Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[cowboy]

If, when setting up your Puppy for the first time, you can see your Linksys router, can enter your password info, but never can get a connection - read on... Newer versions of the kernel use a defaulted power management mode that will not allow these older Linksys to get a valid IP address from your router. You can see the connection in Puppy's various connection methods - you'll see (for example) wlan0 "rtusb2500" module in either the Simple Network Setup, or in the Classic Network Setup. However, the connection simply will not complete, especially if using WPA2 encryption. The fix:

1. To see the issue type "iwconfig" in a terminal. Note that power management is listed as "on".
2. To turn it off, type in "iwconfig wlan0 power off". You should then be able to make a connection. To survive reboot, you need to:
3. Open the file at /etc/rc.d/rc.local with a text editor. Create a new line at the bottom that says "iwconfig wlan0 power off" Save the file.
4. On reboot, your connection should still hold. To test it, type "iwconfig" into the terminal, and power management should be listed as off.

Hope this helps someone else. My situation may be unique - perhaps a combination of older kit, WPA2 encryption on the router, and the fact that I run "AES" encryption on the router (a WRT54G) solely. The solution also works with Ubuntu and variants after 11.04.

(copied here from Slacko 5.3.3, as perhaps some might find the information useful)