How to add a wireless driver to xenial or Bionic32? (Solved)

Message

phredo · #1 Post by **phredo** » Wed 13 May 2020, 21:22

I have an old ASUS Eee PC latop that works fine with Tahrpup and older Puppies, but I cannot connect to wireless in Bionic or Xenial. Tahrpup is using the ath9k driver. I see that an ath9k.ko file exists in the appropriate Tahrpup /lib location, but does not exist in the Xenial or Bionic /lib folder. Having no idea what to do, I tried copying the ath9k.ko file to Xenial and Bionic, but that did not make the driver available to me, as far as I could tell, in any of the three wireless connection apps.

Alternatively, I tried to access the driver's inf file by looking for it in my windows/system32/DRIVERS/ folder but could only find an athw.sys file, which was not the ".inf" file the app wanted.

Can someone help me, please? I assume there is a way to actually install the driver and that merely copying it from one installation to another isn't sufficient, but I don't know how to do that. Or, if I could just find an ath9k.inf file, that would probably do the trick, but the Internet has not been my friend in finding such.

#2 Post by **Flash** » Wed 13 May 2020, 23:04

Drivers must be compiled for the kernel they'll be used with. If the two Puppies have the same kernel, then you can use the driver that works. That's about all I know about it. Sorry.

phredo · #3 Post by **phredo** » Wed 13 May 2020, 23:10

"Compiling" would probably be beyond my expertise unless I had explicity directions. But I'm a bit surprised I can't find an ".inf" file for the driver somewhere. I know that sometimes software install packages, the kind that would come with a Windows XP application, usually on a floppy disk, would often have an ".inf" file included somewhere. But they seem to be difficult to find on the internet.

OscarTalks · #4 Post by **OscarTalks** » Wed 13 May 2020, 23:23

BionicPup32
kernel 4.9.163
In terminal run

Code: Select all

modinfo ath9k

You will see that this driver is there.

phredo · #5 Post by **phredo** » Wed 13 May 2020, 23:39

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/images ... icon11.gif I've been working to try to get Xenial wireless to work. I thought I had tried with Bionic, but I guess not! Thank you!

I've been using Xenial more than Bionic, just because it seems less complicated to update and because I can use QuickPet which seems to be lacking in Bionic32.

OscarTalks · #6 Post by **OscarTalks** » Thu 14 May 2020, 00:33

Running modinfo ath9k in Xenial32 indicates that the driver is not present. Not sure why. I suppose one option would be to swap the kernel.

Incidentally, running modinfo ndiswrapper shows that there is no kernel module for this in either Xenial32 or Bionic32, so the windows driver would not work anyway unless you compile and install ndiswrapper first.

bigpup · #7 Post by **bigpup** » Thu 14 May 2020, 01:29

Xenialpup 7.5 was initially released missing some Atheros drivers.
There was a pet package for them, in the Xenialpup repository, but not there anymore.
666philb was going to get them into a new iso of Xenialpup 7.5.

Did you use the Xenialpup 7.5 iso from here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/puppy-xenial/32

phredo · #8 Post by **phredo** » Thu 14 May 2020, 02:00

I don't remember where I got it, but I'll download that one and see. Thanks!

peebee · #9 Post by **peebee** » Thu 14 May 2020, 06:10

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 000#990000
proprietary / addon drivers for BionicPup32

note: ndiswrapper is not directly available as all builds crash under kernel 4.9

....however if you change to kernel 3.16.45 there is a .pet for that kernel - see
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 87#1010487

phredo · #10 Post by **phredo** » Fri 15 May 2020, 02:16

Would the idea be that if I change kernels then I could download (I can run Xenial from my Win 10 machine where Xenial can find a driver to get online) and install ndiswrapper and then be able to access the .sys file in system32/drivers? (I'm leaving out some names because right now I'm not in Puppy or the Windows XP laptop.)

After installing ndiswrapper.pup, how would I proceed to to use it to connect to the internet? Is ndiswrapper called by one of the wireless setup apps?

OscarTalks · #11 Post by **OscarTalks** » Fri 15 May 2020, 08:48

I think the best advice is that you should only use ndiswrapper as a last resort. If you can find a Linux driver (which in this case seems possible) then it is always best to do that. I once had a wireless USB adapter for which there is no Linux driver available and I was able to connect with ndiswrapper but the connection could be a bit temperamental at times. I ended up giving the device away to a Windows user and have always used Linux-compatible adapters and Linux drivers ever since.

phredo · #12 Post by **phredo** » Fri 15 May 2020, 17:22

Thanks, OT! And, following bigpup's suggestion, I downloaded the version from http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/puppy-xenial/32, tried it out on my Win 10 computer and saw that it *does* have the ath9k driver. I haven't moved over to the old laptop yet, but it looks like I'm in business! I'll post after I try it.

phredo · #13 Post by **phredo** » Fri 15 May 2020, 18:45

It works! But it took a little tinkering. Barry's "Simple Network Setup" didn't find the driver automatically. In "Network Wizard" ath9k did not show up on the driver list, but I was able to type it in under the "Load" tab. (It may have been on the pulldown list there, also.) I didn't understand the configuration choices, so I "saved" what I had, and then went back to Barry's, where the driver was now loaded.

So, good deal, and thanks!

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

How to add a wireless driver to xenial or Bionic32? (Solved)

How to add a wireless driver to xenial or Bionic32? (Solved)