FossaPup-64 9.5 & Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 Wi-Fi Issue (Partially Solved)

[Fat Tony]

Hi all, I just wondered if anyone could possible help me trouble shoot the error codes I'm getting in getting my Wi-Fi to connect in FossaPup-64 9.5

My laptop spec are the following:

HP Pavilon G6
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3632QM CPU
AMD Radeon HD 7600m Series
8GB DDR3 Ram (2x 4GB 1600MHz sticks)
Intel (R) Centrino(R) Advanced-N 6205 Network Adapter
Kingston SKC600 256GB SSD (Windows 10 Pro & Programs)
Also I've swapped out the optical drive for a
2TB 2.5 inch Western Digital Blue WD20SPZX-22UA7T0 (Storage)

* I've already tried disabling fast startup in Windows 10 as I thought this might be causing the issue with Windows putting various parts of the OS, drivers etc into hibernation but no dice

I'm running FossaPup-64 9.5 (installed using Rufus) on my 16GB SanDisk Cruzer Edge USB (Testing Rig) - I've yet to Fugal install it to my 64GB Kingston DataTraveler

Using the Network Wizard I get the following error when I click wlan0 and try scanning to find my Wi-Fi network

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Error!
Failed to raise interface wlan0
Failed command was: ifconfig wlan0 up
Error returned was:
ifconfig: SIOCSIFFLAGS: No error information

Doing the following grep commands in the terminal I get the following messages:

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root# lspci -nn | grep etwork
07:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6205 [Taylor Peak] [8086:0082] (rev 34)

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root# dmesg | grep irmware
[    0.763136] ACPI: [Firmware Bug]: BIOS _OSI(Linux) query ignored
[    0.941427] [Firmware Bug]: Invalid critical threshold (0)
[   33.976592] [Firmware Bug]: ACPI(PEGP) defines _DOD but not _DOS
[   34.198335] iwlwifi 0000:07:00.0: loaded firmware version 18.168.6.1 op_mode iwldvm

Also I've run the rfkill command in the terminal

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root# rfkill list all
0: phy0: wlan
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: yes

I've tried pressing f12 key which is the Wi-Fi switch as well as the fn + f12 keys to turn on the Wi-Fi then ran rfkill unblock all in the terminal but no dice either.

[rockedge]

Hello @Fat Tony Welcome to the kennels....

this is most likely a missing firmware problem. OR it could be the naming of the wLan device as the system boots. A quick experiment would be to go into the menu.lst and add to the boot stanza this command.

This is an example of the command net.ifnames=0 that is added to the kernel command line. This option will force the naming of the network devices to start with eth0, wlan0, eth1, wlan1......ect.

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title Fossapup64-9.6 (sdc1/Fossapup64 9.6)
   find --set-root uuid () be7bc44c-302b-465d-8b98-3bcb1b8d527f
   kernel /Fossapup64-9.6/vmlinuz  pdrv=be7bc44c-302b-465d-8b98-3bcb1b8d527f  psubdir=/Fossapup64-9.6 pmedia=atahd pfix=copy net.ifnames=0
   initrd /Fossapup64-9.6/initrd.gz

Otherwise it is a wifi driver for your particular device.
something like this one perhaps -> https://github.com/hadess/rtl8723bs

[ozsouth]

@Fat Tony - as driver & firmware loaded, this is the problem: Hard blocked: yes
You've tried the usual solutions (unblock; F key), so I'm wondering there is a bios/uefi setting involved.
Could also try (in a terminal): modprobe -r hp_wmi (sometimes that module causes blocking).
May also be worth trying frisbee as a connection option.

[bigpup]

When you shutdown Windows 10.

Make sure to do a normal complete shutdown.
Do not do hibernate shutdown.
Hibernate does not fully release control of the computer from Windows 10.

When you press F12.
Only do it one time to turn off, one time to turn on.
May need to hold key pressed for several seconds for it to react.
After each pressing of F12. Check to see condition by running: rfkill list all
Wifi is not going to work until this returns soft block and hard block no results.

Note:
fn key may also need to be pressed for the f12 key to work.

