Wireless not working on Slackware laptop

Hi Eddie,

I have an old ASUS netbook which I use everyday, and it has an Atheros AR9285 wireless card. It runs Slackware 14.2 and NetworkManager.

Would you like to compare our systems to find what is going on with your Toshiba?

If so, what kernel are you running, and is your access-point running 802.11n (if not, then what)?

Originally Posted by EddieM That makes sense to me. It looks like my Slackware option in the grub config file is pointing to the correct partition for loading. I have re-installed these enough time that I could have screwed up something. I know I didn’t format the /boot partition every time. I’ll do a complete reload of just Slackware from scratch repartitioning and formatting everything. In fact, I think I’ll redownload the iso and create a new boot usb. It’s an all new load anyway so I won’t loose anything but a little time, and I am hiding out at home at the governments recommendation anyway. More tomorrow... Eddie

If I had to hazard a guess without seeing your configs, I'd imagine you have a /boot/ folder in each install (possibly one of them being an actual partition). When you reference the kernel in grub's config (if it's anything like lilo), you need to have the absolute path to that kernel image listed, based on the location in your currently running OS. So, if you're in lubuntu, you'd need to mount Slackware's partition that has the contents of the /boot/ folder (whether that is the root partition or a separate partition containing only /boot/) to a location in lubuntu (maybe create a slack/ folder under /mnt/, but it's up to you).

Then in grub's config, you'd reference the kernel for Slackware using that full path. In lilo (since I'm more familiar with that bootloader, but hopefully you can figure out what you'd need in grub), it'd be similar to the following:

image=/boot/lubuntu-kernel-file
  initrd=/boot/lubuntu-initrd.gz
  root=/dev/sda2
  label=Lubuntu
  read-only

image=/mnt/slack/boot/vmlinuz-generic
  initrd=/mnt/slack/boot/initrd-4.4.14.gz
  root=/dev/sda4
  label=Slack
  read-only

No. I only have one /boot in a partition by itself. It looks like the grub config file is pointing to the correct installation for lubuntu and Slackware.
I’m just about to make a new install usb stick with a new iso download and do a single installation of a clean Slackware. If this works then I screwed up the installation previously. If it doesn’t work then that is not the problem and I can go from there. I’ll know in a little while.
Eddie

I re-installed Slackware. The only changes I made from what I had done before is that I let lilo install and I selected xfce instead of kde. I was letting Slackware install before using the grub that lubuntu had previously installed. The desktop doesn’t really matter.
Anyway, at the first prompt I did iwconfig and I am getting an entry for wlan0. Success. I’m on my way, I think. Now finish checking the Slackware out then see if I can get lubuntu installed.
Thanks for all your help. I’m sure I’ll be back with more issues.
Eddie

Good to hear! Good luck and let us know if you run into future issues.

I changed to graphical runlevel and everything seems to be working. I'm sending this from the firefox on the slackware laptop.
Eddie

Hi Eddie,

If you have not done it yet, then I thoroughly recommend applying all the patches to Slackware 14.2.

Slackware 14.2 was released many years ago, and since then: (a) a great many security holes have been discovered in processor design and micro-code, and the work-arounds are in the new kernel-code which is in the patches directory; and (b) many flaws have been discovered in many of the software packages which come in the original set called Slackware 14.2, and the fixes are in the patches directory.

Greetings EddieM,

Thanks for this thread. One of my Slackware units, my T420 Thinkpad, was driving me nuts. Networkmanager was inconsistent; it gave me poor wireless connectivity.
So I disabled networkmanager and installed wicd from /extra. I now have a stable wireless connection again.

Originally Posted by hitest Thanks for this thread. One of my Slackware units, my T420 Thinkpad, was driving me nuts. Networkmanager was inconsistent; it gave me poor wireless connectivity. So I disabled networkmanager and installed wicd from /extra. I now have a stable wireless connection again.

Out of curiosity, did you try switching the dhcp client? By default Network Manager uses dhcpcd, which is broken on some routers or hardware (but only with Network Manager's usage of it), but many times switching that to dhclient will resolve the intermittent connectivity issues using Network Manager.

Originally Posted by bassmadrigal Out of curiosity, did you try switching the dhcp client? By default Network Manager uses dhcpcd, which is broken on some routers or hardware (but only with Network Manager's usage of it), but many times switching that to dhclient will resolve the intermittent connectivity issues using Network Manager.

Good afternoon, bassmadrigal. No I did not try that. I've been able to successfully run Networkmanager on my other Lenovo T420 without issues. I will try your tip if this glitch raises its head again. Thanks for the tip, mate. Wicd is rock-solid so far.

See /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/00-dhcp-client.conf on how to change it.

wicd does tend to be rock-solid, but I don't think it integrates as well with DEs and isn't included by default in Slackware (I don't use either... I just have rc.inet1.conf and wpa_supplicant.conf setup for my local network so it can connect without needing a separate client).

Originally Posted by bassmadrigal See /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/00-dhcp-client.conf on how to change it. wicd does tend to be rock-solid, but I don't think it integrates as well with DEs and isn't included by default in Slackware (I don't use either...

Wicd is included with Slackware in /extra, but, is not installed by default. Will check out the configuration file you mentioned. Thanks.

Originally Posted by bassmadrigal See /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/00-dhcp-client.conf on how to change it.

Thanks for the suggestion, bassmadrigal! I've un-installed Wicd and edited the networkmanager configuration file as you suggested.
Switching to the other dhcp protocol worked. I'm now consistently connecting to my wireless network using NetworkManager. I appreciate the help.