how would you set up WIFI under “base norestore” ?

[Rudock1]

Hi all,

I am going to be traveling on the road, soon, and I would like to set up a minimalist WIFI environment under the “base norestore” boot.  I would like to scan for local wireless hot spots and login as needed.  I often boot to “base norestore” to evaluate new TCZ extensions to determine their dependencies. In this console environment I utilize the tce-ab CLI tool. 

My entire Tiny Core experience (since TC5) has been through Ethernet wired network connections.

Currently, my boot environment is TC11 Corepure 64 via USB flash drives to a 2020 UEFI Dell G7 and occasionally three other legacy BIOS laptops (Dell Latitude, SONY Viao and Apple Macbook 2008).

I have read most threads here on the forum over the years and I have great respect for the group’s creativity regarding WIFI, but honestly, I have been wired via Ethernet all along and didn’t go deep into the topic.

So… given the “base norestore” environment, can you suggest how you might assemble and use a minimal and flexible WIFI tool set?

thx
Billy
Rio Del Mar, California

[Juanito]

The first task with wifi is to determine if your hardware is supported by linux and, if so, which firmware is required - you can get the hardware details using lspci/lsusb.

Using wifi requires loading the appropriate firmware extension and then loading the wifi extension (and its recursive deps).

If you are going to use base norestore then you will need to remaster the extensions into your base.

[Sashank999]

According to my research on your laptop Dell G7, you might have one of these Wi-Fi adapters on your laptop (unless you changed them):
Intel® Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (2x2) 802.11ax Wireless and Bluetooth 5.1
Killer™ Wi-Fi 6 AX1650 (2x2) 802.11ax Wireless and Bluetooth 5.1

Both of their firmware files are in firmware-iwlax20x.tcz. Beware, Killer adapter might have bugs with v5.3+ kernels. TCL v11.1 is v5.4.3. I couldn't find about other BIOS ones as you didn't specify their models.

Sources:
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/cty/pdp/spd/g-series-15-7500-laptop?~ck=mn
https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/iwlwifi
https://support.killernetworking.com/knowledge-base/killer-ax1650-in-debian-ubuntu-16-04/ (Bug details here)
.