I installed Slackware 12 yesterday. I have a couple of what I hope are small questions, that my trawling through forums has so far left unresolved.

I am still using the huge kernel. Is it desirable/necessary that I change to generic?

The only particular problem that I have and which I haven't resolved is the fact that I can't modprobe ndiswrapper to get wireless going, to wit: installation of drivers works, depmod -a works but 'modprobe ndiswrapper' returns the message 'FATAL: module ndiswrapper not found'.

I used ndiswrapper.SlackBuild to install ndiswrapper; all seemed to go well no error messages after running the SlackBuild file.

A bit of digging unearthed the possibility that I may not have kernel headers installed.

So my questions are this:

- is that a likely correct diagnosis?

- If so, is it connected to the fact that I am still using the installation kernel?

I don't have net on Slackware - is there a way I can use my other Linux OS to download kernel headers so I don't have to move my PC downstairs to download any software I might need?

Thanks in advance for any help.

If you had no kernel headers installed, the ndiswrapper module would not have built.
If you are using a non-smp kernel (you indicated 'huge' and not 'hugesmp') then you need to apply a small patch to your kernel sources or else the kernel modules that you compile will not load into your non-smp kernel because they expect a SMP kernel. See http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackwar...1.5-nosmp-sdk/ for instance - it will be on your Slackware DVD or CD too.

You say you have no net on Slackware - is this because you did not install a kernel-modules package? Or is it because you only have a wireless card? You can check what packages you installed by looking at the /var/log/packages directory. There should be a kernel-headers-* and kernel-modules-* package mentioned in that directory.

If you download anything on another computer, the easiest transport medium in the absense of a network connection is a USB stick.

Eric

Thanks for the quick reply Alien Bob.

I have no wireless on Slackware but triple boot with PCLOS and, ahem, Vista; both have functioning wireless. To use wired net I would have to move my desktop downstairs, sub-optimal.

It's easy to download to PCLOS and I can read and copy from PCLOS to Slackware. Thought maybe i'd have to access a repo to get the patch but seems not which is good.

The patch should be the solution since ndiswrapper has definitely installed my wireless drivers.

Just one small question - how do I run a script ./xyz?

Thanks for your help.

update - I copied the relevant folder from the DVD, opened a terminal as root, cd /folder I had just copied from the DVD and ran the patch as ./patchetc

The patch seemed to install just fine.

So I rebooted - just the same message (FATAL: etc) after rerunning ndiswrapper.SlackBuild

I'll reinstall and run the patch before I do anything else, then run the SlackBuild once I've patched.

After patching the kernel sources you have to rebuild the ndiswrapper package and run "upgradepkg --reinstall ndiswrapper-*.tgz" to replace the old with the new ndiswrapper package.
Then reboot and see if it works. Do not forget to also install the Windows NDIS driver or else you still won't have wireless access.

Eric

Thanks Eric

I reinstalled Slackware and lost X for some reason so will try again later on today.

All good fun and thanks for the help! I've certainly learnt a few things with my largely unsuccessful foray into Slackware - might take a few goes but will get there!

While I have your attention, what is the best way to swap to the generic smp kernel?

Thanks for your help, much appreciated.

Switching to the generic kernel is not too hard. That kernel will already have been installed to your computer as part of a full Slackware install.

You need to create an initrd file (initial ramdisk) that contains the driver for the filesystem of your root (that is '/') partition because the generic kernel does not contain that driver. In some cases, you will also need to include drivers for USB support if your root partition is on a USB disk.
Read more about mkinitrd command which creates the initrd in /boot/README.initrd .

After creating the initrd (default generated file will be /boot/initrd.gz) you will have to add a couple of lines to your /etc/lilo.conf file and then run the command "lilo" to add these changes to your bootloader.
Typically it looks like:

Try this shell script: http://www.slackware.com/~alien/tool...d_generator.sh , it will analyze your system and propose a "mkinitrd" commandline that generates this initrd.gz file. You can take that as an example - it may add more modules than you really need but usually not less modules than you really need...

Eric

excellent, thanks.

I have ndiswrapper installed with the right drivers so thanks again - all is well, apart from the fact that I can't connect to my network, lol.

This is what iwconfig wlan0 returns -

IEEE 802.11g ESSIDff/any Nickname:"Barry"
Mode:Managed Channel:0 Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate=1 Mb/s Sensitivity=-200 dBm
RTS thr=2346 B Fragment thr=2346 B
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Kwifimanager tells me that my network is there but won't let me connect to it.

Any pointers appreciated. Everything's there I think, card, drivers, router and network so I need something to bring them all together. Perhaps there are some scripts available that I could use?

I will look around of course but thanks in advance if you're able to shorten that process for me.

Anyway, first step taken - that's something.

Thanks

It depends of course on the type of Access Point you want to connect to. If that is encrypted you will need a WEP or WPA key.
I am not a fan of network configuration using Kwifimanager (this is Slackware) so you should look at /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf for network configuration in general and /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf in case you have to enter a WPA key.

You can see what Access Points are in range by running:
You may have to run the second comand multiple times.

Eric

Eric

Thanks; ifconfig wlan0 up didn't result in access to my network but iwlist revealed all networks, including mine.

At least I know now that the only real problem in the equation is my lack of knowledge!

I also dislike Kwifimanager, mainly because it never works; I see the virtue of the Slackware approach but am a long off being able to live up to it.

I've certainly gotten a perspective on what people take for granted with a lot of GUI installers and config tools today.

Barry