Unable to use wireless in LxXenial 17.11

[JASpup]

Last post (as of now) on the Beginners board topic:

viewtopic.php?p=7437#p7437

It's pretty easy to re-create if your wireless uses the same driver.

The gist is if I want to use it connected, I either need a hack or an Ethernet cable.

[bigpup]

Having to add WIFI hardware support driver and firmware is not hacking an OS.
It is a normal process requirement to provide hardware support.
There is no way any OS is going to have drivers and firmware for every possible WIFI hardware.

Every WIFI device you ever install is going to already have the needed driver and firmware already in the OS or you have to get it and install it.

I have a very new computer with very new latest hardware.
Only the newest Puppies have the hardware support files and programs to run the hardware.

This is the same with any computer OS!!

The biggest thing that drives developing a newer Puppy version is newer hardware support.

[JASpup]

Having to add WIFI hardware support driver and firmware is not hacking an OS.
It is a normal process requirement to provide hardware support.
There is no way any OS is going to have drivers and firmware for every possible WIFI hardware.

@bigpup my understanding is the wireless driver in question, https://wiki.debian.org/ath9k, is part of the kernel.

If the main Xenial distro supports the wizard loading the driver and LxXenial does not, there's something wrong.

[rockedge]

@JASpup

Replace the kernel and see what happens.

[JASpup]

@JASpup

Replace the kernel and see what happens.

@rockedge I'm still a beginner. That makes sense to try.

I'm curious to know what they did. Regular Xenial works but I still have to indicate the driver in the Wizard unlike Tahr and Slacko 6x which work fine with just a Frisbee password.

Of course I'm trying Lx for the desktop. A sage would rearrange the JWM menu adding XFCE-like menu listings and app search, maybe adding a toggle for extant configurations. Then a lot fewer people would be searching for alt-Windows Managers.

[bigpup]

Having to add WIFI hardware support driver and firmware is not hacking an OS.
It is a normal process requirement to provide hardware support.
There is no way any OS is going to have drivers and firmware for every possible WIFI hardware.

@bigpup my understanding is the wireless driver in question, https://wiki.debian.org/ath9k, is part of the kernel.

If the main Xenial distro supports the wizard loading the driver and LxXenial does not, there's something wrong.

Original Xenialpup7.5 had some of the drivers and firmware missing for Atheros hardware.
Quickpet->Info->Xenialpup updates will install it.
And a reboot should now use it.

Not sure if LxXenial can do that.

[JASpup]

I'm not saving anything.

I'm typing preferences over and over again until they're rote. There's too much to learn and remember and it's too time demanding.

Now it's Opera on MATE Slacko 632. It looks wonderful but too many JWM apps are missing from the menus, and although more clearly named, they still could use an expert arranger.

Updates beg a pupsave.

Xenial being Ubuntu-based I'd have faith in a Quickpet but I'll have to check Lx.

[JASpup]

@bigpup regular Xenial has some life in it, but Lx is proving too glitchy.

I checked some boxes about running as fido and it gave me a read-only file system. I couldn't even copy files. I thought that was supposed to be about The Internet?

The interface is an ergonomic/aesthetic improvement but it has to work.

I'm in Lx right now on Ethernet. Ethernet had to work to d/l the Quickpet updates:

31/12/2017 fixed mtp phone connect >>> brownmouse & battleshooter
31/12/2017 fixed mtpaint wasn't opening gifs >>> ssindian & peebee
31/12/2017 fixed print preview in gnumeric >>> charlie6
15/12/2017 added kodi to quickpet
11/12/2017 fix crash in gnumeric >>> peebee (added ubuntu's libgoffice
11/12/2017 added youtube-dl >>> drag&drop youtube links from browser onto desktop play icon to stream in MPV
11/12/2017 removed 'version' from quickpet help menu
13/04/2018 added google-play-music-desktop-player to quickpet
13/04/2018 puppy package manager fixes >> mavrothal & wdlkmpx
13/04/2018 added PKG, a command line package manager by sc0ttman. PKG is in early development and so may have a
few bugs. Help development by reporting any problems either on the forum or raise a new issue on gitlab.
forum http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=112927 (you can find usage intructions here)
gitlab https://gitlab.com/sc0ttj/Pkg
03/08/2018 grub4dos updated >>> shinobar
29/08/2018 palemoon updater no longer working, fix to get newer palemoon
14/09/2018 xfce post install fix was missing from 32bit xenialpup >>> Billtoo
03/12/2018 fixed quickpet launcher for 32bit Xenialpup CE 7.5
>>Opera installer. (now opens default browser to the last 32bit version. The latest versions of Opera for linux are for 64bit only.)
Latest version for 32bit linux = opera-stable_45.0.2552.898_i386.deb >>>> cnormsworld

