Base CorePlus: Connect WiFi

[Hamma]

Howdy folks!

After boot I hit the wifi icon and it opens a sudo time limited window.  With no easily found documentation, please, the easiest way to achieve a wireless connection?

I was able to pre-load a few pkgs and modprobe the correct driver, but, what am I missing here?

No text editor, no file manager? Sure I can move around in a console, but, geez, does everyone without a wired connection have to go through this?

Surely it's not THAT complicated...

[Juanito]

Typically, wifi drivers require firmware to be loaded first.

Do you know what wifi hardware you have?

After you double-click on the wifi icon and try to connect to an access point, do you get something like this:

Code: [Select]

$ dmesg
...
platform regulatory.0: Direct firmware load for regulatory.db failed with error -2
platform regulatory.0: Falling back to sysfs fallback for: regulatory.db
cfg80211: failed to load regulatory.db
Intel(R) Wireless WiFi driver for Linux
Copyright(c) 2003- 2015 Intel Corporation
iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-7260-17.ucode failed with error -2
iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: Falling back to sysfs fallback for: iwlwifi-7260-17.ucode
iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: loaded firmware version 17.459231.0 op_mode iwlmvm
iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 7260, REV=0x144
iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: base HW address: a0:a8:cd:2c:3e:13
ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-mvm-rs'
wlan0: authenticate with a0:55:4f:66:d5:10
wlan0: send auth to a0:55:4f:66:d5:10 (try 1/3)
wlan0: authenticated
wlan0: associate with a0:55:4f:66:d5:10 (try 1/3)
wlan0: RX AssocResp from a0:55:4f:66:d5:10 (capab=0x111 status=0 aid=3)
wlan0: associated
wlan0: Limiting TX power to 23 (23 - 0) dBm as advertised by a0:55:4f:66:d5:10


[Hamma]

Hello Juanito,

You are 100% right. Coming from more automated systems, the thought of firmware getting loaded totally slipped my mind.

My current ride loads rt2870.bin. At the time it must have been a bit of frustration preventing me from logical thought.

Not in the "optional" folder or ftp.nluug.nl tcz directory, can you tell me whether it's available and from where?

IIRC, firmware isn't kernel specific. I could probably as well hijack a copy from elsewhere..

[Hamma]

Now I see firmware-ralinkwifi.tcz which supplies /usr/local/lib/firmware/rt2870.bin.

Whoops! Already included. I'll check dmesg after loading my driver.

[Hamma]

Should my firmware auto-load?

[Juanito]

As long as firmware-ralinkwifi is loaded before the wifi extension, the rt2870.bin firmware will be loaded by your driver automatically.

(Assuming your driver is provided by wireless-5.4.3-tinycore - is it rtl8821ae.ko.gz?)

[Hamma]

And I would use what to run that check? dmesg, or?

[Juanito]

Load the wifi extension and use dmesg to look for wifi messages or otherwise load the pci-utils/usbutils extensions and use lspci/lsusb to look for your hardware.

[Hamma]

OK. Walk before you run. I'll give your suggestions a shot.

[Rich]

Hi Hamma
Welcome to the forum.

... No text editor ...

... Surely it's not THAT complicated...

There is an editor. It's called  editor.  Hover over the icon that looks like a blue fountain pen with a yellow tip. You should see the
text  Editor  displayed. Single click the icon. Or click on the desktop to bring up the menu. Then  SystemTools->Editor.  You're
right, it's not that complicated.

... ... no file manager ...

... Surely it's not THAT complicated...

Sorry, it just got complicated. A basic install starts with the minimum required to get you started. A file manager is nice to have, but
it is not required to get you started.

An editor is required so you can alter configuration files if necessary. Its requirements are simple. It edits straight ASCII. It can
copy/paste. It can find/replace. The GUI is user friendly. That's all the included editor does, no more, no less.

Even if someone decided to include a file manager as a convenience, which one is the right one to include? No matter which
one file manager you include, 10% of the users will be happy there is a file manager, and the other 90% will be upset
because it's the wrong file manager.

Just like web browsers, video players, audio players, etc. , installing the correct file manager is left up to you.

[Hamma]

How about that? I've been so concerned with getting a wifi interface I overlooked that pen thing.

All that wifi thing on the bar does after loading my driver, which lsmod confirms, is open with a "sudo" titlebar and empty cursor before closing out some ten or so seconds later.

Understanding your repos dependency model, is there anything else I should check or have loaded before again attempting to reach the net?

Thanks for the welcome.

[Juanito]

What is the name of the WiFi driver loaded?

What does dmesg say when your WiFi driver is loaded?

[Hamma]

Hope you folks had a nice weekend. I sure did.

As for our dilemma, my device, the "[148f:5372] Ralink Technology, Corp. RT5372 Wireless Adapter" shows as a new interface registered by usbcore.

cfg80211 failed to load as well as the firmware "regulatory.db - exit 2."

You can all relax. I'm going to place this project on the back-burner for now.

Thanks for all the help thus far..

[Juanito]

I believe you need the rt2870.bin firmware provided by the firmware-ralinkwifi extension and the rt2800usb.ko driver provided by the wireless-KERNEL extension - as long as you load this before the wifi extension, things should work.

If you load the firmware-ralinkwifi extension after wifi/wireless-KERNEL, things will not work.

cfg80211 is also provided by wireless-KERNEL and the regulatory.db warning can be ignored most of the time.

[Hamma]

So how do I make sure wifi isn't loaded until I'm ready?