Can pups autowificonnect@boot? Yes! Use SNS only!! (Solved)

[belham2]

Hi all,

As the title suggests, I have always had problems whatever puppy I have been in for it to automatically connect (on startup) to the previously setup wifi where Frisbee and/or Network Wizard had been used & saved.

There are 4 laptops in the house, all have various pups 'frugally' installed, and all connect to the wifi internet but not automatically at boot. This problem also goes on with Barry's Quirkies and EasyLinux. The family is starting to hate on me and wanting the pup OSes off the laptops because of this. They want to turn on the laptops and be wifi connected then, with the already previously saved wifi connection they used just a few hours ago....but no, everytime a person is forced to jump thru clicking & waiting hoops. I agree with them this is wrong.

At every boot, for any pup I have tried, despite the wifi profile being used & previously 'Saved' during other bootups, the user is forced all over again to click on tray icon, go into 'setup networking", choose the 'wlan0' connection over the un-connected 'eht0', then incredibly the next box that popups is the wifi connection profile, where you are forced to hit "LOAD", then "USE THIS PROFILE" (again, which was already previously saved during previous boots), and then maddeningly the next box that pops up (if it doesn't connect, you've got to again hit "Auto DHCP".

These puppys are Slackos, Xenials, and Tahrs. Why can none of them automatically connect to the saved and exisiting wifi profile in their collective savefiles just like they do to the saved eth0 (when they are actually plugged into an eth0) There's no problem for these latops to "autoconnecting" to a saved eth0 profile. But wifi? Your SOL, it seems. It's crazy

What am I doing wrong? Or what can I do to overcome this problem?? To make the pups autorecognize at boot that eth0 is disconnected, wlan0 is working and thus connect to it using the already saved wifi profile??



P.S. Note: please do not write an answer telling me how to setup and get wifi working. That is already done,and is not the issue here. What I need/want is a puppy, any puppy, to automatically@boot connect to the existing wifi profile that's already been, through previous boots, setup and saved in it. Thanks.

[Mike Walsh]

@ belham2:-

Why don't you use SNS? It's a damn sight easier...

I use it in all my Pups.....and they have no problems auto-connecting @ boot-time.

Just out of curiosity, what wireless chips are your boxes using? (And if you tell me 'Broadcom', I'm gonna turn right round and tell ya 'Serve you right.' 'Cos that's a self-inflicted problem...)

With the multitude of cheap, good-quality wifi dongles there are nowadays, nobody has the slightest excuse for trying to 'bully' a built-in Broadcom chip into behaving itself under Linux. With those things, although they can be 'coaxed' into working, you're really & truly on a hiding to nothing.

There's no longer any need for it..!


Mike.

[belham2]

@ belham2:-

Why don't you use SNS? It's a damn sight easier...

I use it in all my Pups.....and they have no problems auto-connecting @ boot-time.

Just out of curiosity, what wireless chips are your boxes using? (And if you tell me 'Broadcom', I'm gonna turn right round and tell ya 'Serve you right.' 'Cos that's a self-inflicted problem...)

With the multitude of cheap, good-quality wifi dongles there are nowadays, nobody has the slightest excuse for trying to use a built-in Broadcom chip. With those things, although they can be 'coaxed' into working, you're really & truly on a hiding to nothing.Mike.

Hi Mike,

2 laptops intel centrino and 2 laptops broadcom....all donated by others to keep the kids from becoming luddites, so they say.

Thus, if I am understanding correctly, Frisbee and Network Wizard will not ever autobootconnect----on next bootup------the wifi profile setup you've made, tested and saved before? Yet, they both will somehow mysteriously 'autoconnect' to an eth0? Hmmmmm


So, Only SNS can do the impossible and at next boot 'autoconnect' (wifi and/or eth) from the saved profiles of both?

This is really how puppy works with regards to this issue? Truly?? Both Fatdog and DDogs blow puppy out of the water regarding this if this 'SNS-only' is true. Why in heck is 'Frisbee" and/or "Network Wizard" even included in pups then???

[bigpup]

To troubleshoot the issue.
Please talk about one specific version of Puppy.

please do not write an answer telling me how to setup and get wifi working. That is already done,and is not the issue here.

