Wifi USB - SLAX

[waterhead]

Actually, with your hardware spec, SLAX was a good choice. I haven't used it in a while, but I recall that wireless support was poor because it uses an older style 2.4 kernel. I did get my Broadcom wireless to work with NDISwrapper, though.

There is a thread on the best distro to use on older equipment. As you can guess, no one agrees. But you can get some ideas from it.

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/cof...re-2009-a.html

[myfriday]

Actually, with your hardware spec, SLAX was a good choice. I haven't used it in a while, but I recall that wireless support was poor because it uses an older style 2.4 kernel. I did get my Broadcom wireless to work with NDISwrapper, though.

There is a thread on the best distro to use on older equipment. As you can guess, no one agrees. But you can get some ideas from it.

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/cof...re-2009-a.html

Umm ok I installed xubuntu today, it automatically saw my wifi and i cant connect to my wifi, i insert the code but i cant get it to work. I know its the right one

[waterhead]

You still need to install the Broadcom firmware before it will work.

sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter

When it asks: "Download and install firmware?", answer "Yes" (press enter).

You will need a wired connection to do this

Edit: OOPS! Sorry, you don't have a Broadcom wireless. I have one.

[waterhead]

You do need a copy of your firmware installed. On my Ubuntu 9.04 install, there is a copy of isl3887usb_bare in the /lib/firmware folder. Try using that one instaed of the one you made.

Maybe this is a problem with the connection, and not the wireless. Did you check dmesg again for error messages, either firmware or connection errors?

[myfriday]

Yeah its in dmesg, I took off the security settings on my wifi, and im trying to connect it. It gets connected for like 5 seconds and then it just goes off

[waterhead]

Well, there is one other thing to try. I see that there is the option to extract the firmware from a known working Windows driver. Do you have the installer file for a Windows driver?

Go to this web site and follow the instructions for the fwextract source.

The Prism54 Project

Extract it and then compile it with a simple make command. Judging from the instructions, I think that for "basename" you use the name of the firmware, isl3887usb_bare.

[myfriday]

Well, there is one other thing to try. I see that there is the option to extract the firmware from a known working Windows driver. Do you have the installer file for a Windows driver?

Go to this web site and follow the instructions for the fwextract source.

The Prism54 Project

Extract it and then compile it with a simple make command. Judging from the instructions, I think that for "basename" you use the name of the firmware, isl3887usb_bare.

Yeah I just got finished trying that, but it didnt work

[waterhead]

Read the web site for the p54 project:

The Prism54 Project

Under the section for USB devices with isl38xx chipsets, it says to read this page:

The Prism54 Project

Not only does it say the driver is named islsm, but if you look up the Device ID of yours (0cde:008) it says to use the GW3887 firmware. Take into consideration that this site is old and no longer maintained, but it's all we have to go on.

Since the system is looking for a certain firmware, it will ignore any firmware with a different name. I guess that you would have to rename the different firmware.

[waterhead]

Not only does it say the driver is named islsm, but if you look up the Device ID of yours (0cde:008) it says to use the GW3887 firmware.

Sorry, that is the listed chipset, not the firmware.

[waterhead]

Does the error message still say that the firmware is not found, or does it now load the firmware but not work.

The more I look, the more firmware versions that I find. You may want to try every firmware that may have a chance of working. Here are some more that you can try:

The prism54 firmwares

I found a debian how-o that says to use s different firmware version. remember, the firmwarte version s dependent on your kernel version.

prism54 - Debian Wiki