(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Here is my current ToDo list. (I will keep adding the items recommended in this thread along with the status)

- Integrate rutilt (pending, now I will do it when rutilt supports WPA for all)
- Add troubleshooting to the wizard
- Cleanup interface to make it more "settings like" and less "wizard like".
- Allow blacklisting modules so they don't load automatically at boot up.
- Integrate all WPA suplicant encryption mechanisms.Partially done Currently supports WPA-PSK/TKIP

Please reply to this post with options/changes/features/wizard bugfixes that you'd like to see

I cannot promise I will include everything but I will consider everything.

If you are having problems with your card and don't know the solution, please create a different thread. If the manual solutions havent worked, it will be quite difficult for me to solve it through the wizard.

Rarsa, on a slow machine it's quite disconcerting that the wizard windows vanish and then later new ones appear whenever one selects an operation. Maybe one windows could be used for everything, or the new windows could be drawn above the old ones?

The network wizards I have used often do not show a module as associated with an interface if the module has been loaded by hand. So, for example, if I do "modprobe rt2570" and then open the wizard, it shows the rausb0 interface, but not the loaded module for it.

I like RutilT, but sometimes after it has run for a while, the window control gadgets vanish (but they still operate if one clicks in the right place). Anyone else ever see this?

Thanks for all your work, it's appreciated.
Mark

1. WPA encryption with wpa_supplicant? http://www.puppyos.net/forum/?1167105466

2. Prism2-USB support? http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 8217#88217

3. Manual firmware loading for Prism3 SSF (small serial flash) adaptors?
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 0251#80251
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=14249

I commend your efforts, by the way. I remember about a year ago you mentioned your intention to create a wizard and I thought at the time that the disparate nature of Linux wifi drivers would make it an impossible task.

tempestuous wrote:I thought at the time that the disparate nature of Linux wifi drivers would make it an impossible task.

Well, I am sure that to cover ALL the cards will be a monumental task (and you are doing a fine job at that with your drivers and instructions). The intention for the wizard is the 80 -20 rule attempting to close the gap as we go.

marksouth2000 wrote:Rarsa, on a slow machine it's quite disconcerting that the wizard windows vanish and then later new ones appear whenever one selects an operation. Maybe one windows could be used for everything, or the new windows could be drawn above the old ones?

I will add "please wait" pop-ups to my ToDo list.

The network wizards I have used often do not show a module as associated with an interface if the module has been loaded by hand.

The problem is that the wizard compares the loaded modules against a list of known network drivers. If a driver is not on that list it will not show. When you load an "unknown" module using the wizard, it will add it to the list of known drivers so it will show next time. I cannot think of a workaround for when you do it outside the wizard. My recommendation... Use the wizard.

rarsa wrote:The problem is that the wizard compares the loaded modules against a list of known network drivers. If a driver is not on that list it will not show. When you load an "unknown" module using the wizard, it will add it to the list of known drivers so it will show next time. I cannot think of a workaround for when you do it outside the wizard. My recommendation... Use the wizard.

I personally prefer to use the wizard. IIRR, the problem was encountered with a module (perhaps rt73) that wasn't listed in the wizard, but was present in zdrv.sfs. It must be a question of where the wizard gets its list from. Can it not be made to read the list of loaded modules?

Thanks agaain,
Mark

marksouth2000 wrote:It must be a question of where the wizard gets its list from.

Barry provides that list on the liveCD.

marksouth2000 wrote:Can it not be made to read the list of loaded modules?

That's what it does, but then it needs to figure out which loaded modules are actually network modules. (Not all loaded modules are network modules).

I'll definitely add my vote for supporting wpa_supplicant, even a skeleton version at the first try. It's the way the world is going, might as well start going there too.

Of course, I was the one who asked you in the first place.

You know, one thing I usually wish for when working with wizards, is that it tell me what files it has written, perhaps in the last screen. Then if I need to manually fiddle with one of them, or to debug, I know where to look.

I'll put in a request to improve the ndiwrapper support. I have a little usb wireless adaptor that I can use with ndiswrapper no problem, but I have to set it up manually. If I try and do it with the wizard it errors with "xxx.inf is not a valid inf file". I can personally get past this, but it should be doable in the wizard for newer users. Unfortunately I haven't looked at the code yet so I don't know what's going on with this problem.

Nathan

Nathan F wrote:If I try and do it with the wizard it errors with "xxx.inf is not a valid inf file". I can personally get past this, but it should be doable in the wizard for newer users.

