Get APPS with no internet on TC laptop? etc

[Lee]

This is a continuation of (or maybe just "related to")

Get APPS with no internet on TC laptop? Load apps on boot from auto-mounted USB?
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=9195.0

and

Suggestions on releasing new versions
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=9194.msg50194

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The subjects of -Getting a new system up and running with TinyCore-  and  -Making dead simple TC installation- relate to a project I've been fooling with lately.

The background is that my sister, who lives several hundred miles away, recently had an old WinXP laptop die and bought a netbook to replace it.
* The netbook came with Win7 starter and all the other standard trialware/crippleware.
* She has no access to wired internet at all and has access to free/public wifi at work -
   so our telephone "support sessions" are pretty much limited to lunch our.
* No optical drive on the netbook.
* My sister isn't completely helpless with a PC, but she's no geek either.
* We lucked out in that she had a usb stick already installed with TC 2.x base -
   probably from some long ago troubleshooting that i did on her old laptop.
* I'm a complete noob with anything wireless.

So... we can get the netbook to boot TC but it will almost certainly need
* a little something for the wireless - no, I don't know yet what chipset it has
* a little something for the graphics - maybe Xorg7.5 and/or graphics-2.6.33.3-tinycore etc
* maybe a different wm (I'm thinking jwm is more familiar looking for a Windows refugee)
* a bunch of apps

The big thing will be downloading the wifi bits while running Windows - once wifi is working, everything else can be done the easy way.

Then I remembered a recent mention of tcvd... "Liiiggghht Bulb"
Why not set up a pre-configured tcvd with the wifi extensions - and any configuraton save in a backup - so she could download a single file, enter a single boot code (tcvd=whatever) and have it just work.
Not a remaster as such, but a purpose built collection of extensions/configurations.

This could be applied to some of the issues that grandma brought up in the threads linked at the top of this post without compromising in any way the "tool kit" paradigm of TinyCore.

Comments?

Any advice on the blind set up of wireless?

[roberts]

There is no panacea for wireless.

You would likely still need to know about the target wifi.
Does it need firmware? Is that is freely available or require  fwcutter?
Sometimes, existing wifi devices need to be blacklisted for newer modules to work.
What is the wifi using open, wep, or wpa and required ids and passwords.
I believe someone mentioned that wicd has enormous number of dependencies.
Still your suggestion sounds reasonable for someone with easy access to such equipment. I personally have no Windows and no netbook.

Another concept to consider, is ndiswrapper. A friend having a netbook wanted to try Tiny Core. I found using ndiswrapper to be quite an easy solution.

Grab wireless-tools.tcz, ndiswrapper.tcz, and perl5.tcz

0. Boot Tiny Core with nodhcp boot paramater.
As user root:
1. mount Windows drive, ready-only is fine, in fact best, as no harm can be done.
2. /usr/local/sbin/ndiswrapper -i /path/to/your/windows/netcard.INF
3. /sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper

Check results with
4. iwconfig
Look for an wifi device, typically wlan0

If success at step 4. Configure wlan0 by using iwconfig commands or a GUI tool like wicd in the repository.

[grandma]

Info on "Target Wifi Device":

1. HARDWARE: 20 feet of USB cable connects to a RTL8187 on deck (sailboat at anchor). The RTL has the main antenna removed and a pigtail adapter so it can talk to a flat panel antenna strapped to an ancient brass lamp - nice heavy base, although I have to lay anchor chain on it during strong wind as we've had recently.

2. SOFTWARE: I tried various drivers (Windows) at the REALTEK site related - tried 8187L, SE etc. and some have the feature that allows me to reduce Thresholds, and others do not.

3. ENVIRONMENT: RTL does get a bit of weather so have to put it in oven a few times a year to get the fog out of it or some mornings I wake up and it's dead. When plastic case melted I wrapped it with electrical tape which seems to be holding up. Tried buying a nice new modern USB antenna - WOW! - GREAT SIGNAL - but it was so clogged by the cross traffic, that without an ability to reduce RTS and FREQUENCY threshold packet sizes, I sent it off to a poor German friend in the Dominican Republic so he could shoot through a wall to a hotel. I think it pumped pretty good for that sort of duty.

4. KNOWN LINUX RESOURCES:

a) I read a post about rfkill and intended to try that and visited the INTEL CHIP SITE and reviewed their tests on that topic. The final box this will be running on is Intel so hopefully that helps get past CPU blocking issues.

b) I grabbed the RTL8187 drivers for Linux - some packages there - but the install procedure is (choke) a bit over my head at this time. We'll see if I can muddle through that.

5. ALTERNATIVES:

The RTL and software I have does some pretty neat things - not the least being the only thing that can connect here. My TRENDNET's all choked, the new hot super DB thingy I bought choked and that just leaves a YAGI Pringle Thingle or something, which I could do, but a boat swinging at anchor, shooting a signal 1/4 mile to the nearest hit, and an antenna with a 5 degree sweep don't sound like a good mix. As it stands, I often have to wrestle with the 15 degree sweep of the flat panel - click page - reach out - twist antenna - wait - load - mostly - damn - died - reload - I mean rotate again - dang - wait - and sometimes do that for hours. I once spent an hour changing one email address parameter of a web site registered at godaddy. Oh the joy - especially if its raining or storming with 50 - 80 knot winds as I reach out there (see anchor chain above).

So - yes, the environment, hardware, software, name it - all ultimate challenges.

But in this environment I once hosted about 50 web sites on an Apache box for 3 months running entirely - 100% - on wind power. I had a better antenna and ISP then, but when my ISP finally figured it out what I had done and turned off my hit - permanently - I had to "improvise" - which is where I am now.

Thank you again for the help.

p.s. - if I post a page with the RTL drivers and all the tutorials and other junk I've collected on RTL8187 and RFKILL - would that help you folks at all?

It might help me - but since none of you have an RTL and I ain't even booted yet, it may be a bit premature.

[curaga]

Have you read the man page?

http://linux.die.net/man/8/iwconfig

You can edit those values (RTS etc) without any manufacturer control panel. It also looks like your chip is supported in the wireless extension, no need to compile.

[grandma]

 
ooooo ooooooo  oooooooooooooooooo

sorry I ignored your delicious post Lee - been busy wrestling with the install process - but that page/link you put in there looks positively DEEEEEEEE - LICIOUS

WHEN I get this thing to boot and function THEN you may have hit the winning answer right on the head. I see the threshold packets - the works - in that config - absolutely stellar man.