First, this should not be happening.
All Puppies should be able to auto connect after the setup is done, saved, and rebooted.
What setup program you use, should not matter, as long as it does establish a working connection.

The 3 different connection setup programs are offered, because they offer slightly different options and people like to have options.
Example:
SNS is simple, tries to guess at everything and requires little manual input.
Network Wizard is all about having all kinds of options and requiring a lot of manual input.
Frisbeee was really just a different program that could be used, but it worked so well and sometimes worked better than the others. People liked it better.

You say you did the setup correctly.
Ok, I will take your word for it, but are you really 100% sure?

Are you getting good signal strength?
What WIFI channel is the router using?
Have you tried using a different channel?
Is the computer setup in bios to have WIFI active on bootup?
No switch on computer has to be activated to turn on WIFI?

For this, you can just talk about one specific computer.
WHAT IS THE SPECIFIC WIFI HARDWARE?????????
Make and model
WIFI router?
WIFI adapters? Internal or USB?

[Mike Walsh]

Hi Mike,

2 laptops intel centrino and 2 laptops broadcom....all donated by others to keep the kids from becoming luddites, so they say.

Thus, if I am understanding correctly, Frisbee and Network Wizard will not ever autobootconnect----on next bootup------the wifi profile setup you've made, tested and saved before? Yet, they both will somehow mysteriously 'autoconnect' to an eth0? Hmmmmm


So, Only SNS can do the impossible and at next boot 'autoconnect' (wifi and/or eth) from the saved profiles of both?

This is really how puppy works with regards to this issue? Truly?? Both Fatdog and DDogs blow puppy out of the water regarding this if this 'SNS-only' is true. Why in heck is 'Frisbee" and/or "Network Wizard" even included in pups then???

Nope, I have to agree with bigpup on this one. It shouldn't be happening.

Every Pup I've ever tried (and I've tried lots of 'em!), will always auto-connect to the newly-created profile from the next boot onwards. Something's not quite right about the way you're doing this.....although I will admit that those Broadcom boxes you've got, I would personally use a dongle instead. That's just personal choice. I will not faff about trying to make Broadcom work when I've got a drawer-full of options laying around.....

The Centrino boxes should be relatively trouble-free.

It would be easier if we dissected one box at a time.....but I'll bet you pounds to peanuts that whatever you're doing wrong, you're repeating that mistake across your kennels.

Pick any one, and we'll try & figure out what's happening. That's the best way to tackle it. I use SNS for ease-of-use, but I have used the others, and they all work.....for me, at least.


Mike.

[mikeslr]

Hi belham2,

Agree with the other Mike. It shouldn't be happening. I usually use frisbee and don't have a problem, except:

My laptop is 1 floor below my router and my desktop 2. In order to obtain a decent signal I've installed an extender/repeater.

Just a dumb question: If you've removed automatic Save, have you remembered to Save after you've established a connection?

mikesLr

[OscarTalks]

One thing I can tell you is that in Dpup Stretch I found that PeasyWiFi 4.5 by rcrsn51 gives me a reliable autoconnect of wi-fi on subsequent boots, whereas the other tools did not. It has an auto feature which you can access via a tab to set things up.
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=94501

Interestingly, on the exact same hardware, if I boot into Wheezy or Slacko 5.7 the autoconnect works fine using SNS, so it may be that as things are developed, certain elements of functionality of the earlier networking tools do start to get left behind.

[greengeek]

So, Only SNS can do the impossible and at next boot 'autoconnect' (wifi and/or eth) from the saved profiles of both?

Hi Belham - for a number of years I found that SNS did not work at all for me (on multiple computers) and I was forced to use the other network tools with the results you described.

Then one day I was forced to change my adsl modem/router and lo and behold network wizard became unstable and SNS became rock solid.

Go figure.

Now I use only SNS and it is really good at automatically connecting after boot - at least using Slacko 5.6 where 99% of my work is done.

Just one comment :- my gut feeling is that Frisbee potentially conflicts with other network connection tools. You have to decide which tool you want to use and stick to it - and if that choice does not include Frisbee then you have to somehow "ungraft" frisbee from your system.

EDIT : Most (if not all) Puppies use dhcpcd as the utility that negotiates with your router to grab an IP address. I think I read recently that rcrsn51 has been trialling udhcpd as a replacement for dhcpcd.

