Easy Way: wicd

[lmart]

Working my way down the wiki, step by step, for setting up wifi.

#1 - installed wicd package (and its dependencies) from the package repository
#2 - sudo wicd-start
#3 - iwconfig; no wireless

?what are the next steps to get wireless (ipw2200) working?

[Jason W]

ipw2200 requires firmware, which I have and use and have been meaning to make an extension out of it.  I will aim for that soon.

http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/firmware.php

[maro]

If your WiFi device requires a firmware file there is no "shortcut" around it. But if you don't want to wait you could try to find out the exact file name (e.g. from the 'dmesg' output) and then attempt to download it from one of the files available from sf.net. You'll have to put the file into an appropriate directory (e.g. '/usr/local/lib/firmware' which needs to be created first) before installing the kernel driver extension (i.e. 'wireless-KERNEL.tcz' or 'compat-wireless-KERNEL.tcz') or activation of the device.

[floppy]

Can I get wifi up and working manually, or do you suggest that I wait until you make an extension out of it?

perhaps, use ndiswrapper as long the firmware dont exist.
See what I had done in http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=8001.msg43118#msg43118
(today, I am working with Ethernet Adapters which are using the electricity network of the house and combining it with a LAN network)
Or/Then later, for the honor of linux and when available, take the firmware way.

[Jason W]

I finally got around to uploading ipw2200.tcz, so it is now in the repo.

[Jason W]

On the ipw2200 end, just make sure the ipw2200.tcz extension is loaded before the wireless-KERNEL.tcz.  Though I am not familiar with using passwords and only vaguely familiar with Wicd.

[Juanito]

To connect manually via cli, we need to know whether the ap you're trying to connect to uses no encryption, wep, wpa, wpa2 or whatever?

[tinypoodle]

Best to use a root shell for network related commands   

[curaga]

Listing all wireless cards in that part would just clutter it, IMHO. Many need firmware, and many of those firmwares aren't even redistributable as extensions.

That aside, anyone can contribute to the wiki.

[maro]

lmart: Do I understand from your reply #12 correctly that you've got a script that when running it in Puppy connects to your WLAN whilst it fails with certain errors in TC? Furthermore looking at some of the errors you reported I wonder whether the script was run as 'root' in TC (as already suggested in reply #13).

Clearly as Puppy runs everything under super-user privileges this might be a reason for a different outcome. I personally wholeheartedly disagree with the approach taken by Puppy and it's one of the reasons why I'm "hanging out" over here and not over there. In my own customized WiFi startup script (to be run by user 'tc') I only need 'sudo' for a very few commands (e.g. 'ifconfig $IF up', 'sudo wpa_supplicant -B -i $IF -c $CONF', and 'sudo udhcpc -b -i $IF').

If you need more help you'll have to improve on your reporting of the steps and outcomes of each step (as it is IMHO unfortunately rather inconsistent). I believe it would help if you would describe not just some details but rather try to structure things more useful for us out here trying to help:
(1) describe the step (e.g. plugging in a USB device, or quote the exact command used).
(2) describe the outcome (e.g. quote the full command result incl. command, warning and error messages)
(3) provide (optional) additional supporting information (e.g. 'dmesg' output).

Please note that the "usual" 'dmesg | tail -N' is a bit a "hit-and-miss" affair. I'd recommend to rather create what I would call the "dmesg delta": (a) take a "snapshot" before whatever action you undertake (e.g. dmesg > before-step1), (b) execute the step, and (c) identify what has changed (e.g. via dmesg > after-step1 ; diff -U 0 before-step1 after-step1).

Running a whole script (without attaching it here) and only quoting some output makes it too much of a guessing game for us to provide specific help. I'd therefore suggest to execute each (critical) step (e.g. a 'sudo COMMAND') on it's own providing supporting information along the lines of the above for each step. Only if we are really able to fully understand of what is happening on your system will we be able to provide you with more specific suggestions.

[Jason W]

lmart-

I may have missed it, but what are the command sequence that works with other distros that does not work here?  Also, post the output of:

Code: [Select]

cat `cat /opt/.tce_dir`/onboot.lst

If you are issuing terminal commands, or Wicd, in other distros to get wireless working there, then it should work here if the extensions are loaded in the correct order. 

[Juanito]

How about trying this:

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$ tce-load -i ipw2200.tcz
$ tce-load -i wireless_tools.tcz

$ sudo modprobe lib80211_crypt_tkip
$ sudo modprobe lib80211_crypt_wep
$ sudo modprobe lib80211_crypt_ccmp

$ sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid "substitute_your_ssid_here"
$ sudo iwconfig wlan0 key restricted 12:34:56:78:90:AB:CD:EF:12:34:56:78:90)

$ sudo udhcpc -b -i wlan0


[tinypoodle]

Adding

Code: [Select]

ifconfig eth1 upsomewhere could not harm.   

[Juanito]

?next steps?

Start from a clean boot without ipw2000 and wireless_tools installed.

What did dmesg say?

[Juanito]

I would suggest not to run the commands as a script but to enter them line by line in a terminal window to have the best chance of troubleshooting.

I use similar commands every day without "ifconfig eth1 up" and it works every time, but that's not to say it might not be needed in your case