Cannot connect to modem using WiFi dongle.

[cobaka]

Hello all & a hearty "woof".

A friend gave me a Dell D820 laptop. BIOS date ~2006
This is a 32-bit laptop/CPU.
I Installed Puppy S-15, connected to internet using etho0 (cable)/Firefox. All systems work as expected.
(Hey! This laptop is only 18 years old! I expect it to "go")

Purchased a 'USB-Wifi' dongle branded as WiFi "AC". Photo below.

WIFi_600M_adaptor.jpg (7.16 KiB) Viewed 686 times

Disconnected from internet & removed cable from socket.
With dongle plugged in attempted to connect to modem/router.
(modem/router connects correctly to other laptops using WIFI ...)
With other laptops I saw a list of other wireless devices in the neighborhood - not this 600M.

Result - 600M does not/cannot connect.
(1) Can I expect the driver for this device (RTL88188F) to be pre-loaded for Slack Puppy S-15?
(2) If "no" to (1) must I obtain a driver, where can I get it? (See below regarding CD supplied with dongle)
(3) Looking at the log below, can anyone advise what to do?

Thanks,

cobaka

Other info: "PC" is Dell Latitude D820
Memory: 2GiB. Operating Puppy is Slack S-15, installation is Frugal to sda3.
Bootloader is sda1 (FAT32 - boots as expected).

The WiFi dongle came with a "minature" CD marked Driver/Manual.
Ver RTL8188F-8811C-8812B.
In the CD drive the CD is no visible. Other CDs/DVD will load/read.

Here is a record from the log:
LAST 10 LINES of /var/log/messages:
Mar 23 09:15:37 Cobaka-S15 daemon.info dhcpcd[5035]: eth0: removing interface
Mar 23 09:15:37 Cobaka-S15 daemon.info dhcpcd[5035]: dhcpcd exited
Mar 23 09:15:55 Cobaka-S15 user.info kernel: [33333.226238] usb 1-5: new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci-pci
Mar 23 09:15:55 Cobaka-S15 user.info kernel: [33333.383070] usb 1-5: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=c811, bcdDevice= 2.00
Mar 23 09:15:55 Cobaka-S15 user.info kernel: [33333.383096] usb 1-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Mar 23 09:15:55 Cobaka-S15 user.info kernel: [33333.383103] usb 1-5: Product: 802.11ac NIC
Mar 23 09:15:55 Cobaka-S15 user.info kernel: [33333.383109] usb 1-5: Manufacturer: Realtek
Mar 23 09:15:55 Cobaka-S15 user.info kernel: [33333.383125] usb 1-5: SerialNumber: 123456
Mar 23 09:15:56 Cobaka-S15 user.info mtp-probe: checking bus 1, device 4: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-5"
Mar 23 09:15:56 Cobaka-S15 user.info mtp-probe: bus: 1, device: 4 was not an MTP device

Anyone know what a MTP device is?

[Jasper]

MTP devices could be mobile phones, media players, cameras ..........

To get detailed information on your WiFi device, in terminal try the following commands

lsusb

dmesg | grep irmware

Are you using the latest version of S15Pup32 - 19-09-2024?

https://sourceforge.net/projects/pb-gh ... 2_release/

This would have the latest firmware updates included.

(3) Looking at the log below, can anyone advise what to do?

Use the 'cable' , you know it works

[cobaka]

@Jasper
Thank you for your reply.
Regarding the date of Slacko S-15.
So far as I know, the best way to discover the date is using Pup-Sys-Info.
This is what I see:
Woof - CE build is 2024-09-18
Distro base: slackware 15.0
Distro date Sep 2024.
Is this the date you expected?

Here are the results of the tests you asked.

# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bda:c811 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. 802.11ac NIC
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 0b97:7762 O2 Micro, Inc. Oz776 SmartCard Reader
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0b97:7761 O2 Micro, Inc. Oz776 1.1 Hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 413c:a005 Dell Computer Corp. Internal 2.0 Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

# dmesg | grep irmware
[ 5.169256] acpi PNP0A03:00: [Firmware Info]: MMCONFIG for domain 0000 [bus 00-3f] only partially covers this bridge
[ 59.616647] ACPI: video: [Firmware Bug]: Duplicate ACPI video bus devices for the same VGA controller, please try module parameter "video.allow_duplicates=1"if the current driver doesn't work.

What do these results tell you?
I would like to get these older (year 2006) but perfectly viable laptops working, and especially with a WiFi link to my copper-line modem.

Thank you again,

Cobaka

[ozsouth]

@cobaka - This is a very new dongle. A tp-link wn725n would be much more appropriate & driver in most pups. Many computer shops would still carry it - see: https://www.bunnings.com.au/tp-link-150 ... n_p0495991
The source from your disk would be useful for compiling a driver for this one.

