To increase the chances of having your wireless issues resolved, follow these simple suggestions.
A. Do Your Homework - Identify your hardware and search the forums for answers.
B. Ask For Assistance - Post your questions, including a descriptive Subject line and providing as much detail as possible in the post.
C. Post Your Success - When your issues are resolved, edit your original post by describing how they were resolved, and by adding (RESOLVED) to the end of the Subject line. It won't take much time and can be very helpful to others with the same problem(s).
More details below.
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A. Do Your Homework
Ok, you're having difficulties getting Puppy to recognize and use your wireless network adapter. The assumption is always that you have done your homework by identifying your wireless adapter and by searching the Puppy forums for information regarding your specific laptop and/or adapter. When that search does not yield information that resolves your problem, it's almost time to ask for assistance.
But first, if you haven't already done so, try configuring your wireless connection using the Puppy Network Wizard. If you are not absolutely sure you know how to use the wizard, watch this short video tutorial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICGJIa0o1mA
B. Ask For Assistance (and provide details)
You probably won't get a satisfactory response to a post that simply states your wireless device won't connect to your router. You must provide details. The more information you provide, the better your chances of getting useful assistance. The following information will be very helpful to those assisting you.
1. Laptop Model - If your issue is with the built-in wifi card in a laptop computer (or notebook or netbook) provide the brand and model of the notebook. Occasionally, resolutions to wireless issues can be tied to specific laptop models.
2, Puppy Version
What version of Puppy Linux are you using?
> This is important because not all versions of Puppy will work with a specific wireless adapter, out-of-the-box.
3. Wireless Device Information
Full Name & Version Number of your wireless device
> The version number is important - some mfrs change chipsets with a change in version. And a different chipset will need a different driver.
What interface does the device have? Your current choices are:
- built-in (Mini-PCI or PCI Express)
- PCI
- PCMCIA (aka 'PC card')
- USB
- Express Card
4. Device Drivers (if known)
- Which device driver(s) are you using or have you tried?
- Did Puppy provide them, or did you get them elsewhere?
5. Give Specifics
What steps have you taken to load the driver(s) and configure the device? (manual configuration, Puppy's Network Wizard, Ndiswrapper, etc.)
Explain the steps you've taken so far, in detail. Your explanation doesn't have to be a short story, but it should contain enough detail so that others understand exactly what you have tried.
C. Post Your Success
When your wireless issues are resolved please take the time to edit your original post, adding the steps that resolved your issues. And don't forget to add (RESOVED) to the end of the Subject line. Making these edits won't take much time, and your information could be immensely helpful to someone else.
Need Wireless Help? Read This Before Posting Your Question
Need Wireless Help? Read This Before Posting Your Question
Last edited by Fishback on Sun 20 Sep 2009, 05:54, edited 1 time in total.
See also How to give effective problem reports. 
Some coming here may find this copied tip, useful [thanks tobydog]
Aitchtobydog wrote:Thanks to an earlier poster in this thread, who has solved the problem of wireless not working. The trick is to enter the password in hex, rather than ascii.
For my 2Wire router, the following tool successfully converted my 13-character ascii WEP password to hex: http://www.einhorn-net.de/jstools/wepkey.html
Puppy (430 small) is the first Linux distro I've found that actually works on my old Gateway Solo 9500 laptop (128MB RAM). Congratulations and many thanks, to the Puppy team!
This may be useful to a few, also
Aitch
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=47838Wpa_Gui: Finally a real network manager for puppy
Aitch