Actually not a new-install question, as I've had Slack on this puppy since last August. My problem, however, is that something has been overwritten and I have lost quite a bit of functionality. Currently the last item I have to 'recover' is my ipw2200 integrated wireless card, and I'm hoping the LQ.org community can help me out!

Following a botched upgrade, I had to replace all of package A from the 10.1 install CD. I upgraded them all back to the 10.2 packages, which is where I had them before the failed upgrade. I had to re-apply many tweaks, including most everything suggested by Chess in his wonderful guide for the 700m.

Currently an iwconfig returns "lo", "eth0" (wired nic), and "sit0" (no clue). From previous experience, I know that "eth1" is my wireless, though I can live with almost whatever it decides to be. Long ago I had a thread here (linked here) and back then it had no problem recognizing that there was a card.

Grepping the dmesg shows that it recognizes the IPW2200, and installing the ipw2200-1.1.0 drivers makes and make installs without error, but even after restart (which for some reason was the magic fix last year), iwconfig shows the same three results.



I don't remember the sit0 result showing up in previous iwconfig's; once I get the card recognized, I'm sure I will get the wpa_supplicant module working just fine, but for some reason getting the card to show up in iwconfig is being the biggest headache.

Thanks in advance!
-- Christopher

Hello fellow 700m Slacker! =)
I also had a similar problem (i think) after a botched kernel upgrade sometime ago... for a while there whilst playing with a rt2570 chiped USB network adaptor i also had 'sit0' - this has since disappeared (when i realised i had somehow managed to get all the info the USB hotplug system needed inputed in PCIHotplug ... lol.. You wouldnt read about it? =)

it sounds to me that you need to install the firmware for you NIC to get it working again. As you would know the IPW2200 is VERY fussy as to which firmware you are running with with revision of the driver. goto http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/ in order to make sure you got the correct packages.. I think what probably happened is when you upgraded to 10.2 it has overwritten either the driver or the firmware that you had before (simply re-installing the corect versions over the top will not fix - you need to remove the old version) <-- is noted in the readme for the driver.

what happens when you do a #lsmod

here is a snipet from mine:
ipw2200 158464 0
ieee80211 26248 1 ipw2200
ieee80211_crypt 4352 1 ieee80211
firmware_class 7360 1 ipw2200

i had problems trying to find the correct place to put it in slackware and ended up with two locations:
/lib/firmware
AND in here i have a folder called 'firmware' which links to :
/usr/lib/hotplug/firmware

this is obviously not the best approach but it works for me =)

I've tried two different firmware versions (of the many listed), and as you've done I symlinked /lib/firmware to /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware. I'll see what I can do to remove the old version later today.

yeah wow. based on that i would try to do the remove as well.
from memory when i did a #./configure with the driver it found the old version and asked whehether i wanted to remove it first ///
hope this helps

I'm thinking, unfortunately, I may just need to upgrade to 2.6.15 or .16; I'm noticing quite a few other little errors (screen dim/brighten keys not working correctly, difficulty coming back from standby, et cetera) that weren't evident at first. With any luck that'll solve a lot of these instabilities, but of course I really wish that it hadn't happened in the first place

Hopefully I'll be able to get to that Tuesday or so.

Question for you, Graz -- have you ever gotten the S-Video connection to work?

(and thanks for your help!)

HI Poetics,

Yes maybe upgrading to 2.6.15 will help - that is the kernel that i use... I did however NOT use the ipw2200 driver that came with the kernel. I used the ieee802.11 that came with the kernel but downlaoded my own driver and firmware (as i wanted to try the RFMON feature they had enabled).

That is a good question about the s-video... i dont think i have used it in linux now that i think of it.. All of my 'function' keys do work (so far) so it may work... But then again i dont remmeber selecting anything in reagrds to this when compiling the kernel..

question of you... how much RAM do you have in your 700m? i was just reading in another thread that the 2.6.16 kernels have LOWMEM support for 1GB... So you can have lowmem selected and get 1GB (rather than 880MB)... Maybe worth looking at that kernel ... I am now =)

My function keys have always worked just fine before this little event. I actually can't remember how much RAM I have in this thing, but I'd be surprised if it were more than 512mb. I'll see about upgrading the kernel, but I'll quickly run out of options if that doesn't solve the issues I've been having.

I know some people have gotten the VGA-out to work (I remember there was a Debian how-to somewhere), but I've never yet heard of either the S-Video or the SD port, both of which I'd be interested in seeing work.

yes my SD slot definaltey does not work... I tried enabling a bunch of things when building this time but all i caused was a kernel panic: Eeekk =)

Looks like Wednesday is go-time for a new kernel I also suppose I'll do a 'slackpkg reinstall' of quite a few packages after the fact to make sure there aren't problems.

Thanks for the help

well i just got a copy of version 2.6.16.11 just then - i may upgrade in the next few days as well..
Let me know how you go with the new kernel, i may follow suit =) Could be a great .config swap too - exactly the same machines ...
just one thing i noticed looking through the new kernel - it seems 'ipchains' has been upgraded with something new (which i have not read about yet) ... incase you currently use ipchains for your firewall this may give problems..
I guess if you currently do you could remove /etc/rc.d/rc.firewall and then re-configure using the new way..

I haven't relied on ipchains in quite some time -- made the switch to iptables, but thanks for the heads-up! What I'm most likely to do (I'm still a timid kernel-compiler) is to take the config from the Chess Griffin website I linked earlier, apply it to the new kernel, and see what new features weren't around when that one was created.

Best of luck to both of us!

I'm updating with the 2.6.16.14 kernel here in a few minutes. Best of luck to both of us!

I'm really hoping I won't need to reinstall Slackware -- I loathe reinstalls (too many experiences helping people with their Windows boxes )

Edit: I'm posting after successfully upgrading to the 2.6.16.14 kernel, but I'm not seeing any fixes appear for my wireless card or battery level reporting in gkrellm. I'll see what I can do, but I really fear having to reinstall.

Oh no - not the best news... i would try downloaded the ipw2200 driver again and do a ./configure
remove the old version you have installed.
when re-doing the kernel dont include the ipw2200 from the kernel.. only inlcude the ieee802.11 stack.
then copy the firmware back to /lib/firmware etc (although it should still be there)
I did a quick kernel mess around the other day playing with my display and i had to re-install the ipw2200 again - works fine though =)

hey poetics,

just letting you know i blew my whole machine away (re:WPA_Supplicant) and i got it working perfect this time. yay
Built a new kernel with 2.6.15 from scratch and it is working very well... so far i have ironed out all my previous bugs. Let me know if you are interested in the .config (although the chess griffin is a good starting point there are some things included which shouldnt be) i.e. P4 clock modulation/other pentium 4 drivers (plus there is support fo 3 graphics boards)- unless i just include 'pentium M' with 'enhanced speedstep' + Vesa & 855GM video my machine does not like me so much

I tried again with the new ipw2200 drivers and firmware, but no luck.

I'm fearing a reinstall is iminent. I actually would be interested in your config, though I had no problems just using Chess' config, I'm sure there's some tweaking I just didn't have time to fiddle with.

At least the CD-RW still works so I can backup everything