALPHA version a try.
I found it easy to set up (incl wireless)
Initially you need a wired LAN to get wlan0 set up with a static ip address (I recommend)
Then you can power off, disconnect the wired LAN and boot up again.
I found a small bug - after rebooting it is necessary to go to Menu > Sources and REMOUNT ALL SOURCES - a small price to pay for the wireless simplicity that comes with the 0.3 version, in my opinion
Hope this helps

[jonclancy]

Wow!! Great stuff guys - thanks!

I set my wlan0 to a static address in RuneUI, rebooted and then remounted all sources. I am currently listening to wireless ALAC through the audio jack with the volume control disabled. The line level is lower than my DAC output, so it's not that easy to make a switching comparison on the preamp. Next step is to drop the Pi into my DAC box and see if I can get the I2S output injected into my DAC. I have a reclocker on it, so hopefully that'll address the Pi 44.1Khz summation that has been pointed out on DIYAudio.

I'm really chuffed with this - making some real progress thanks to the help given here.