Dell mini 9 wireless help

[straykat]

I've done tons of reading and found many folks who have wireless working but nothing seems to work for me.  Can anyone point me in the right direction.  I don't really want to use ndiswrapper but will if that is the only choice.  TC3 is installed to the hd and eth0 works fine.  Via app browser i installed wl, wireless tools, and wireless tinycore, as advised in another post.  I think my adaptor is a bcm4312 but lspci don't seem to work.

[tinypoodle]

lspci requires pci-utils.tcz

[gerald_clark]

You will also need to cut the firmware for that controller.

[straykat]

ok lspci shows BCM4312 b/g rev.1
gerald are you saying go the ndiswrapper route then? 
I've never used ndiswrapper or cutting tools as it just worked in ubuntu.  You have any tips or instructions for me?

[Juanito]

I'd guess you'd be able to use the "wl" extension with this.

You could also try looking here to see if the b43 extension would work or not: http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

[gerald_clark]

I use the b43 module.  Instructions for cutting firmware were found on the internet.

[Juanito]

a matter of preference I guess - "b43", "wl" and ndiswrapper all work for my "dell wireless 1395 wlan mini-card"/"0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 USB Controller (rev 01)"

BTW - For both wl and ndiswrapper, you would need to add "blacklist=ssb blacklist=b43" to your bootcodes in order for them to work, see: http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=6830.msg35889#msg35889

[straykat]

Juan I read that post before I posted.  I tried blacklisting as you suggested and still no wifi.  Some posts even stated that TC does not use blacklists.  I'm was surprised that more folks with mini 9's are not using this OS, until I tried to get anything to work.  Maybe I'll have to go back to stupibuntu where things just work!  The lack of documentation is soooo frustrating. 

[Juanito]

Perhaps if you could give a few more details it would help:

1. What wireless encryption are you trying to use -  none, wep, wpa, wpa2, etc?

2. Could you try something like this:

Code: [Select]

$ tce-load -i wl.tcz
$ sudo modprobe lib80211_crypt_tkip
$ sudo modprobe lib80211_crypt_wep
$ sudo modprobe lib80211_crypt_ccmp
$ sudo modprobe wl
$ sudo iwconfig eth1 essid "my_ssid"
$ sudo iwconfig eth1 key restricted 12:34:56:78:9A:BC:DE:F0:12:23:56:78:9A
$ sudo udhcpc -b -i eth1
..and then post the result of:

Code: [Select]

$ dmesg | tail -20
Note that the above example is for wep encryption and the lib80211* modules names may have changed (this was for tc-2.x)

[straykat]

1) no encryption
2) Craps out on last line 
3) dmesg shows
b43-phy0 4312 found
broadcom 43xx loaded
and
r8168 eth0

[straykat]

sorry I can not post the entire dmesg as I am using a different pc.  I don't know how to get it here.

[straykat]

fyi same problem in slitaz. 

[Juanito]

r8168 eth0

This should not be there (unless  it's your wired adapter) - have you got something other than wl, wireless-2.6.33.3-tinycore and wireless-tools loaded?

Does "lsmod" confirm that the b43 and ssb modules are not loaded?

[Juanito]

sorry I can not post the entire dmesg as I am using a different pc.  I don't know how to get it here.

You can direct it to a text file using:

Code: [Select]

$ dmesg | tail -20 > dmesg.txt
..or you can highlight the output in the terminal window and paste by using the middle button or left and right buttons simultaneously on a two-button mouse

[straykat]

i created the txt file but then what?  cant copy from terminal! grrrr  cant past in this window!