The wireless driver still will not load. It was worth a shot:


https://postimg.cc/Hr9bFG4r

[Wiz57]

Just curious, how are you loading LXDE? I've had some success using it as a "ydrv.sfs" loaded at boot
with ScPup, but with ArchPup32 I had to rename my ydrv.sfs to lxde.sfs and then use a file manager
to click and load. If regular Xenial is detecting your wireless, perhaps it is the method used to load LX?
Wiz

[JASpup]

@wiz57 since LxPups are versions with LXDE as the standard Windows Manager, it's loaded automatically.

Alas as LxXenial is hack material, my fate is XFCE Xenial.

I like the X- series (Tahr, Slacko), but have yet to find X-Xenial or manually load XFCE in Xenial.

[mikewalsh]

@JASpup :-

Umm....y'know, this whole process might be a wee bit easier if you understand one thing right from the get-go. Don't take this as a criticism - it's not - but invariably folks that deliver reams of criticism and reports of this, that or the other not working (along with demands that it does so), simply don't comprehend the way our community functions.

We all know that MyCrudSoft & Crapple have large teams of people working on their OS, OK? Teams, moreover, that are on a regular take-home salary at the end of the week.

Again, it's generally understood that this is not the case in the open-source, Linux world. However, although I can't speak for the remuneration side of things, many of the bigger projects still have teams of people collaborating together to improve their "products". Some, like Canonical, are indeed on a paid salary; Shuttleworth, after all, IS trying to mold his company on the Redmond model..!

Do please remember that, although the Puppy community has quite a number of folks contributing stuff to the general 'pool' of material available to all - and the Woof-CE build-system is maintained by a small group of people - any Puppy OS is almost invariably the work of a single individual. An individual who is most likely working on it, as best they can, in their spare time.....and balancing THAT against work, family, and doubtless other commitments.

Of necessity, this means that development IS going to proceed at a slower pace.

Puppy is seen very much as a "do-ocracy". If something wants doing (or if somebody thinks something wants doing, or has an idea for a project they want to see implemented AND has the skills to implement it themselves), it will (probably!) get done. Otherwise, patience is key; you cannot expect an individual to jump at requests for improvements to x, y, or z as quickly as a whole team perhaps would....

At the end of the day, it's not costing anyone a penny to download and use Puppy.....so we're none of us really in a position to make demands!


Mike.

[Wiz57]

@wiz57 since LxPups are versions with LXDE as the standard Windows Manager, it's loaded automatically.

Alas as LxXenial is hack material, my fate is XFCE Xenial.

I like the X- series (Tahr, Slacko), but have yet to find X-Xenial or manually load XFCE in Xenial.

If I've understood correctly, since I haven't ever tried Xenial, you are loading LXDe via "ydrvXXX.sfs"
located inside the ISO file. Did you use frugal install? If so, to prevent LXDe from loading at boot,
just rename the ydrvXXX.sfs to say lxde.sfs (similar to what I've done for ArchPup), then reboot
Xenial without saving anything...just like starting over (sounds like a song from years ago???)
Xenial then may find your WiFi once you enter your details in PupSetup. Next, open RoxFiler,
find your install directory you booted from, open that directory and look for your renamed
lxde.sfs, right click on it and choose "Load"...LXDe then should load, import menu items, add
a few unique to it, then if all goes well will restart X, when it comes back, LXDe will be you
desktop, wireless should work, menus should be complete, along with one menu addition to
switch between Rox-JWM and LX for desktop. If it doesn't work, I wonder if the lxde.sfs I use
in ArchPup32 will work?? Might make it available for download if the donate button is pushed...
(Donate button here) LOLOL!
Wiz

[JASpup]

@mikewalsh I'm not making any demands, im- or ex-plicitly, and read your post as simply someone who is more involved in the process and culture.

It was useful to read, but what I would have probably done is given the user a constructive course of action from their seat.

E.g., report it to whomever created or maintains the distro, hone your hacking (sub-e.g., swapping kernels?), bite it and move on to the path of least resistance, (some unknown course), etc.

[JASpup]

@Wiz57 you present a skill exercise, but I'm new more canvasing what's out there to see what I should use. If I were trying to achieve your result, I would first look to see if LXDE could be added booting the mainline Xenial .iso with kernel support for the wifi driver in question.

