Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[Roy]

jemimah,

Still no joy. 'iwconfig' shows wlan0, 'ifconfig wlan0 up' shows 'ifconfig: SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory'

But I want you to help me check something else....

There was a Puppy distro (past-tense) that always failed to unzip the broadcom firmware... where would I look to make sure this is not happening here?

-Roy

[jemimah]

Tried with both the windows and the linux installer and I can't reproduce it. I wonder what you are doing differently than what I do.

[Roy]

No idea, jemimah. Never had this happen before. I'm actually in front of two machines ATM; one running XP and the other running Mint 9. The Fluppy stick and my external hard disc drive are the only things that are mine... so my troubleshooting is limited.

[Roy]

Okay, I rebooted without my save file, renamed my save file so that it would not be recognized as such, and rebooted again...

Boot error

Back to the XP machine to rebuild the boot record... again.

Back to the netbook and rebooted. Created new save file. Rebooted. Put b43.tar.gz into /lib/modules/all-firmware/ and rebooted. Checked /lib/firmware/ directory to see if the firmware was being extracted.... nope.

Used my bcm43xx-firmware.pet to put the extracted firmware into that directory (maybe an earlier -- too early? -- version) and rebooted again.

Pwireless2 still shows zero access points and I'm still getting the 'ifconfig:SIOCSFIFFLAGS : no such file or directory'

[jemimah]

Can you try creating a bootable drive using BootFlash on Puppy and see if you still have the same problem creating files?

Use Bootflash to format a blank drive - say no when it asks if you want to install Puppy. Then copy the Fluppy files to the new drive. But don't copy the ldlinux.sys file - leave the one that Bootflash creates untouched.

Also, can you send me the output of dmesg?

[Timmi]

eeePC 900SD
Would not allow to add a profile for a hidden SSID on wifi.
Pretty slow on this machine (celeron 800MH, 512MB, 8GB SSD) - I guess this is as stated, better for Atom or better.

[Roy]

Here is what I've been working with....

Your Broadcom firmware in /modules/....
Your Broadcom firmware manually extracted to /firmware/ (creates directory)
My Broadcom firmware .pet installed (puts broadcom firmware in /firmware/ without additional directory and adds microcode)

Sleep value in rc.d whatever adjusted to 10, then 100, then 400....

dmesg.txt sent via EMAIL (problems trying to attach)

-Roy

[jemimah]

[Roy]

Used Igulder's pup-432-2.6.25.16.iso to use BootFlash; exited process upon being asked for a Puppy image. Copied fluppy02.zip onto 4G thumb drive and opened extraction utility; removed ldlinux.sys file from file selection and extracted remaining files.

This is not a bootable disc

Placed thumb drive back into running linux environment and ran bootinst.sh; created bootins.bat

This is not a bootable disk

Put the thumb drive back into an XP environment and ran the Windows boot utility

Success!

[jemimah]

So bootflash doesn't work - something is awry.

Try running bootflash, but don't copy anything to the drive afterwards. When you try to boot it, you should get an error about not being able to find linux - but not an error about the drive not being bootable.

Then if that works, don't copy the zip file to the drive - extract the files somewhere else, then copy the files to the flash drive. Make sure to preserve the directory structure.

Also try a different usb drive and see if you get the same results.

Keep an eye on the ldlinux.sys file and make sure it doesn't disappear at any time during the process. This is not a regular file - if it gets moved or overwritten, it breaks.

[TomRhymer]

[Roy]

jemimah,

We're close... drilling down to /lib/firmware/b43 in your previously attached firmware file and depositing that buried b43 directory in Fluppy's /lib/firmware/ directory provided me with 2 access points in Pwireless2.

Then I broke it by not inputing a requested SSID. What are testers for, right? Pwireless won't show me those access points a second time. I suspect that something is running in the background, but don't know where to look.

-Roy

[jemimah]

To reset Pwireless2, first delete any profiles in the profiles tab. Then go to the debug tab and hit the reset button.

[Roy]

Okay, I think I've got it this time. I deleted my save file and started over....

It needs your provided b43.tar.gz in /lib/modules/all-firmware/ and the unzipped b43 directory that contains all the actual firmware in /lib/firmware/.

I believe the /lib/modules/all-firmware/b43.tar.gz is supposed to unzip itself and copy into /lib/firmware/ by itself upon booting, but I'm not taking anything for granted just yet.

With your provided directories placed in those two places, Pwireless2 is giving me 5 different access points to choose from ATM.

Now, let's see if I can break it while trying to connect..... yep. I broke it. Deleted a duplicate profile. Selecting 'Refresh' under Debug tab of Pwireless2... doesn't seem to do anything. wpa-state=INACTIVE Selecting 'Reset Wpa_supplicant' appears to restart eth0 and wlan0, but wpa_state=INACTIVE in Debug tab and no access points appear in the Networks tab. 'Refresh' under Networks tab does nothing.

Reboot. Pwireless2 show zero access points. 'Refresh'...nothing. 'Reset'...nothing. 'Refresh'...nothing.

Ctrl-Alt-Backspace... zero access points.

Reboot... zero access points.

Jemimah, are you sure you want ME testing this?

-Roy

[Roy]

/lib/modules/all-firmware/b43.tar.gz does not automatically unzip and install /b43 into /lib/firmware/. This must be done manually by the user.

I still can't get wireless access points to return (and there is one 20 feet away), even with the second save file. Something must be running in the background that I can't stop (or auto starting on each subsequent boot).

-Roy

current dmesg output: