Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hello all -

I am no stranger to Puppy, having used it going back to the 3.x days, so I have tried every which way to get this to work with the Advanced Network tool and I am befuddled.

I cannot get the native wi-fi to work, and it works in all but Puppy-based distros that I have tried on this laptop (mostly Debian and SUSE derivatives, but Arch-based ones work out of the box as well).
laptop.
It is a Dell E7250

From Ubuntu, here is the output of lshw -C network:

*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: BCM4352 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
vendor: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
logical name: wlp2s0
version: 03
serial: 18:4f:32:f2:a2:6b
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=wl0 driverversion=6.30.223.271 (r587334) ip=192.168.1.115 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
resources: irq:19 memory:f7200000-f7207fff memory:f7000000-f71fffff

It is probably something I am looking right at in the network manager (loading the wrong module?), but I'm stumped. I even tried NDISWRAPPER, only to find later it is no longer being used.

ANY Mainline Puppy will do, I can use Precise, Xenal, Lucid, Bionic, Fossa, Etc.

I shall be forever grateful if anyone has found a .pet or module that works, or who can otherwise guide me.

Thanks!

You need to pick a specific Puppy version you want to get working.

If the correct driver is needed and needs to be compiled.
It is kernel specific.
So the compiled one will only work in the specific Puppy version you compile it for.

I suggest Fossapup64 9.5.

Here is a pet package for Fossapup64 9.5 that installs some of the Broadcom drivers that could be missing.
viewtopic.php?p=34408#p34408

Download and install.
Reboot updating the save with the changes.

See if Network Wizard now shows a wlan0 choice to select.

Most laptops have a switch to turn WIFI on/off

See if it is turned on

To determine if it is Hard Blocked. In a terminal (console):

 rfkill list all

wlan0 is usually the wifi

If it indicates it is hard blocked.
There is a switch on the laptop that turns it off/on.
Press that swich and rerun

 rfkill list all

to see if it worked to stop the hard block.

If still blocked.
Use this command:

rfkill unblock all

Like bigpup, I'd suggest Fossapup64. I hadn't read his post before I (first) searched both the new and old Forums for posts about that version of broadcom's drivers which confirmed my sometimes flaky memory's recollection that broadcom was a PITA; then googled "bcm4352 Linux" which revealed:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1356061 ... and-ubuntu

As bigpup pointed out, drivers are 'kernel-specific'. Fossapup64's ISO provides Kernel 5.4.53 which is not the 5.8 or 5.11 kernels mentioned in that post. If Fossapup64 doesn't support the bcm4352 OOTB, you may have to swap kernels. See this thread for instructions on how to, and links to kernel packages. viewforum.php?f=65
AFAIK, although kernel specific, it is not so specific that 'point-variations' --e.g. 5.11 vs 5.11.1-- won't work.
https://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linux_Huge-Kernels has several 5.11.X kernel packages.