[cobaka]

@ozsouth
You:

The source from your disk would be useful for compiling a driver for this one.

Good news! I found I can read the CD!
More good news: There is zip file with source code and instructions.
Bad new! The zip file is 24MiB and Mr. Rockedge won't allow me to post a file that size. (Cruel, don't you agree?)
Moving on .... I will attach a file from the CD called "ReadMe". That, at least, will give some direction.
Then we can figure which files you need from the "zip" file.
Thanks for your help.

cobaka

[cobaka]

@ozsouth
Spec sheet accompanying dual band USB adaptor:

- - - - - - - DUAL BAND USB ADAPTOR - - - - - - - -
600 (433+150)Mbps wireless speed with 802.11ac

Specification
Standard IEEE 802.11ac, 11g, 11N, 11b.
Interface USB 2.0
Frequency Range 2.4GHz .. 2.4845GHz, 5.12 .. 5.825Ghz
Wireless Speed lists the speed for each spec (ac, g, N, b).
Working Channel Id 1 .. 14 at 2.4GHz and 36 .. 165 for 5GHz.
Spread Spectrum DSSS
Modulation OFDM/CCK/16-QAM/64-QAM
Power 20dBM
Status LED indicator
Operating Temp. 0 .. 40C etc
Supported OS Linux + "the other".

- - - - - - yes folks, this dongle supports Windows XP+ and MacOS. (yay!) - - - - - - - -

I'm surprised to read that the transmitter power is 100mW. That's a lot of power at 2.4GHz!

Here is an interesting observation. The spec that came with the device I bought is USB2.0 Below, in the screen grab, I see the spec is for USB 3.

WIFi_600M+eBay+description.jpg (30.27 KiB) Viewed 530 times

The Dell Latitude only has USB 2 ports, but if this dongle works I'll buy a few more.
I have a collection of both new and old desktops and laptops.
I like to 'restore' the older laptops to working order; a 32-bit laptop will do most of the tasks I require.

cobaka.

[ozsouth]

I got the source for 8814au (as per leaflet), but like my previous attempts with 8821cu (as per lsusb output), I cannot compile it in the latest s15pup32. In my 2023 5.10.189pae kernel it works, but its gcc is too old for this pup. I have since made 5.10.206pae with a later gcc & made both 8814au & 8821cu drivers. I will make a new version of s15pup32-240919 with kernel 5.10.206pae. Check your pm's after 3 aest today.

[Jafadmin]

In that text file it says to make sure and use the 'nl80211' driver with wpa_supplicant.

I have run into this issue before. So with the -D parameter with wpa_supplicant, I do:

Code: Select all

-D nl80211,wext

That solved my problem. Which sounds exactly like your problem.

[cobaka]

To all, including @ozsouth, @Jafadmin, @Jassy:

OzSouth sent me three experimental files - two WiFi drivers and one cut-down Puppy iso.
His instructions (to me) were to create a bootable disk with the drivers supplied and see what happens.
I will do that later today.

I'm a novice with Puppy - even after 7 years of almost daily use.
I spent some time discovering how to install a "pet".

[ozsouth]

@cobaka - sorry, I assumed you'd used pets - in a running system, click on pet in filemanager to install.

[cobaka]

@ozsouth

My progress report at 15:00, Wed Oct 02. In brief, after loading rtl18814au* with cut-down Puppy - no WiFi connection.
Note: I installed the driver using the petget command. I am not familiar with this command.
I discovered I must omit the extension ".pet" to make the command 'run' w/out error.
I installed the cut-down Slacko-pup using MikeSLR's installation procedure. I used this many times.
I never had a problem with this method (and again, no problem this time.)

Here is a full report.

(1) I used gPartEd to scrub, partition and format an 8GiB thumb drive.
P1 -> 32MiB formatted as FAT32 with boot flag.
P2 -> about 6GiB as ext3.
P3 -> about 2GiB as ext3.

(2) A cut-down Puppy installed (supplied by OzSouth) using the MikeSLR drag-n-drop method to P3/SYSTEM. Bootloader: Grub-4-DOS to P1.

(3) On P3 I created a directory /mnt/sdb3/drivers.
I copied the two WiFi drivers here as rtl8814au-32k510206ozpae.pet
and rtl8814cu-32k510206ozpae.pet

Next I had to use "petget" to load the drivers. This was a new operation for me. I never used "petget" before. I discovered I had to omit the suffix, "pet"
in the command before I saw the message "Do you want to install this package:" followed by the name of the driver.