I definitely think there is a slight mismatch between Puppy's way of handling dhcpcd and the way each router does it. This is also influenced by the presence of differing devices - eg: every time my stepdaughter brought home her Apple devices someone else in the house would fail to connect - (usually the puppy devices) - or else connect very slowly after a delay (usually the Windows devices).

Maybe udhcpd is worth a try?
EDIT : Here is the link to rcrsn51's comment re replacement of dhcpcd: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 567#910567

Maybe do some trials using peasy and kicking Frisbee into touch?

[belham2]

Thanks for replying all.

Well, count me as gobsmacked. Just learned something new about puppy that I never knew.

To make sure, I spent quite awhile and tested it on all four laptops (Tahr64 6.0.5, Slacko700-6.9.9.9, Xenialpup64-7.0.8.6, and EasyLinux 0.5), swapping in various puppies. I then fired up a few old 32-bit 'frugal' pups like Carolina, Macpup, my Dpup700-Stretch, and Precise 5.7 versions, and all---every single one---- displayed the same behavior as I described at the beginning of this thread.

So, for those that do not know this, here is what seems to be the rule:

When you 'frugal' install a pup, and if you use anything "other" that SNS to set up your wireless connection (assume a savefile had already been created), or if you simply want to bring your pup from a "lan" machine to a wireless-laptop, and you want either "Frisbee' and/or "Network Wizard" to set that laptop's wireless connection up, which it will happily do, and then save it, which it also will happily do, be warned. The warning: .............with both Frisbee and/or Network Wizard, neither will autoconnect(on the next subsequent boot) to the wireless connection that you set up & saved on this boot. Oh sure, they will save the profile, but they both will---on subsequent boots---force you to click thru setup again to bring that wifi profile up, click to then load it and then finally, click to connect. A nuisance pain in the you-know-what, if you ask me.

But if you use SNS, at any time, fresh frugal, existing frugal, or coming from a 'lan' setup---as long as you use SNS to set up your wifi connection, then save and click SNS to become your "Default" connection method, you will be greeted at the next subsequent boots with your wireless connection up and running.

This happened across every one of the 'frugal' boots I mentioned above, and I have no doubt that if I bust out (i.e. test) my other 'frugals' I currently have on various machines here, the same exact thing will happen.


So, live and learn something new every day about puppy.

Moral: stick to SNS to set up wifi, and save yourself a world of headaches. This actually needs fixing in the code for handling this, but who would re-write the code since this is mostly all Barry's stuff and he's off in the Quirky/Easy/Pyro worlds?


Thanks again, all.

[oldaolgeezer]

Regarding the "network wizard" issue of using or not using
the same "network wizard" on the following reboot:

I remembered seeing a while ago the mention of this issue by
Lucid developer: rerwin

He said: " ..... been working on cleanup of the reboot process related to the
network wizard and frisbee, when no default connection type is specified.
Without the fix, rebooting would use the SNS initial action if an SNS connection
had ever been created, even though netwiz or frisbee were the last network manager to be used.
That might explain some of the reboot problems sindi and others have seen
with network connections."

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 461#945461

Perhaps his work on the "network wizard" in Lucid might be used to advantage
on other various puppies.

[8Geee]

Hmmm... For SLacko5.7
When I had all three installed SNS, Frisbee, and Network Wizard, I had problems flipping between any two, especially if Frisbee was used. My solution was to toss Frisbee, since it wanted to dominate at start-up. Considering the computer wifi light activates near-immediate upon boot, I was concerned there was data leakage. Tossing Frisbee cleared the dominance problem.

Second thing is as posted above... if using SNS as eth0 and anything else for wlan0 became a problem. My solution was a remaster and not use SNS at all.

I have found that Network Wizard will operate both eth0 and wlan0 without issue. And if I save a wifi profile it is available if I click YES save it for next boot. The inconvience is the step-by-step approach. But, to its credit, Network Wizard sniffs the available wifi AP's and lets me choose from a list. It does not lock on to the strongest signal or encrypted-only signal as a default for me to use (how convenient is that?, but is it what I need?).

