Wi-Fi (or WiFi) is a local area wireless computer networking technology that allows electronic devices to connect to the network, mainly using the 2.4 gigahertz (12 cm) UHF and 5 gigahertz (6 cm) SHF ISM radio bands. Wikipedia
Intel Edison Features
Wi-Fi peer-to-peer connectivity with Wi-Fi Direct, Allows two Intel® Edison devices (or one Intel® Edison device and a smartphone) to create a direct Wi-Fi connection to each other without an access point.
Wi-Fi multirole, Allows a connection to an access point simultaneously with Wi-Fi Direct operation.
Wi-Fi IBSS mode, Allows creation of multinode ad hoc networks that contain no access point.
rfkill is a small userspace tool to query the state of the rfkill switches, buttons and subsystem interfaces. Some devices come with a hard switch that lets you kill different types of RF radios: 802.11 / Bluetooth / NFC / UWB / WAN / WIMAX / FM. Some times these buttons may kill more than one RF type. The Linux kernel rfkill subsystem exposes these hardware buttons and lets userspace query its status and set its status through a /dev/rfkill. Given that at times some RF devices do not have hardware rfkill buttons rfkill the Linux kernel also exposes software rfkill capabilities that allows userspace to mimic a hardware rfkill event and turn on or off RF. Rfkill Homepage
root@edison:~# rfkill list
0: phy0: wlan
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
1: brcmfmac-wifi: wlan
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
2: bcm43xx Bluetooth: bluetooth
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no
Usage Models, Ubilinux
edison@ubilinux:~$ su
Password: edison
root@ubilinux:/home/edison# cd
root@ubilinux:~# nano /etc/network/interfaces
# interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
#auto usb0
#iface usb0 inet static
# address 192.168.2.15
# netmask 255.255.255.0
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
# For WPA
wpa-ssid INFINITUMxxxx
wpa-psk yyyy
# For WEP
#wireless-essid itesm
#wireless-mode Managed
#wireless-key s:""
root@ubilinux:~# ifup wlan0
root@ubilinux:~# reboot
<reboot your board, sign in and become root>
Usage Models, Yocto
Default Configuration
root@Edison:~# configure_edison --wifi
Configure Edison: WiFi Connection
root@edison:~# ifconfig
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
...
usb0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 5a:2a:15:c5:5f:7b
inet addr:192.168.2.15 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
...
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 78:4b:87:a6:cf:5e
inet addr:192.168.1.68 Bcast:0.0.0.0 Mask:255.255.255.0
root@edison:~# ping -c 3 8.8.8.8
PING google.com (173.194.115.196): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 173.194.115.196: seq=0 ttl=58 time=28.487 ms
64 bytes from 173.194.115.196: seq=1 ttl=58 time=29.391 ms
64 bytes from 173.194.115.196: seq=2 ttl=58 time=29.773 ms
--- google.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 28.487/29.217/29.773 ms
root@edison:~#