Wifi support for TL-WN722N card on Tiny Core 3.5 (SOLVED)

[syltc2011]

I have a usb wireless card (TP-LINK) TL-WN-722N which I want to use to support wireless connection for tiny core 3.5.  I tried several approaches, such as install 'wicd-2.6' extension, using 'ndiswrapper', using 'madwifi'.  All have no luck, I still could not get the card working, though I could see the card by using 'lsusb', but no show in 'ifconfig'.  

I read some reference said I need to change kernel config & re-build the system, then compile the new 'ath9k_htc' driver with firmware loaded, this is beyond my knowledge...

Any one could help!  Many thanks in advance!!  

[Rich]

Hi syltc2011
I have not had to deal with a wireless setup yet, however, I believe you want to use
iwconfig, not ifconfig.

[Arslan S.]

ath9k_htc support is added to main line linux after 2.6.35, tiny core kernel is 2.6.33 so you need to load compat-wireless-2.6.33.3-tinycore for latest linux wireless drivers

you better add it to onboot list and reboot your computer to make sure old drivers not loaded before

also i would like to hear if it helps because i am thinking of buying that wireless adapter too

[syltc2011]

Hi Arslan,

I have installed wireless-2.6.33.3-tinycore, it is bundled in wicd-2.6 when I install it, also I config the wireless-2.6.33.3 onboot, and I do not have any old drivers installed since Tiny Core 3.5 is newly set up in my computer (I use VM 7.1.2). 

actually I have checked the date of wireless-2.6.33.3 latest update date on tiny core extensions library, it was 2010/05/14, and I could find similar driver release for 2.6.32.16 from linuxwireless.org (http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k_htc#Get_the_driver) was around 2010/06/05, and the up-to-date drivers for AR9271 chipset is for 2.6.38-rc7 dated 2011/02/20, so I wonder if wireless-2.6.33.3 could support all AR9271?

Any ideas or suggestions?

for Rich, thanks for your help! but I could not see my wireless card in 'ifconfig', so I could not use 'iwconfig' to setup the connection. actually I know there is an easy way to use GUI based WicdNetworkManager to config the wireless.

[Arslan S.]

i wanted to say you need to load compat-wireless-KERNEL.tcz because the driver in current tc kernel does not support your wireless chip
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/tinycorelinux/3.x/tcz/compat-wireless-2.6.33.3-tinycore.tcz.info

wireless-KERNEL.tcz and compat-wireless-KERNEL.tcz can be installed side by side but a reboot may be neccessary for the first time to make sure new drivers from compat-wireless-KERNEL.tcz is loaded instead of old ones from wireless-KERNEL.tcz

[syltc2011]

Dear Arslan,

I had installed compat-wireless-2.6.33.3-tinycore.tcz(still could not get the card from ifconfig). 

I could not find the wireless-KERNEL.tcz and compat-wireless-KERNEL.tcz on the extension library, where could I get them?  Thanks!

[tinypoodle]

"KERNEL" is a placeholder for 'uname -r', e.g. "2.6.33.3-tinycore".

[maro]

The use of "KERNEL" in an extension name indicates that this is a kind of symbolic name. The "KERNEL" part will be replaced by the 'tce-load' utility with the result of uname -r (e.g. '2.6.33.3-tinycore' on a 32-bit system). The reason for all this is to support 32-bit as well as 64-bit kernel modules. In your case you seem to have already downloaded the correct extension.

Now a few thoughts about the troubleshooting of wireless adaptors from my own experience:
(1) Pay good attention to the dmesg output. In my view the best way is to first take a snapshot (e.g. via dmesg > dmesg-01.log), then install the required extension (e.g. via tce-load -wi compat-wireless-$(uname -r)), insert the USB wireless adaptor and take another 'dmesg' snapshot and compare the snapshots (e.g. via dmesg > dmesg-02.log ; diff -U0 dmesg-01.log dmesg-02.log). You might want to share that result with us here.
(2) Make sure that 'iwconfig' tool is available (e.g. via tce-load -wi wireless_tools) and check what device name is assigned to the USB wireless device (e.g. via iwconfig). Again you might want to share that result here.
(3) Now activate the device (e.g. via sudo ifconfig wlan0 up) and take another 'dmesg' snapshot (e.g. via dmesg > dmesg-03.log ; diff -U0 dmesg-02.log dmesg-03.log). This activation step is likely to result in a failure, if the device requires some firmware file. But the 'dmesg' output should contain an appropriate message in this is the case. BTW, the 'ifconfig' command on it's own will only show active adaptors, but adding either the '-a' parameter to list all that are available, or specifying the interface name should overcome this minor obstacle.

If you get to the point that the interface is "UP" all the rest depends on your WiFi setup (e.g. WEP or WPA). Which is then something that can be either addressed with the help of some GUI tools (e.g. 'wicd') or some rather simple commands that could be put into a custom script. But I don't want to jump too far ahead as this is so far the first hurdle that needs to be navigated.

[Arslan S.]

did you reboot after adding compat-wireless to onboot.lst ?

can you please provide more info as maro suggested above

plug in your usb device and

Code: [Select]

dmesg > dmesg.txt
lsmod > lsmod.txt
sudo ifconfig interface up > ifconfig.txt
# interface = wlan0, ath0, ra0 etc, see "ifconfig" output

post or attach here lsmod.txt, dmesg.txt, ifconfig.txt

note: i am trying to understand if the correct driver (from compat-wireless) is loaded and it is working with the most basic command (ifconfig ath0 up)

[syltc2011]

Dear maro,

I followed your instructions on a newly installed VM based TC3.5 system, after step (2), I dump an extra dmesg-02a.log, and compared with dmesg-02.log, I found that the AR9271 firmware (ar9271.fw) not found error, so the card is not show up neither in ifconfig (I use -a options)nor in iwconfig.  I know this firmware could be download from linuxwireless.org, and I used to try to put it under /lib/firmware, but it did not work neither(I do not know where is the right place to put in TinyCore 3.5).  So I stucked at this point.

Attached are the log files.

[syltc2011]

Dear Arslan,

I have rebooted the TC and am sure that the compat-wireless is in onboot.lst.

I could not get ifconfig interface up since I could not get the card listed in ifconfig -a.  attached are the message files.

Thanks!

[curaga]

That firmware file is included in firmware.tcz.

[Arslan S.]

if ar9271.fw from firmware.tcz fails, you can find latest firmware here
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/dwmw2/linux-firmware.git;a=tree

get a snapshot of the tree and copy ar9271.fw to /lib/firmware

Code: [Select]

sudo cp ar9271.fw /lib/firmware/ar9271.fw
add it to backup list for persistency

Code: [Select]

echo lib/firmware/ar9271.fw >> /opt/.filetool.lst

[syltc2011]

Dear curaga, Arslan, & maro.

I got the problem fixed after install curaga's firmware.tcz, and successfully set up the wireless connection using wpa2-psk, every thing works fine now! 

Appreciate all of your kindness supports! !!:D

Have a nice day to you all!