Today I'm on a modern machine like most people are using, jamming along in Bionic MATE, but the only reason I'm using Xenial normally is creeping obsolescence of everything older. If one machine booting Tahr and XP ran everything, I'd be happy.

great song yeah

If I've understood correctly, since I haven't ever tried Xenial, you are loading LXDe via "ydrvXXX.sfs"
located inside the ISO file. Did you use frugal install? If so, to prevent LXDe from loading at boot,
just rename the ydrvXXX.sfs to say lxde.sfs (similar to what I've done for ArchPup), then reboot
Xenial without saving anything...just like starting over (sounds like a song from years ago???)
Xenial then may find your WiFi once you enter your details in PupSetup. Next, open RoxFiler,
find your install directory you booted from, open that directory and look for your renamed
lxde.sfs, right click on it and choose "Load"...LXDe then should load, import menu items, add
a few unique to it, then if all goes well will restart X, when it comes back, LXDe will be you
desktop, wireless should work, menus should be complete, along with one menu addition to
switch between Rox-JWM and LX for desktop. If it doesn't work, I wonder if the lxde.sfs I use
in ArchPup32 will work?? Might make it available for download if the donate button is pushed...
(Donate button here) LOLOL!
Wiz

[JASpup]

just an update:

Xenial is the 17.11 new corrected first post.

16.07 is Slacko.

My wireless works on said computer in LxPup 16.07.

It also works in LxXenial on a different computer.

Ergo, on just one computer with one distro am I not able to load the kernel wireless driver.

Another solution: if anyone can recommend another 32bit light alt-desktop Xenial puplet, I'm interested.

[ozsouth]

@JASpup - think we've done this before, but if not, on the machine that fails, would you please run (in a terminal):

lspci -nn | grep etwork
and
dmesg | grep irmware

& post the results here?

[JASpup]

@JASpup - think we've done this before, but if not, on the machine that fails, would you please run (in a terminal):

lspci -nn | grep etwork
and
dmesg | grep irmware

& post the results here?

@ozsouth LxSlacko (working wi-fi results):

Code: Select all

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [168c:002b] (rev 01)

and

Code: Select all

[Firmware Bug]: ACPI: BIOS _OSI(Linux) query ignored

I'll have to boot twice for LxXenial results.

EDIT: same in both. hardware results?
In mainline Xenial I have to manually load the ath9k driver, but it works.

[ozsouth]

Yes this looks familiar. To save you loading driver manually each time, open a text editor & type the following:

#!/bin/sh
modprobe ath9k

and save into /etc/init.d as ath9kload

then make sure executable by running (from a terminal): chmod 755 /etc/init.d/ath9kload

On reboot, module should be available.

[JASpup]

@ozsouth

Entering the command from a prompt yields the same results:

I would still need it in this live boot (LxXenial directory listing):

Code: Select all

# cd LxPupXenial-17.11 
# ls -al
total 477440
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root      8192 Nov  8 00:40 .
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root      8192 Oct 11 16:22 ..
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root      2048 Nov 26  2017 boot.cat
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root      2048 Nov 24  2017 boot.catalog
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   4194304 Nov 24  2017 efi.img
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root      3751 Nov 23  2017 fix-usb.sh
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root       606 Nov 24  2017 grub.cfg
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root      8192 Nov 24  2017 help
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   2280095 Nov 24  2017 initrd.gz
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root     40960 Aug  9  2016 isolinux.bin
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root      1751 Oct 11 16:33 isolinux.cfg
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 263602176 Nov 26  2017 puppy_xenialpup_7.5.sfs
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root     27104 Mar  3  2017 vesamenu.c32
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   5122144 Nov 13  2017 vmlinuz
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root     62020 Nov 24  2017 xenial.png
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 134217728 Oct 18 06:46 xenialpupsave-WiFi_test.2fs
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root      8192 Oct 11 16:31 YUMI
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  79257600 Nov 16  2017 zdrv_xenialpup_7.5.sfs
# 

[ozsouth]

@JASpup - ath9k driver seems not compiled into kernel. Swapping the kernel seems the best option.
This 4.9.13 one should work: https://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linu ... AE.tar.bz2

One other option - I have made a dirty hack of the original zdrv, which should see ath9k load. Use at own risk.
To use it, download it & replace original zdrv. Is here: EDIT: LINK EXPIRED 8/12/20

[JASpup]

@JASpup - ath9k driver seems not compiled into kernel. Swapping the kernel seems the best option.
This 4.9.13 one should work: https://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linu ... AE.tar.bz2

One other option - I have made a dirty hack of the original zdrv, which should see ath9k load. Use at own risk.
To use it, download it & replace original zdrv. Is here: http://www.filepup.net/files/72f6bd1e1605182063.html

I will post after it's up again, down now for 32bit machines becoming increasingly intolerable Internet browsing through no fault of their own.