So what is right is dependent upon usage. For mixed usage I recommend Network Wizard, alone. For ethernet only SNS is simplest/easiest. For wifi only, Frisbee... but get used to fast refreshes and trying to quickly parse the list of AP's available (coffee shops and fast-food places are notorious for having upwards of 20 connections within range).

Regards
8Geee

[rcrsn51]

When I had all three installed SNS, Frisbee, and Network Wizard, I had problems flipping between any two, especially if Frisbee was used. My solution was to toss Frisbee, since it wanted to dominate at start-up. Considering the computer wifi light activates near-immediate upon boot, I was concerned there was data leakage. Tossing Frisbee cleared the dominance problem.

Second thing is as posted above... if using SNS as eth0 and anything else for wlan0 became a problem. My solution was a remaster and not use SNS at all.

This is why PWF always provided instructions for disabling the other guys.

[wiak]

Just one comment :- my gut feeling is that Frisbee potentially conflicts with other network connection tools. You have to decide which tool you want to use and stick to it - and if that choice does not include Frisbee then you have to somehow "ungraft" frisbee from your system.

As a program, Frisbee is actually composed of several parts/scripts. The frisbee package installs a separate script, also named "frisbee" in /etc/init.d. Anything put into there is automatically run at system start up and that may be why having frisbee installed can cause problems with other wifi startup utilities. If using a different wifi startup utility, moving that script out of init.d (or simply deleting it) would solve it being started up when not wanted.

Of course, the opposite is also true - if you do want frisbee to act properly on system start up then that script must be present in init.d and working correctly - some alternative wifi utilities may have taken care to have somehow disabled it (or installed their own conflicting startup script somewhere, that likely may give frisbee itself a startup problem).

wiak

[greengeek]

I could not remember exactly what I did to shut frisbee out when I was testing PWF but Rerwins comment here may be helpful for some.

I think Slacko 5.3.3 has no frisbee at all, but Slacko 5.6 has frisbee integrated in some way. Each puppy distro needs to be considered on it's own merits and maybe Rerwins suggested control syntax for frisbee may help some users pin down what is causing their instabilities.

[jd7654]

I guess this issue is solved? (don't mix connection managers?) but just my $0.02:

I always used Network Wizard for Puppy and Quirky and never had any problems with autoconnect, across a wide range of hardware and wifi chipsets.
I tried SNS long ago, but there was some quirkrs or something,(probably since fixed) so even though Network Wizard was a little more complicated to use, I just got used to it.

Kinda follows the old K.I.S.S. philosophy: one application per task.

I just use what is the main tool and what works and don't bother with it further. I'm not in love with any particular tool, whatever fits for the OS.
Major full distros Fedora/Ubuntu/Arch it is NetworkManager, Slackware it is WiCD, antiX it is ceni, Fatdog is wpa_gui, DebianDog is Frisbee. And Puppy/Quirky for me it is Network Wizard.

[Mike Walsh]

When you 'frugal' install a pup, and if you use anything "other" that SNS to set up your wireless connection (assume a savefile had already been created), or if you simply want to bring your pup from a "lan" machine to a wireless-laptop, and you want either "Frisbee' and/or "Network Wizard" to set that laptop's wireless connection up, which it will happily do, and then save it, which it also will happily do, be warned. The warning: .............with both Frisbee and/or Network Wizard, neither will autoconnect(on the next subsequent boot) to the wireless connection that you set up & saved on this boot. Oh sure, they will save the profile, but they both will---on subsequent boots---force you to click thru setup again to bring that wifi profile up, click to then load it and then finally, click to connect. A nuisance pain in the you-know-what, if you ask me.

I confess, I recollect having the same problem with my first ever Pup that just 'worked', OOTB, on ye olde Dell (Tahrpup 6.0 CE). I ran that from a flash drive for quite a few months, before finally kissing goodbye to the 'buntu flavours I had on the hard drive, and installing Tahr in their place.

I always used Network Wizard at that time. being under the impression that the tool with the most options was probably the best one to use. I had the same problem myself; the profile was there, it was saved.....but I always had to go through the setup procedure every time.

A little way down the line, I cleared all the Network Wizard stuff out of the way, and switched to the simplest one (SNS). It always auto-connected.....and since then, I've stuck with it on every Pup.

It seems to 'just work'. What more can you ask for?


Mike.