(4) I saw two contradictory messages:
(a) The following package has been successfully installed.
PACKAGE: <rtl8814au-(etc), then CATEGORY: utility and "note, this package does not have a menu entry.
(b) From the terminal:
stat: cannot statx /root/rtl8814au-(etc) - no such file or directory.
/usr/local/petget/installpkg/sh: line 214: / 1024 : syntax error orperand expected (error token is "/ 1024")
/usr/local/petget/installpkg/sh: line 215: * 5 syntax error: operand expected (error is "*5")
/usr/local/petget/installpkg/sh: line 251: [: 903460 unary operator expected.

cat: /var/packages/rt8814au-(etc).files: No such file or directory.

(end of error message seen on command line)

Then: EXIT = " OK "
Generating /root/.jwmrc...

(5) Is the driver installed/not installed? I don't know but this will help. To save typing rtl8814au-32k510206ozpae many times I will create a string variable, "rtl88-name" = rtl8814au-32k510206ozpae

Then, using "find / -name "rtl8814au-32k51*" I see this:

/mnt/sdb3/drivers/rtl8814au-32k510206ozpae.pet
(OzSouth supplied this file. I loaded it into this directory).
/mnt/sda3/rtl8814au-32k510206ozpae.pet.
(how did this get here? sda ("A") three is the HDD.
/initrd/mnt/dev_save/rtl8814au-32k510206ozpae.pet
(I loaded/unloaded the driver several times. May explain this copy.)
/initrd/mnt/tmpfs/pup_rw/var/packages/rtl8814au-32k510206ozpae.files

(6) Using the command, "Network setup" -> No wireless extensions detected.

I did nothing with the "cu" driver yet.

(7) That's a report of the situation at the moment.

cobaka

[cobaka]

@ozsouth
You:

sorry, I assumed you'd used pets - in a running system, click on pet in filemanager to install.

Following your suggestion, the driver is in sdb3/drivers.
I clicked on rtl8814au-32k etc. I got two messages. (1) driver is loaded. Cannot load twice. (2) driver failed to load.

I believe god does not love me anymore.

cobaka.

(Later) I uninstalled the "au" driver from the terminal. Petget -/path/driver
I installed the "cu" version by clicking on the "pet" file. A message box reported something like, "installation successful".
Sill no connection. I cannot explain how/why the driver works 'at your end' and not 'at my end'.

I become more confident that god does not love me.

cobaka

[ozsouth]

@cobaka - as lsusb showed - rtl8821cu is the right driver - which you confirmed as loaded. Good that far.
Please boot up the iso again, & with dongle inserted & rtl8821cu.pet installed & in a maximised terminal,
run: dmesg | grep irmware
If any missing firmware, please report.

If no missing firmware, try the following, & try connecting after each item:

1. In a terminal, run: rfkill unblock all
2. try frisbee as the connection option (need to double-click network to connect when frisbee box opens)
3. try another usb port
4. try what Jafadmin suggested above (may need to run network wizard to make entry).

[cobaka]

Hello @ozsouth

On booting:
Loading zRam failed.

You asked for:
dmesg | grep irmware

The result: 1.314118} acpi PNP0A03:00: [Firmware Info]: MMCONFIG for domain 0000 [bus 00-3f] only partially covers this bridge
[ 1.797011] [Firmware Bug]: Duplicate ACPI video bus devices for the same VGA controller, please try module parameter "video.allow_duplicates=1" if the current driver doesn't work.

(1) Immediately after this I tried to connect using SNS. "No network interfaces have been identified on your computer."
(note ethernet cable is unplugged).

(2) Result of run: rfkill unblock all
-> rfkill: cannot open /dev/rfkill: No such file or directory.

OK - lets go looking for rfkill.
rfkill is in /usr/sbin and my working directory is /root
Let's try cd /
From the tree root I ran /usr/sbin/rfkill unblock all
The result: cannot open /dev/rfkill: No such file or directory.

Looking for rfkill with ROX - the file manager.
Navigating to /usr/sbin I see rfkill file 46k, rwx, r-x, r-x
This is weird! Checking that I'm in /usr/sbin. Yes!
what does ls tell me? rfkill exists in this directory!
Let's run it! The result? -> rfkill: cannot open /dev/rfkill: No such file or directory.


Your second option (try frisbee): I will make the report above before moving to the second option.

19:44

[cobaka]

@ozsouth

At the moment I am sorting out a related problem - the thumb-drive I booted slack-pup from is 'flakey'.
(By "flakey" I mean "in the bin" flakey.)
When installing/writing to the drive it would hang up, sometimes for a very long time whilst writing.
I'm replacing it now. Will continue with the list of instructions you set out below in the next day (or so).
Thanks for your help.

cobaka.

PS - to rule out the possibility that this problem is hardware related I will install/run a 32-bit Puppy on a desktop I have here.
Comment: I believe the laptop I have is "A"-OK, but there's nothing like being certain, yes?