Oh, this fix is definetlvely in. It is already fixed in my development version.

I was overzaelous trying to simplify things for non technical users

I validate that the ini file I am trying to load corresponds indeed to a network driver. The problem is that the grep command I use does not work with some inf files that contain binary data (Who thought about putting binary data in an ini file anyway?)

My script worked with all the cards and ini files I tested with. I even downloaded a bunch of ini files and tested with the ones that come with windows and didn't find any problems. It wasn't until recently that I found the issue personally.

So, the wizard will be fixed. Now when users try to load a file that is not for a network driver, users will get a message a little more cryptic but at least they will be able to load valid drivers.

Thanks, good to know.

Nathan

rarsa wrote:... it needs to figure out which loaded modules are actually network modules.

Is there really no obvious and simple way of deducing which modules are loaded for which piece of hardware? (Not a rhetorical question, I have no idea what the answer would be if it were "yes".)

Doesn't the hardware detection system log what modules it loads as hardware is detected? (Also not rhetorical!)

Anyway, whether the answers are out there or not, your work is appreciated.

Mark

I am no expert on the subject... heck, I'm not even a newbie.

But for what I know, devices have IDs and if you have a database with all the IDs matched with the actuall piece of equipement they are you could have a good idea. I'm sure that's how the hotplug system works.

Problems:
Maintaining the list
New devices would not be in the list

With Barry's solution you have a very small list that corresponds to the drivers that come with Puppy (easier to maintain)

With the functionality I added to the wizard, If the user loads a module using the wizard, it trusts that it is a network module and gets added to the list of "known" modules.

Thank you for your feedback!

I put some priority to the items that were bug reports.

I've released 2.14-1

Check the change log for this version

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=26778

Hopefully I will have time to add the extra functionality requested before Puppy 2.14 featureset is frozen.

Since I do not have a wireless router here, just a 3C905 100mbps NIC, I see no difference from the earlier wizard.

One small fault: after typing-in each IP address, the {Enter} key should take me to the next screen (same as clicking OK). Instead, I must press the OK button. In Puppy 1.08r1 the wizard takes the {Enter} key, no problem. The standard Wizard supplied with Puppy 2.13 also does not accept the {Enter} key.

This week I will take my Thinkpad to a wireless coffee shop and try it with an RTL 8180 wireless NIC through the PCMCIA card...

Best,
Philip

Sit Heel Speak wrote:This week I will take my Thinkpad to a wireless coffee shop and try it with an RTL 8180 wireless NIC through the PCMCIA card...

Please report back SHS, I would love to have the RTL8180 cards working under Puppy. I have one that works fine under Ubuntu and under OpenBSD, but no luck under Puppy so far....

Cheers, Mark

Add detection of IPv4 ethernet over Firewire and configuration support, if possible.

Having the hardware I am willing to do testing.
My config: a laptop and a desktop with Firewire ports interconnected through a Firewire cable.

Béèm wrote:Add detection of IPv4 ethernet over Firewire and configuration support, if possible.

I'm adding it to the list.

As I have no clue what needs to be done to configure that, I'll appreciate if you point me to a post where that's explained or send me a Private Message with the instructions.

Bear in mind that I' giving higher priority to the more common configurations although if configuring firewire is straight forward chances are it will be included.

Heck, I don't know if IPv4 ethernet over Firewire has ever even been done successfully on Puppy yet. Béèm and I worked at it a bit last year, there should be a lengthy post somehwere on the developers forum, but I would have to go looking for it. I think we got close but never quite there. Maybe with the new kernel though, it will work.

As for the dialog windows not accepting the Enter button, this is an issue with the gtk2 build of Xdialog, and also with gxmessage compared with xmessage for that matter. If I remember right, if you want to have a default choice with gtk2 widgets it has to be explicitly set. Gxmessage was built around gtk2 so it can set a default button, but I don't think this build of Xdialog can. It would have to be added at the source level so that makes it a different project.

You could switch some of the dialog boxes over to gxmessage perhaps, but for a lot of things it will not be appropriate. For the time being, other mouse haters like myself can remember to use the Tab key to toggle to the right button, and then press Enter.

This has actually been driving me crazy for a while, having to grab the mouse to click "OK". I actually sent Barry a patch to address this in PETget, but I don't know if he'll use it or not yet.

Nathan

I'd like to report a bug- When I try to select an AP using the network wizard, it refuses to let me get out of the list of APs, no matter what button I press. I have to kill the task to get out of it.