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Problem with on-board and USB wireless devices

Posted: 5. Aug 2018, 17:51
by za1234ki
Hello! I'm quite new to Salix, although I used Ubuntu and Slackware on my everyday desktop about 10 years ago. Now Windows 10 made me jump back into Linux once again. After messing around with systemd for a while, and overcoming my shock and sadness felt by the horrible crashes produced by mainstream distros, I decided to go with Salix. And I didn't regret it. Everything works lovely out of the box on my laptop, audio, wifi, whatever. I love it!
On my custom-built desktop though, I have some trouble setting up a working wifi connection. The onboard wireless card on my Gigabyte Z370N Wifi motherboard is apparently made by Intel (can't find which model though), and Salix can't see it at all, I checked my network devices with various commands, and it doesn't show up anywhere. :/
I also tried two Belkin USB dongles (Realtek RTL8188CUS and RTL8192CU) and while they technically work, they are extremely slow (less than tenth the normal speed), and just stop working after a while. Same goes for the D-Link DWA-121 (Realtek RTL8188CUS as well).
I'm also thinking about buying a wireless bridge, since there's usually much better support for ethernet controllers.
Has anyone had the same issues?

Update: By checking the kernel modules with lsmod, everything seems to be fine with the usb dongles, so I guess there's no need to install any extra drivers. On some forums, some people with the same problem had to install binary firmware blobs for the kernel module to work properly. Could this be the cause of the a sluggishness?

Re: Problem with on-board and USB wireless devices

Posted: 5. Aug 2018, 20:55
by DidierSpaier
Hello, welcome to this forum.
za1234ki wrote: 5. Aug 2018, 17:51The onboard wireless card on my Gigabyte Z370N Wifi motherboard is apparently made by Intel (can't find which model though), and Salix can't see it at all, I checked my network devices with various commands, and it doesn't show up anywhere. :/
You can check the vendor, the model, the kernel module in use and the kernel driver with this command:

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sudo lspci -knn|grep -iA3 Network

Re: Problem with on-board and USB wireless devices

Posted: 5. Aug 2018, 21:36
by za1234ki
DidierSpaier wrote: 5. Aug 2018, 20:55 You can check the vendor, the model, the kernel module in use and the kernel driver with this command:

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sudo lspci -knn|grep -iA3 Network
Thank you. It actually came up with a few Intel thingies.

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05:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation I211 Gigabit Network Connection [8086:1539] (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd I211 Gigabit Network Connection [1458:e000]
	Kernel driver in use: igb
	Kernel modules: igb
06:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:24fd] (rev 78)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:1010]
08:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller [0108]: Device [1987:5007] (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Device [1987:5007]

Re: Problem with on-board and USB wireless devices

Posted: 6. Aug 2018, 05:48
by DidierSpaier
Hello,

So your WIFI chipset is known as:

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06:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:24fd] (rev 78)
and there is no support for that in the kernel you use, as it doesn't include a driver for it.

To use it you would need a more recent kernel. To avoid building one yourself you could use the most recent kernel shipped in Slackware-current or one provided by David Spencer here: https://dusk.idlemoor.tk/ I assume that they can be installed as-is in distributions based on Slacwkare-14.2 but didn't check.

To install one of them, follow instructions in this post: http://www.slackware.com/security/viewe ... ity.721251

Just change the URLs for downloading the the kernel you want. In case of Slackware-current the packages are here: ftp://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/slackware/slac ... ackware/a/ but the package kernel-source (if you need to compile things) which is there: ftp://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/slackware/slac ... ackware/k/

Be aware that if you upgrade your kernel this way you are in charge of further upgrades for security fixes, that you won't get through slapt-get or gslapt.

PS Alternatively you could upgrade just the iwlwifi driver. I have no experience compiling just a module but a web search could help. Of course you would have to do it again whenever the kernel is upgraded through slapt-get.

Re: Problem with on-board and USB wireless devices

Posted: 6. Aug 2018, 23:09
by za1234ki
Thanks for all the info.
I installed "kernel-huge-4.14.60-x86_64-1.txz" with spkg, then run an "eliloconfig", and now the bootloader can't find the kernel (I guess), and it's in an endless cycle of rebooting. There must be an extra step I missed, right?
Plus the Qualcomm QCA9377 in my laptop is acting up - connecting and working for about 5-10 minutes, then just not doing anything. :(
I'm not afraid to dig deeper, although I'm seriously considering getting a wireless bridge.

Re: Problem with on-board and USB wireless devices

Posted: 7. Aug 2018, 06:05
by mimosa
These instructions may help (I would be interested in your comments, as they are aimed at users with little, or also, more experience):
https://docs.salixos.org/wiki/How_to_in ... ent_kernel

Once you have got it working, I recommend installing rEFInd on UEFI systems. Just install from repos.

You probably need to chroot into your system from USB to recover from your current situation. Assuming you installed the correct kernel packages (including matching modules and headers, and a recent firmware package), it should be enough just to update the bootloader with eliloconfig.

Re: Problem with on-board and USB wireless devices

Posted: 7. Aug 2018, 17:52
by za1234ki
mimosa wrote: 7. Aug 2018, 06:05 These instructions may help (I would be interested in your comments, as they are aimed at users with little, or also, more experience):
https://docs.salixos.org/wiki/How_to_in ... ent_kernel

Once you have got it working, I recommend installing rEFInd on UEFI systems. Just install from repos.

You probably need to chroot into your system from USB to recover from your current situation. Assuming you installed the correct kernel packages (including matching modules and headers, and a recent firmware package), it should be enough just to update the bootloader with eliloconfig.
Cheers, it's a great help for quasi-beginners like myself. I can't find the kernel-headers package though.
So basically, I installed the following:
  • kernel-huge-4.14.61-x86_64-1.txz
  • kernel-firmware-20180730_7b5835f-noarch-1.txz
  • kernel-modules-4.14.61-x86_64-1.txz
  • kernel-generic-4.14.61-x86_64-1.txz
and when I got to kernel-generic, it gave me this:

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root[MATE]# spkg -u kernel-generic-4.14.61-x86_64-1.txz
Skipping package kernel-generic-4.14.61-x86_64-1 (package with same base name is NOT installed)...

Re: Problem with on-board and USB wireless devices

Posted: 7. Aug 2018, 18:16
by mimosa
You want the huge kernel. So that should be alright ...

Did you do

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ls /var/log/packages | grep kernel
which would tell you which kernel packages are installed and therefore which need upgrading?

The generic kernel is a lighter kernel that needs to be booted with an initrd. But there is no need to go down that path unless for a specific reason.

Re: Problem with on-board and USB wireless devices

Posted: 7. Aug 2018, 18:44
by za1234ki
mimosa wrote: 7. Aug 2018, 18:16 You want the huge kernel. So that should be alright ...

Did you do

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ls /var/log/packages | grep kernel
which would tell you which kernel packages are installed and therefore which need upgrading?

The generic kernel is a lighter kernel that needs to be booted with an initrd. But there is no need to go down that path unless for a specific reason.
I'm running 4.4.19, which is nearly 2 years old, so fingers crossed. The latest one might probably be able to solve my issues. Do you know where to find the headers in this repo? http://slackware.oregonstate.edu/slackw ... kware64/a/

Re: Problem with on-board and USB wireless devices

Posted: 7. Aug 2018, 19:56
by mimosa
The headers are here:
http://slackware.oregonstate.edu/slackw ... -x86-1.txz

Hopefully, that solves it!