Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[twointo1]

When 2.17 boots it finds my usb wireless adapter. It is an Airlink usb wireless adapter that uses a zd1215 chipset that does not work with the zd1211rw driver that is installed on boot. It requires a window driver uses a modified driver zd1211bu.inf

Using the zd12rw driver makes the adapter show up as eth2. In 2.16, after ndiswrapper with the zd1211bu.inf driver it shows up properly as wlan0.

I have in the terminal done modprobe -r zd1211rw

Then clicking on connect, I go to load driver, ndiswrapper, and location of the driver. It loads the driver, says ndiswrapper is loaded, and wlan0 shows up in the connect box. After scanning, and selecting my network, the mouse slows and works sporactically and will not connect.

How do I stop the livecd from installing the wrong driver(if that's what I have to do) or what are the steps I need to take to make my wireless adapter and mouse work. 2.16 doesn't give me any problems. It does not load the zs1211rw driver and ndiswrapper, connect, and the network is fine.

NOTE: on further exploring, if I plug the unit in and use ndiswrapper it does the samething - the small box on the bottom right starts showing cpu usage(very high) and locks the mouse ect. If I use the terminal and ndiswrapper along with -m and modprobe, it does the same thing. This driver works perfect in 2.16.

What's the difference between 2.16 and 2.17 when it comes to wirless networking?

[BarryK]

Run the BootManager (System menu) and you will see a button to blacklist modules. Blacklist the one that you don't want to load, then reboot. I don't know about the high CPU usage, but try this step first. Let me know that the blacklisting does work for you.

[Sage]

Are you using a full install? Did you try to upgrade from 2.16, two? There's something very odd about driver selection in 2.17. I wasn't able to get the correct NIC selected and/or operational until I did a clean install.
There's also the issue of k/b needing re-selection every boot (I mean en_GB) with installed 2.17, which has been fixed with EZpup.
Some very rough edges with this release!

[twointo1]

Thanks Barry K, blacklisting the driver did the trick. I can use ndiswrapper for the windows driver and it works fine.

Again, thanks!

[sailorbear2004]

I had the same problem with an averatec laptop using Rt2500. Blacklisting the included driver and using ndiswrapper worked. thanks