Can't get Wary to see wireless adapter that Slacko CAN see!

Message

ral-clan · #1 Post by **ral-clan** » Sat 23 Jun 2012, 20:23

Hi, very much a newbie to Linux. I am trying to get some use out of an old IBM Pentium III ThinkPad. The ThinkPad had no wireless adapter so I bought an EDUP wireless USB dongle (with RT5372 chip). Although the dongle was advertised as working with Windows98SE it didn't, so now I'm looking into installing Puppy Linux.

I first download Slacko Puppy Linux and ran a LiveCD on the ThinkPad to see if it works. It loaded and detected the wireless USB network adapter as wlan0. I could see all the local wireless networks. Great! In network configuration I could see that it was using the "RT2800USB" driver to operate my wireless USB adapter.

The only problem was that Slacko Puppy Linux requires a more powerful computer than I have. It was so slow as to be unuseable (really - 5 minutes to load a browser and 100% CPU usage all the time).

So I read about WARY Puppy for "legacy" hardware and download the ISO of that. It loaded and ran much faster. Very useable.

The only problem now is that Wary Puppy Linux absolutely WILL NOT detect my USB Wireless adapter. It can detect USB drives - so the port does work. But I CANNOT get the Wireless adapter to be seen. I have tried various solutions: Autodetecting the driver (tried them all), rebooting once a driver is installed, manually installing the RT2800USB driver, using the ndiswrapper thingy to install the windows drivers provided on the adapter's installation CD.

I am not sure now what to do. I did try downloading Lucid Puppy to see if it would detect the adapter and it had the same problem Wary Puppy did. Only Slacko Puppy will find the adapter right off the bat.

Can anyone suggest what might help me in this situation. I'm fairly computer literate so I'm willing to give it a few shots before totally giving up. I've used computers since the 1970s so I'm not afraid of command lines, etc.

At this point, my theory is that it's not a driver problem per-se. The RT2800USB driver comes with the Wary Puppy installation, just like the Slacko Puppy installation. I'm thinking that there's some sort of communication or Plug-n-play recognition problem in Wary Puppy that won't even let the network software be aware the dongle is installed. But I'm out of my territory in understanding how to do anything about it.

Any suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks.

pemasu · #2 Post by **pemasu** » Sat 23 Jun 2012, 20:36

I would check that the loading of right firmware has been established in /etc/module/firmware.dep

rt2x00:rt2x00pci.ko,rt2x00usb.ko,rt61pci.ko,rt73usb.ko,rt2400pci.ko,rt2500pci.ko,rt2500usb.ko,rt2800pci.ko,rt2800usb.ko

Not sure if 2870.bin should be newer or if there is newer version. You can pick it up from slacko if you want and replace it. in /lib/modules/all-firmware/rt2x00 folder.

ral-clan · #3 Post by **ral-clan** » Sat 23 Jun 2012, 21:18

There were three "firmware.dep" files in my modules folder:

firmware.dep.2.6.32.59
firmware.dep.3.0.17
firmware.dep.inst.2.6.32.59

The first two did contain the lines:
"rt2860sta-fw:rt2960sta.ko"
"rt2870sta-fw:rt2870sta.ko"
"rt28X00:rt61pci.ko,rt73usb.ko,rt2800pci.ko,rt2800usb.ko"

The last file was empty.

So I assume this means that the right firmware is being "established".

rjbrewer · #4 Post by **rjbrewer** » Sat 23 Jun 2012, 23:48

ral-clan wrote:There were three "firmware.dep" files in my modules folder:

firmware.dep.2.6.32.59
firmware.dep.3.0.17
firmware.dep.inst.2.6.32.59

The first two did contain the lines:
"rt2860sta-fw:rt2960sta.ko"
"rt2870sta-fw:rt2870sta.ko"
"rt28X00:rt61pci.ko,rt73usb.ko,rt2800pci.ko,rt2800usb.ko"

The last file was empty.

So I assume this means that the right firmware is being "established".

It may need rt2870.bin; which you can download and copy
to /lib/firmware.
Then reboot.

http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?fi ... gk=adsense

It worked in this case:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 389#631170

ral-clan · #5 Post by **ral-clan** » Sun 24 Jun 2012, 13:52

The .bin file you suggested already exists in that folder.

So I guess that is not the problem...

cthisbear · #6 Post by **cthisbear** » Mon 25 Jun 2012, 00:41

"I first download Slacko Puppy Linux and ran a LiveCD on the ThinkPad
to see if it works. "

" Wary Puppy Linux absolutely WILL NOT detect
my USB Wireless adapter "

Yes! it has that problem.

Uncle pemasu has plenty of goodies that he makes up
in Puppy Puplet releases.

""""""""""""

Boot it again with Slacko.

Copy the main >> .sfs file to youir hard drive.

It will look like this in lowercase>>> puppy_slacko_5.3.2.9.sfs

This will act like instant ram.

Reboot....the Puppy slacko cd will search your drive...

find that file and boot from it.....fast.

All recent Puppies can do the same.

If you aren't installing much a >>> 256mb save file is enough.

