Puppy Linux 4: Cannot Detect Wifi Interface.

[GusCE6]

Hello, Everybody.


I am new to this, so please be patient. My question may be somewhat unusual.

Recently I decided to try and use Puppy Linux. After a technician failed to get it running from a USB stick on both 2012 Windows 8 ASUS and 2001 Sony VAIO (Windows XP), I tried something else.

QEMU did verify that Puppy Linux 4 would work on the Sony, but...well, it had certain problems, such as being unable to do much even on the ASUS.

Then I stumbled across an app called "LICK." This makes it so insanely easy to install Puppy Linux as part of a Dual Operating System it's incredible.


Here's the problem: The old Sony now has Puppy Linux 4.2.0 installed AND Puppy Linux 7! Unfortunately, it is impossible to go online, and here's why:


1) Puppy Linux 4 runs GREAT on that old Sony- fast, the media player works very well, it's a joy to use. However, it cannot detect the Orinoco wifi card, so all I get is "Etho" as cable Ethernet, and Eth1 was Ethernet IEEE (it seems live). No "Lan0," no "Eth1" as wifi, nothing. I've tried loading the Orinoco modules via "Specify," but nothing. The Panda Wireless USB stick is not seen either, but maybe it's because it's a USB 1.0 port. In short, no wireless interface is ever detected.


2) Puppy Linux 7 does detect the wireless interface but apparently Puppy Linux 7 uses too much RAM (the Sony is 256MB). Most programs do work, but attempting to fire up the browser or media player fails- nothing happens.


So it's a closed circle now. One gets wifi but takes too much RAM; the other works great but cannot detect wifi interface.


I'd much prefer to get the wifi running on Puppy Linux 4, but is there a way of getting "Virtual RAM" on Puppy Linux 7 to solve that?

The wifi card is an Orinoco. Puppy Linux 7 clearly does detect it, and apparently the modules/drivers seem to be the same. The problem is detection.


I ultimately decided to use Puppy Linux 6 on the ASUS. 6 does NOT work on the Sony, just as 4 does NOT work on the ASUS.

For any help here, thanks in advance!

[Mike Walsh]

Hallo, GusCE6. And to the 'kennels'.

Personally, if the internal wifi card isn't detected, I'd go with a USB wifi dongle.

What kernel are you running? This will to a large extent determine what can and can't be used. It'll depend on what driver support is already in your kernel, and/or what drivers have been compiled & published by various forum members.

What output d'you get from

Code: Select all

uname -a

...in the terminal?

I may be able to suggest a couple that would do the job for you. Sometimes, you just have to accept that certain pieces of hardware will never 'work' with Linux, no matter what you do..... Either that, or somebody else who knows the 4-series a darned sight better than me will be able to suggest a different solution.

Hang in there. We'll get ya fixed one way or another!


Mike.

[don570]

Puppy Linux 7 does detect the wireless interface but apparently Puppy Linux 7 uses too much RAM (the Sony is 256MB)

Lucid puppy 5.2.5 ( also called puppy-525) was created for low Ram laptops like yours.
It will run entirely in RAM from a CD player, if you burn to a CD.
But it can also be installed to a hard disk --> a frugal install.

It should be able to detect your devices.
Available as ISO:
https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/puppy-5.2.5/

https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/p ... pu-525.iso
_________________________________________________________

[GusCE6]

"Lucid puppy 5.2.5 ( also called puppy-525) was created for low Ram laptops like yours.
It will run entirely in RAM from a CD player, if you burn to a CD.
But it can also be installed to a hard disk --> a frugal install.

It should be able to detect your devices.
Available as ISO:
https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/puppy-5.2.5/"



Thank you for the quick replies and encouragement!


Don570:

Shortly after I posted that I did find Puppy Linux 5.2.8.6, and installed it. The cursor did not work properly in the initial screen size, but thank goodness for the TAB key! After a moment it worked fine.

Once again...failure. The ORINOCO drivers are there and they are even listed, but trying to LOAD any of them results in a failure message- invalid symbol or some such thing.

It cannot detect the Panda Wireless USB stick- but the USB port is 1.0, so any such thing would have to work with that.

So in the case of Puppy Linux 5 it works and the modules/drivers are there, but still nothing.


To Mike Walsh:

In Puppy Linux 5 it's "Linux puppypc 2.6.33.2 #1 SMP"



There's just that one thing, the wifi- heck, even Firefox was installed easily and 5. Once the virus detection is up and working it can help the ASUS and Sony alike.

