Slacko64 no wifi in Dell Latitude e7250 (Solved)

[thesun]

I have a fresh install of Slacko64 on a Dell Latitude e7250. It recognises the eth0 port but not the wifi. At all.

I found this thread http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=884946 but it seems to be Tahrpup related, and I'm not sure I have a Broadcom chipset. In windows, when I go to the wireless device section, it's listed as a Intel Dual Band Wireless AC 7265. Ugh.

Sorry if I'm asking a question that surely others have too. I figured there'd be a HOWTO somewhere but after a few hours of sleuthing I haven't hit on it yet.

Vanilla Slacko64 6.3.0
Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265
Dell Latitude e7250

Thank you for any/all help!!!

[Flash]

If you don't have your heart set on using Slacko64, you should try different, perhaps later Puppies. You can burn a Puppy DVD (of Quirky Werewolf 64, for instance) and boot it with the puppy pfix=ram boot option to see if it will use your wifi, without changing anything on the hard disk drive. No need to install Puppy to try it.

Just a FYI: drivers compiled for another kernel won't work in yours. Drivers must be compiled for the kernel they will be used with.

[smokey01]

Have you tried loading the additional firmware SFS? Download this file: http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/pe ... ko64_2.sfs then load it with sfs_load and see if this makes any difference.

[thesun]

Great, thank you for these options. No, I'm definitely not married to Slack at all. If another distro is more current that's fantastic. I was using Unetbootin to burn a .iso file to a USB. That should work for any distro, right? As long as I have an .iso file?

For the SFS...what exactly do I type to install it? I can definitely try that first before trying another system...

Thanks to both for the suggestions...if you can offer any other help let me know!

[smokey01]

For the SFS...what exactly do I type to install it? I can definitely try that first before trying another system...

When you download the SFS file, just right-click on it. In the menu you should see sfs_load, click on it and follow the prompts.

[thesun]

Looking like the SFS file didn't work. Downloaded it great, but nothing happens when I install...do I need to restart, reload, reboot?

[thesun]

Thanks, Werewolf did the trick. I don't like it nearly as much as Slacko64's look/feel but no wifi is a show stopper.

Thanks so much for the suggestion!!!

[Belham]

If you don't have your heart set on using Slacko64, you should try different, perhaps later Puppies. You can burn a Puppy DVD (of Quirky Werewolf 64, for instance) and boot it with the puppy pfix=ram boot option to see if it will use your wifi, without changing anything on the hard disk drive. No need to install Puppy to try it.

Just a FYI: drivers compiled for another kernel won't work in yours. Drivers must be compiled for the kernel they will be used with.

Uhh, what??

Flash, how is this true?? For bleeding new stuff, I can understand this might be true. But for the vast majority???

I've found, as long as you stick in the correct "-bit" family, I've dropped both peebee's and phil666's firmware drivers (both 32 and 64 bit) straight into running Puppies (or pup inspired versions), in all sorts of different ones, with different kernel versions (heck, they even drop into the debiandog versions and work splendidly)....and this is the first time I've ever encountered the statement that "Just a FYI: drivers compiled for another kernel won't work in yours. Drivers must be compiled for the kernel they will be used with."

Sun, if you are still reading this, there is a super easy fix if you want to still use Slacko64 with your Dell Lattitude w/ an Intel Dual Band Wireless AC 7265. All you're gonna do is download peebee or phil's 64bit version iso (of whatever, plus there is a thread dedicated to this very thing in wireless) in whatever system you are currently using, mount & open the ISO, copy all Intel firmware folders from /lib/firmware/ in that ISO to a usb. Then, start up your Slacko64, delete the ones in Slacko64's /lib/firmware/ folder (same folder for all pups) that say anything "Intel", and just copy peebee's/phil's ones into that same folder, reboot, and once Slacko64 starts backup, you will have wireless.

This trick applies across all the puppy families, it applies for firmware, browsers, flashplayer, etc, etc...it actually applies for a whole host of things and is the easy fix compared to messing with the constant confusion of getting specific .sfs files loaded (at least for me, it is). I currently rotate through about 7-8 different pup and/or pup-inspired OSes, 5 with different kernels, and all wireless firmware from peebee and/or phil's pups work in all 7-8 of these OSes across the board----even the quite different Debian-based dog versions. It is possible firmware for wireless is regressive applicable only in kernels and not forward applicable. That may be true. But as long as you are sticking in the correct "-bit" family (32 or 64), they do seem to work across different kernels that are not the same versions.

Good luck!