Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

vtpup · Last edited by vtpup on Fri 13 Apr 2012, 19:53; edited 1 time in total

Well plunked down the money for a laptop (my first new computer- I've always had used machines) and moved into the 21st century with a modest dual proc in a very inexpensive machine. I actually bought it at Walmart! It's an Acer Aspire 5349-2635

Everything works great, repartitioned Win 7 down to a corner of the drive, installed Lupu 528 v5 frugal.

But....no wireless. I thought that was going to be a piece of cake with Lupu, as it had been installing it in a couple of my older computers. But this time no go

Checking the hard info, the wifi shows up as an Atheros AR9485 based pci. I tried specifying the ath9k module, but the wifi is still unrecognized.

I found a thread in the Ubuntu forum which eventually shows a solution for the same chipset here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1857808

but I need some help translating that solution (shown there as message 63) to Puppy Lupu 528
Thanks for any help!

vtpup · Posted: Fri 13 Apr 2012, 08:56 Post subject:

Here's the code of the suggested solution:

tempestuous · Joined: 10 Jun 2005 Posts: 5468 Location: Australia

Sure, updating the complete wifi subsystem will probably work ...
but do you have the necessary kernel compilation skills?

A more straightforward approach would be to get a more more modern Puppy version with more recent kernel and more recent ath9k driver: Slacko 5.3.1 will probably do it.

vtpup · Posted: Fri 13 Apr 2012, 15:16 Post subject:

vtpup · Posted: Fri 13 Apr 2012, 19:15 Post subject:

Slacko 5.3.1 was unable to detect the wireless. I also tried loading each of the Atheros modules I could find, but none worked. Definitely not ath9k. I started trying the autoporprobe module function to test all modules, but it was slow going and I gave up after awhile.

vtpup · Posted: Fri 13 Apr 2012, 19:52 Post subject:

Went back to Lupu.

I'd loaded the Devx and Kernel source shs files. I ran:

ccaaee · Joined: 27 Feb 2010 Posts: 32

thanks for this. I had the same problem on an Acer 7250 laptop. Although this fixed it as far as the wifi was concerned it prevented the machine from shutting down. It would just show "Lucid is shutting down" then freeze. This was on a full hard disk install. The hack I applied was to add "rmmod ath9k" at the beginning of wmpoweroff and wmreboot.
Now, I'd quite like to make a pet for this module, can anyone point me in the right direction?

vtpup · Posted: Thu 26 Apr 2012, 09:33 Post subject:

Re shutdown problem, just found this:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=77818

haven't tried it yet. It says not to use it on "Lupu" type puppies, but looks like one lupuplus user has succeeded with it.

Probably should be tested with a temporary test savefile first.

Drewcef · Joined: 23 Jun 2012 Posts: 1

I just wanted to comment that this worked for me as well! I recently bought an acer Aspire 5733Z (also a very good deal, like the OP), and it has the Atheros AR9485 adapter as well.

I'm really new to Linux, and I'm attempting to fumble my way through the dark with Slackware 13.37 right now. I was able to get the wired connection running, but the wireless connector didn't even show up (except with lspci).

I searched for a while, tried installed madwifi (supposed to be the best support for Atheros adapters in Linux) but I had no luck at all. This thread finally worked!

I'm also posting this hoping that others who might Google attempting to find an answer for the AR9485 will come across this.

Now I just have to figure out how to set up the setting for my wireless network... Confused

chapchap70 · Posted: Sat 29 Sep 2012, 00:33 Post subject:

cthisbear · Joined: 29 Jan 2006 Posts: 4261 Location: Sydney Australia

Gateway LT4009U Netbook

Specs:

http://www.amazon.com/Gateway-LT4009U-10-1-inch-Dual-core-Processor/dp/B0098AJ44G

""""

Use Frisbee and try these Puppies.

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=81028

and Slacko 533.

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=76279

Chris.

rcrsn51 · Posted: Sat 29 Sep 2012, 22:23 Post subject:

@chapchap70: What Puppy version are you using?

Type the command "lspci -nn". Identify the [vendor:product] ID codes for your Atheros AR9485.

Report back.

If the codes are [168c:0032] then your device is likely supported by Slacko 533.

chapchap70 · Posted: Sat 29 Sep 2012, 23:08 Post subject:

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0032] (rev 01)

I am using Lucid Puppy 5.28 I think it is revision 4 I used a pet to last update it.

Kernel Linux 2.6.33.2 (i686)

Compiled #1 SMP Thu May 27 10:56:32 EST2010

I tried using console to cut and paste the commands that worked for the op but the make command got a bad command error.

rcrsn51 · Posted: Sat 29 Sep 2012, 23:47 Post subject:

Your safest choice is to upgrade to Slacko 533. But you can also try the attached PET.

chapchap70 · Posted: Sun 30 Sep 2012, 01:27 Post subject:

Thank you for the Pet. I actually had wireless working for a bit before it disconnected. I'll have to mess around with the proper connection. My wireless lan is WPA2 which last I knew there wasn't much support. I was up on another network which is WPA. Once it disconnected, I couldn't reconnect. I'll figure it out.

I tried to run Slacko 5.33 on my desktop so I could create a usb flash drive but just before the desktop appeared on my monitor, I got an "Out Of Range" error. Tried again and same thing. Don't know what that is about but I'm not going try to solve that any time soon. The CD will be shelved for now.

Thanks for the help. I see someone else already downloaded the pet. The netbook I bought seemed to be the best value for the money (200 bucks) so this pet might help a few people.