After about the 3rd boot....because of file checking after saving,
Slacko will zoom along.

No heartaches....safe ....a cheat frugal.

I would use Frisbee to connect your wireless.

Chris.

ral-clan · #7 Post by **ral-clan** » Mon 25 Jun 2012, 15:19

Where can I find this .sfs file?

OscarTalks · #8 Post by **OscarTalks** » Tue 26 Jun 2012, 00:30

ral-clan wrote:The .bin file you suggested already exists in that folder.

So I guess that is not the problem...

There is an old version and a new version of the file rt2870.bin
Right click on it and select "Properties" and look at the size of the file. The old one is 4096 B and the new one 8192 B
You may already have the new one but I can tell you that I have a USB wireless adapter which uses that firmware file and it Works in Slacko and other Puppies with 3.x.x kernels (including Racy) but not in Wary or Lucid which have older kernels. It may be that you can install other stuff to fix it in Wary but I just ended up installing an ethernet cable which resolved the issue for me anyway.

cthisbear · #9 Post by **cthisbear** » Tue 26 Jun 2012, 02:37

On the boot cd.

If you had 7zip in Winsows you can extract it to the hard drive.

7zip is one of the few windows apps that correctly leave the names
exactly as they are.

Or boot Puppy.....mount the cd

which means >>> click on the cd

and there are your files.

In Slacko's case there are 12 files.

Just copy the main one....about 108 mbs to your
main drive.
Always use >> copy >>>> not move.

Watch out you don't copy it to a hidden partition.

7zip...does the lot...zip...rar...plenty more

http://www.7-zip.org/

"""""""""

Most times the cd shows as >>> sr0

as in the pics below.
Scroll about one third down.

Mounting drives and partitions in Puppy Linux

http://help.artaro.eu/index.php/data-re ... -kfq3DKd2M

Chris.

ral-clan · #10 Post by **ral-clan** » Wed 27 Jun 2012, 12:14

OscarTalks wrote:
ral-clan wrote:The .bin file you suggested already exists in that folder.

So I guess that is not the problem...
There is an old version and a new version of the file rt2870.bin
Right click on it and select "Properties" and look at the size of the file. The old one is 4096 B and the new one 8192 B
You may already have the new one...

I do have the 8192 bytes version of this file. So I guess you are right...Puppy Wary just cannot (ever?) work with this wireless adapter due to the older kernel.

Since this is a PIII with only 128MB Ram, it really limits the other distribution flavours I can use. Wary would have been perfect.

bigpup · #11 Post by **bigpup** » Wed 27 Jun 2012, 13:39

You could try Classic Pup 2.14X
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=42553

cthisbear · #12 Post by **cthisbear** » Wed 27 Jun 2012, 22:23

ral-clan :

You need to read up my post above.

Copy the >>> .sfs file to your drive >>>lower case.

Solution there...but brain dysfunction.

You could even run Fat Slacko etc the same way.
It may not be fast but it just works.

Chris.

ral-clan · #13 Post by **ral-clan** » Thu 28 Jun 2012, 01:36

cthisbear wrote:ral-clan :
You need to read up my post above.

You could even run Fat Slacko etc the same way.
It may not be fast but it just works.
Chris.

Yeah, I did what you suggested. It made Slacko a little faster, but it's still pretty much unusable on a PIII 500MHz with 128MB RAM. Loading web pages is very, very slow and consumes all CPU cycles.

The OS is a little sluggish, not awful, but slow. In comparison, Wary puppy is very fast.

ral-clan · #14 Post by **ral-clan** » Thu 28 Jun 2012, 01:38

bigpup wrote:You could try Classic Pup 2.14X
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=42553

Tried Classic Pup.

I was very impressed with the speed of booting, the OS and the nice clean look. Unfortunately, like Puppy Wary and Lucid, it just won't detect my USB wireless adapter.

Only Slacko will detect my wireless adapter (automatically, no problem), but it's too demanding for the old PIII.

cthisbear · #15 Post by **cthisbear** » Thu 28 Jun 2012, 06:19

This might work...
Re-done Puppy 4.31

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=57371

I uploaded it here.

http://www.4shared.com/file/7sqsvU0p/klp-006.html

""""""""

Might go close.
Was it stu90 who released a small Lucid puplet??

You could add the >>> pet in the posts below.

http://208.109.22.214/puppy/viewtopic.p ... 88a#567049

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 7&start=15

"""""

Guy Dog 5.0.1

http://tubeguy.org/puppybg/iso/guydog-5.0.1.iso

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=72576

:::::::

Maybe try

spup or squeeze here....under 100 mbs

http://www.smokey01.com/menu/

:::::::::::

Ralink RT3572_Linux_STA_v2.5.0.0

http://linuxidx.com/linux.php?q=rt3070+ralink+linux

Maybe someone can compile it for another Puppy.

and I uploaded it here

http://www.datafilehost.com/download-4fa22cc5.html

Chris.

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Can't get Wary to see wireless adapter that Slacko CAN see!

Can't get Wary to see wireless adapter that Slacko CAN see!