Maybe I can get "Undertale" working too...

In all cases the Puppy Linux Operating Systems are installed as part of a "Dual/Multi-Operating System" setup. QEMU is no longer used here.


Thanks in advance!

[bigpup]

Not all Puppies turn laptop wifi on at bootup.

Laptop WIFI not working.

See if it is turned on

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

Code: Select all

 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

Code: Select all

 rfkill list all

to see if it worked to stop the hard block.

[bigpup]

Anytime you talk about a specific computer.
Tell us the make and model so we can look up the specs to see what it is.

I have helped several people with laptop wifi problems and you would be surprised how many times the WIFI was not turned on.

Laptops have switches for WIFI off/on

[mikeslr]

Adding to the advice bigpup gave, please also be clear regarding which Puppies you're referring to. Puppy is a "family" of operating systems. There are over a hundred initial builds and published remasters. Each has similarities and differences. I don't know exactly what you mean by "Puppy Linux 4". I think you are referring to one of the Puppies in the "4" Series. There are only about six or seven of those. I'm not sure what you mean by "Puppy Linux 7". Are you referring to Slacko 7.x or FatDog64-7xx or something else?

Any Puppy ISO you download has specific names; for example the first post on the slacko-700 rc3 thread provides links to the slacko-6.9.9.9-uefi-k4.4-PAE-PM-LO.iso and to the slacko64-6.9.9.9-uefi-k3.16-PM-LO.iso and several other 64-bit ISOs. Please identify which you are referring to at least in one post. In the future, you can say something like, "computer and operating system specs provided here", with a link to that post.

Regarding Puppies of the 4 series. Even if you could get them to recognize your wifi adapter, you'll find very little satisfaction. Current graphic-rich websites make very high demands on Random Access Memory. As far as I know, only a special build of Palemoon (a firefox fork) can even access such websites. But even for those, with only 256 Mbs of RAM you'll probably need to add a Swap partition. Open another thread for advice about that.

Older browsers such as opera 12.16 might be OK for sites such as this forum and Wikipedia which are primarily text-base. But many sites are increasingly demanding newer browsers for security reasons. And it may not be possible to provide acceptable security under Puppies of the 4 series.

Once you've answered bigpup's questions about the models of your computers, we may be able to suggest Puppies which could provide more enjoyable/useful experiences.

Lastly, most newer Puppies --and thus probably the one you referred to as Puppy Linux 7-- include a program called Pup-SysInfo. It's on the System's Section of your Start Menu. It will provide a great deal of information about the Puppy you run it from and the computer you are running it on. Try the Sys-Specs > Base Report first.

mikesLr

[GusCE6]

Thanks for all the replies!


I managed to get the wifi running by using "Puppy Linux 5.2.5" as suggested above. Why the later one didn't work, I don't know.

BUT- I cannot get in because of this:


https://n74.network-auth.com/splash/?ma ... id%3D0x409


I keep getting a timeout error message. With only 256 MB of RAM am I running out of memory? If so, how do you boost it? I used Seamonkey 2.23, Google Chrome, and Firefox 4, all with the same results. Chrome did mention "error 101." Hopefully that means it's a simple one...

Once I'm through that, it should work. I also noticed installing WINE is useless: it never fires up. Memory problems?

Am I limited to 256MB RAM period?

Thanks so much! I look forward to learning enough to actually contribute!


Oh, yes- I will be more detailed in the future.


By the way, if you haven't tried WINE yet- do so. On the ASUS, Puppy Linux 6, it immediately got Undertale and Foxtail running, easily. I was amazed.

[bigpup]

Are you saying you are using a Library provided WIFI hot spot to connect to the Internet?

[bigpup]

I also noticed installing WINE is useless: it never fires up. Memory problems?

I think it is more about what program you are trying to run in Wine.
What amount of memory that program needs.
However, Wine will use some memory to run what part of Wine runs the program.

[mikeslr]

What model computers? What the f**k is a Puppy Linux 6?

"Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves
Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe:
All mimsy were ye borogoves;
And ye mome raths outgrabe."

Anyone who takes the time, or doesn't, can babble. Communication is an English word derived from two Latin roots. One was a noun with the meanings "common, communiality or sharing". The other was a verb meaning "to make something common". To communicate we have to use words whose meaning is shared between us.

There are reasons we ask questions. We can only know about your computer what you tell us. Multiplying the number of possible computers with the number of possible operating systems produces far too many variables to make intelligent recommendations. Just guessing is almost always a waste of everyone's time.