Got a owners manual for the computer?
How does it say to use F12 key to turn wifi on/off?

[mikeslr]

If the absence of required firmware has resulted in the failure of fossapup64 to raise a wlan interface, any of the fdrv.sfses linked from this thread may resolve that, viewtopic.php?p=51777#p51777

Download a fdrv.sfs and rename it fdrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs; then locate it adjacent to the puppy_fossapup64_9.5.sfs. Reboot.

It is best not to do the renaming under Windows as Windows sometimes (use to always) capitalizes letters and Linux is case sensitive. But you can download a file under Windows. Then boot into fossapup64 to do the renaming.

The fdrv.sfses are 'relatively' large files. That will have almost no impact on performance. There used to be an application you could use which would find the firmware your computer actually uses and package them alone. But I can't find it; and don't know if it will function under recent Puppys. If anyone has further information about it, please post that as a reply to the above cited thread.

[Fat Tony]

Thank you guys for all your helpful ideas and solutions to help me getting to the root of the problem. I will go through each one by one and report my findings

*Update - It seems like it my wireless adaptor has given up the ghost in Windows now too as I can no longer access Wi-Fi and the wireless button is permanently orange. I've got a few days off work so will dig deep and investigate it further on why this has happened

** Further update - It seems like I've tracked down the issue down to the HP wireless button it looks like down to the classic "opps Windows has fecked it" doing an update procedure and your probably have a better chance of it working if you rollback it off a cliff then use the rollback to a pervious install version. I found an old Realtek TRL8188FTV Wireless LAN 802.11n mini USB 2.0 Network Adapter in the odds and sods drawer which I'm using while going through the pages of different steps to get the wireless button back online. Hopefully once it fixed I can unblock the "hard blocked" issue in FossaPup-64 9.5

[ozsouth]

@Fat Tony - in case you haven't seen this already (i.e. still using win), that 8188ftv usb adaptor should work in fossapup64 via driver here:
http://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.p ... c83#p54926

[Fat Tony]

@Fat Tony - in case you haven't seen this already (i.e. still using win), that 8188ftv usb adaptor should work in fossapup64 via driver here:
http://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.p ... c83#p54926

Many thanks @ozsouth for your time putting this .pet package together and putting me onto the link to the other thread (its works like a dream, even Johnny "Tightlips" Schmallippe let out a beaming smile and he doesn't smile for nothing ) As the Realtek TRL8188FTV Wireless LAN 802.11n mini USB 2.0 adapter works both in Windows and now for FossaPup-64 9.5 with the .pet package I'm going to mark this thread as (partially solved) for the time being. If I do eventually managed to get the HP Wireless Button and the Intel Centrino Advanced- N 6205 working again at some point in the near future then I will come back to explain what steps and methods worked etc.

Thanks once again @ozsouth

[greengeek]

I have a couple of HP laptops that show similar behaviour with the "wifi" button (it is a touch sensitive softbutton/indicator that controls the "hardblock" status. It is not a "Fn" button - it sits above that Fn row)

Sometimes I cannot log on to wifi and I can see that wifi button is glowing orange.
When that happens I see that "hardblock" is showing on with: rfkill list all.

And then there seems to be no way I can force hardblock to clear. Touching the wifi softbutton achieves nothing.

Strange thing is that when this is happening I find that booting Dpup32 Stretch 7.5 clears the situation. It makes the wifi button glow blue for a while.

Then if I shut down and reboot into Fossa 9.5 the wifi button shows blue and I can connect.
(So it seems that the firmware I need is definitely present inside F95 - but whatever controls hardblock is missing)

Seems like the hardware (bios??) remembers a working or nonworking state from the previous operating system.
(On one laptop I have to boot into windows and connect the wifi before the wifi button stays unblocked - then reboot into Linux).

Just wondering if anyone made any progress identifying any underlying commands that can force hardware unblock?

EDIT - i should mention that I often remove the main battery from my laptops overnight. Some of them lose any sense of time without the main battery so may also have bad/dead RTC battery so that may be contributing to the issue...