Note from my update post, wifi works normally on another computer.

Likewise, I've swapped the kernel before testing the working pc with mainline Xenial kernel.

I will risk your hack, though I'll probably need a basic understanding of the Puppy system files at some point.

[JASpup]

It's on!

@ozsouth it didn't even need the kernel swap. Your dirty hack .sfs loads the driver automatically. I only needed Frisbee like every other pup.

You are the champ

Is it easy enough to explain briefly what you did?

[ozsouth]

@JASpup - My actions:
I found the driver matching your kernel. Although it has worked as expected, I also found source to compile
a new driver if it didn't. (Would then have had to download iso, devx & kernel sources too).
I then edited the original zdrv .sfs via my updatesfs script.

Edits:
1. Added driver (in correct subfolder)
2. Then to make it run on boot, the dirty hack was to add a script in /etc/init.d to run depmod
(discover & make drivers available) then modprobe ath9k (loads driver).

Using this renewed zdrv means ath9k will be loaded whether needed or not.
That's why I usually recommend a simple kernel swap instead (swapping over vmlinuz & zdrv).

[JASpup]

Using this renewed zdrv means ath9k will be loaded whether needed or not.
That's why I usually recommend a simple kernel swap instead (swapping over vmlinuz & zdrv).

taersh offered that solution here:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1251&p=9134#p9134

I tried using the mainline Xenial vmlinuz & zdrv-sfs in the Lx puplet and it didn't work.

Do you believe it would work with your sources instead? Different solutions entail different dynamics, but a forefront thought is the ease of implementation. Iow, the more technical a solution is, the fewer users will understand how to implement or be able to implement it themselves.

[JASpup]

@Wiz57 achieving a solution otherwise I understand now you intended:

Just boot sans LXDE and try to connect then load LXDE. That makes sense. I probably got lost in the details.

[ozsouth]

@JASpup - the replacement kernel you chose also doesn't seem to have ath9k.
Try the 4.9.13 one I suggested - it does have ath9k. Is here:
https://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linu ... AE.tar.bz2

[JASpup]

@JASpup - the replacement kernel you chose also doesn't seem to have ath9k.
Try the 4.9.13 one I suggested - it does have ath9k. Is here:
https://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linu ... AE.tar.bz2

@ozsouth this is not critical, so please continue only if communication and understanding interests you.

This is my experience:

Mainline Xenial requires Network Wizard and specification of ath9k which loads with ease, alas it is the only Puppy I've run that requires this step.

Default LxPupXenial won't load the driver at all & demands these hacks.

I would think that if the difference is the kernel, loading the mainline kernel would cause it to behave like the mainline source.

That's why Wiz57's solution made sense. It seems as if the problem is whatever LXDE does on top.

If mainline Xenial works manually specifying the driver, can't we assume it's at least accessible to the kernel?

[ozsouth]

@JASpup - using Network Wizard & needing to specify the driver suggests to me there may be
a driver clash preventing ath9k loading automatically. We had this issue with broadcom, where 4
modules had to be blacklisted for the wl driver to work. Finding the offender/s & blacklisting it/them
would prevent that. The output of lsmod, before loading ath9k manually, should assist.

My hack worked because it enabled the driver early in the bootup sequence, avoiding clashes. If that is the
case, using the same hack with the mainline xenial kernel would avoid manual loading. I've attached it below
- need to download, remove .txt, place it in /etc/init.d then in a terminal run: chmod 755 /etc/init.d/ath9kload
Then reboot, saving & see if automatically detected on reboot.

The 4.9.13 kernel would quite possibly not have that clash, so still worth a try. I would be interested to see.

[JASpup]

@ozsouth I've just recently begun using pupsaves again (still adjusting to Puppy architecture).

Once ath9k is loaded and saved, it's there on reboot.

So the issue of loading the driver each boot applied when I was only booting live sessions (pupmode 5).

I'm not sure where a live boot script is saved. That's sure to happen again later.

That's the mainline issue. To test Lx again, I'll have to remove your successful squash hack.

[JASpup]

@ozsouth intending to try your other fix, I'm not sure exactly what to do with these files.

I assume the 2nd you remove everything after the "z".

Is kernel-modules.sfs... supposed to be renamed zdrv...sfs?