What's the best wireless card for my system and Wary 5.3?

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VictorVictor5
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Joined: Thu 24 May 2012, 02:52

What's the best wireless card for my system and Wary 5.3?

#1 Post by VictorVictor5 »

Greetings all,

I am determined to fix this wireless issue and then configure Puppy once and for all (I hope). I've been messing around with Wary 5.3 for quite some time, but let's work on the wireless first.

I have a Gateway Solo 9100 laptop, PII @ 400 MHz, 384 MB RAM, 160 GB IDE HDD (with half for Windows XP).

Now, I've tried a PCMCIA Card: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=84563

which didn't end up working because of the cardbus. See this link:http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=84595

Now, I did try a USB wireless adapter, but because of a Broadcom issue, that didn't work either:http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=84644

I'm just looking for either a PCMCIA or USB (preferably PCMCIA) wireless adapter that can work with my system and Puppy.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!
VV5

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6502coder
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#2 Post by 6502coder »

Wireless USB dongles that use the RTL8188 chip seem to be very cheap and widely available.

shariebeth recently got one working on Racy 5.3
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 997#627997

and I just got one working on Wary 5.1.4.1
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=85220

You said you'd prefer PCMCIA:
I had an old Airlink AWLC3026 pcmcia card working on Wary 5.1.4.1 using ndiswrapper and the Windows 98 driver. It worked fine except that it wouldn't support WPA2, only WEP or WPA.

VictorVictor5
Posts: 131
Joined: Thu 24 May 2012, 02:52

#3 Post by VictorVictor5 »

6502coder,

Thanks for the response - from now on I'll ask the forums instead of grabbing something at Staples :x !

The dongle you have is cheap enough to give the ol' heavy some wireless capability!

So, I take it all PCMCIA cards for my systems specs wouldn't be able to support WPA2?

Thanks!
VV5

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6502coder
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#4 Post by 6502coder »

I wouldn't assume that you can't find a PCMCIA card that supports WPA2. It's just that the Airlink card I had was SO OLD that it wouldn't support WPA2. In fact I doubt that WPA2 even existed when this card was manufactured.

VictorVictor5
Posts: 131
Joined: Thu 24 May 2012, 02:52

#5 Post by VictorVictor5 »

Good point. Thanks for all of the info.

I'll get that dongle on order. I'm going to leave this post open for time being.

I'll update as soon it gets here.

Thanks!
VV5

P.S. Do you know if it will work on Retro Precise as well?

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6502coder
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#6 Post by 6502coder »

By "work on Precise Retro" do you mean the dongle or the driver? I honestly don't know if the dongle itself will work. The Wary 5.1.4.1 and Racy 5.3 drivers should have no chance of working on Precise Retro, as the drivers are very kernel-specific.

I have Precise Puppy 5.4.93 on another laptop, so I plugged the dongle into that and tried to connect. Several reboots later, I gave up. Frisbee didn't work at all for me. Using Dougal's wizard I was able to get the dongle to see my wireless router and attempt a WPA2 connection, but it kept timing out. This laptop already has an internal wireless modem so that may have caused a conflict of some kind. At least the correct driver seems to be present in Precise 5.4.93, so probably Precise Retro already has the driver as well. Anyway, good luck!

VictorVictor5
Posts: 131
Joined: Thu 24 May 2012, 02:52

#7 Post by VictorVictor5 »

6502coder,

I meant the dongle (sorry - I'm a noob). It was my noob understanding (and please correct me if I am wrong) that if a device and/or driver worked in one version it would work in all.

I thought all Puppies were derived from the same kernel.

If you have time, can you please help me understand where I am going wrong so that I can correct my understanding of Puppy?

Thanks!
VV5

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6502coder
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#8 Post by 6502coder »

Glad to help. I'm PMing you right now with the details, as this has gotten slightly off-topic.

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6502coder
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#9 Post by 6502coder »

> 6502coder,
>
> Ok, got the dongle, plugged it in, running 5.1.4.1 Wary off of Live CD for now, and I followed your "do this" file, and in the terminal I get:
>
> install: invalid option -- 'a'
> Try 'install --help' for more information.
>
> Yikes! And all of the icons in 5.1.4.1. are question marks in a triangle.

Hm....

I don't understand the error message about "install", because the "dothis" file should look like this:

install -p -m 644 8192cu.ko /lib/modules/2.6.32-smp/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/
/sbin/depmod -a 2.6.32-smp

and as you can see, there is no "a" option or argument being given to the "install" command.

Are you typing in the commands by hand? Don't do that!
Just execute the "dothis" file directly, by typing this:

sh dothis

That should do the trick. (You have to execute this command in the directory where the "dothis" file is located.)

=========

As for the missing icons, I don't know what causes this, but I have seen this problem discussed in the forum, like here:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=617675

Based on that discussion, I suggest you try this command:

killall ROX-Filer && rox -p /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin

If that doesn't work, the problem may be that you are running off the LiveCD: if you still have Wary 5.3 installed on the hard disk, then this might be confusing Puppy.

When you boot from the LiveCD and get the

boot:

prompt at the bottom of the screen, enter "puppy pfix=ram"
so that the LiveCD will ignore everything on the hard disk.

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