But from what little you've told us, one possible guess is that your Sony VAIO might be a Sony VAIO PCG-FXA36. If so, for about $10 plus shipping, you could double its RAM to 512 Mb, https://www.memorystock.com/memory/Sony ... FXA36.html and actually use it for something other than a paper-weight.

You have entered a Forum where things have a meaning shared by Forum members. I, for one, will not make any further effort to assist someone who doesn't answer questions and chooses to babble.

p.s. And what the hell are you using to post which fails to word-wrap a line 200 characters long?

[Mike Walsh]

"Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves
Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe:
All mimsy were ye borogoves;
And ye mome raths outgrabe."

First time I've seen it written with 'ye's' instead of 'the's'..!

And for an encore, try:-

"The Hunting Of The Snark". Boy, Lewis Carroll has a lot to answer for... Makes 'Alice' seem positively hum-drum.

(Good luck with that one..!!)


Mike.

[GusCE6]

Mikeslr:


What part of "I am new here?" didn't you understand? Some of my questions seemed generic in any case, at least to a beginner.

Your useless post cluttered up this thread. If your point was "you have to be more specific," in the future just say that if you please. These things are relative. And that weird portion IS the URL to the page that was giving me all of that trouble, just copied and pasted if anyone else wanted to try it.

As for "Puppy Linux 6"- that is on the ASUS, which has NO problems with anything. Any laptop capable of easily handling "World of Tanks" isn't going to have much of a problem, so being more specific was not necessary as far as that was concerned; it was the SONY giving me trouble here.

So please try to be a bit more patient in the future.



To everyone else here: thank you for the help!


In any case, the Sony is a 2001 VAIO laptop. I already boosted its RAM to its maximum allowable 256MB; it has 800MHz processing power, and the Puppy Linux installed is "5.2.5" as advised above (VERY useful reply, another thank you to you ). Its model number is "PCG-SRX77(UC)" and I cannot be much more specific than that- a technician admitted it could be a chimera, more than one computer's parts were used.


Last night some tinkering and serendipity paid off: I figured out how to increase personal space to 1GB, and as a result several apps now run. This includes an earlier VLC Player, and WINE.

I know WINE is not an emulator (it's in the name!) but what is it? When using the same version on the mighty ASUS with Puppy Linux 6.0.3 it plays Undertale and Gingertip's Foxtail games perfectly, but it cannot on the Puppy Linux 5.2.5 Sony. Obviously something else is involved, but it did handle a few games and apps, including QTWeb, which brings us to...

This is being typed up using Firefox 4 on the Sony. Some plain old luck and tinkering allowed WINE to work, which got the Windows QTWeb Portable browser working, which in turn got me past that idiotic sign-in page (yes it's a library network, believe me around here "second-rate" would be a step up).

So at least that's been done. But thanks must go to those here for their encouragement (with one exception), the recommendation for Puppy Linux 5.2.5, and months ago someone on the GameMaker forum for reminding me about the Linux option.

Now, how to get Undertale and Foxtail, two fantastic games, running on this thing...

[bigpup]

It is most likely the amount of RAM not being enough for everything, but maybe not.

Foxtail minimum requirements:
System:
Windows 7 / 8 / 10
Processor:
Pentium II 300MHz
Memory:
128 MB RAM
Graphics:
SVGA videoadapter
DirectX:
Version 9.0
Storage:
100 MB

The version of Wine can affect what Windows stuff runs OK.
What Windows version you have Wine set to mimic for the specific program can affect how the program runs.

Maybe this will help you:

For Wine.

Good place to get Wine for Puppy.
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=88711

Also, look on the first post of the Wine topic for a added program that puts Wine entries in the menu.

When you get Wine installed and the Wine menu entries.
Run Wine config to setup Wine.
It will probably offer you a few more programs needed for Wine to run properly.
Should download and install them as part of the initial config.

Also, in Wine config->Drivers Select autodetect to get all the driver locations loaded in Wine.

A lot of settup options in Wine config, so check them all.

What version of Windows you want Wine to mimic can affect how a program runs. Wine Config->Applications.

About specific programs running in Wine.
Go to the Wine web site and see what it says about a specific program and issues.
http://www.winehq.org

Using Wine is almost like learning a new operating system.
Takes a while to learn how to use Wine and to get things working properly.

[bigpup]

That Sony is suppose to have a manual off/on switch for WIFI.

From the manual for a Sony PCG-SRX77.