[SOLVED] Just installed a slackbuild package for my wireless card drivers. iwconfig says the NIC doesn't exist?

700 · 06-27-2019, 04:48 PM

I installed the slackbuild package for the drivers for my wireless card and now I'm trying to set up the network settings by following these 2 guides:
https://wiki.alienbase.nl/doku.php?i...eless_networks
https://docs.slackware.com/slackware:beginners_guide

I uncommented the 5 lines in the /etc/rc.d/rc.wireless.conf by removing the hashes between those 2 dashed borders and I ran

Code:

 /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 eth0_start

before doing iwconfig but it still says

Code:

lo        no wireless extensions
eth0        no wireless extensions

How do I get it to detect my wireless card? I thought I did everything the guide told me to

colorpurple21859 · 06-27-2019, 05:28 PM

You most likely missing the kernel driver for you wireless adaptor and will have to build from source, as root what is the output of

Code:

lspci

The links you posted are for configuration of a working wireless adaptor for use with networking,

Quote:

I installed the slackbuild package

What slackbuild package did you install and what steps did you take to install it?

BW-userx · 06-27-2019, 05:32 PM

among the kernel driver for you wireless adaptor. set your /etc/rc.d/rc.networkmanager to executable first then start it, or just reboot that for me takes care of wifi.

Labinnah · 06-28-2019, 04:09 AM

There is possibility that your network device name is not eth0. You can run:

Code:

dmesg

and search there for real interface name or:

Code:

ifconfig -a

to list all available devices in your system. If you find right name, you just use it instead of "eth0".

700 · 06-28-2019, 06:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by colorpurple21859

You most likely missing the kernel driver for you wireless adaptor and will have to build from source, as root what is the output of

Code:

lspci

The links you posted are for configuration of a working wireless adaptor for use with networking,

What slackbuild package did you install and what steps did you take to install it?

bottom 2 lines of lspci:

Code:

02:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
10.00.0 Network Controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)

https://slackbuilds.org/repository/1.../broadcom-sta/
This was the slackbuild package I installed, I followed the instructions, added source files into the slackbuild file, ran it, then installed the package and then moved the package to my home folder for safekeeping afterwards.

700 · 06-28-2019, 06:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Labinnah

There is possibility that your network device name is not eth0. You can run:

Code:

dmesg

and search there for real interface name or:

Code:

ifconfig -a

to list all available devices in your system. If you find right name, you just use it instead of "eth0".

it seems the output of dmesg is so much that it won't allow me to scroll up all the way to the beginning of it?
I'm doing shift + pg up, for future reference, is there another, better way of scrolling up the console?

running ifconfig -a outputs:

Code:

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>
loop  txqueuelen 1  (Local Loopback)
RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

BW-userx · 06-28-2019, 07:18 AM

Sometimes I just redirect dmesg into a file then open it up in a text editor so I can read it. It also keeps it for further reference, after next boot.

Code:

sudo dmesg > dmess

something like that. Makes it a bit easier. If your text editor too has word search, that too can be used for faster finding stuff. in lue of grep or awk 'ing its output.

Labinnah · 06-28-2019, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 700

it seems the output of dmesg is so much that it won't allow me to scroll up all the way to the beginning of it?
I'm doing shift + pg up, for future reference, is there another, better way of scrolling up the console?

You can redirect output to some pager application like more, less or most. I prefer most

Code:

dmesg | most

Quote:

Originally Posted by 700

running ifconfig -a outputs:

Code:

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>
loop  txqueuelen 1  (Local Loopback)
RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

Strange. Even no eth0. It should list all devices available to your system. It seems that kernel drivers are not loaded. For PCI devices this should be done automatically.
Run:

Code:

lspci -v

and search for "Kernel driver in use" and "Kernel modules" lines for devices you are interested in.

700 · 06-29-2019, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Labinnah

You can redirect output to some pager application like more, less or most. I prefer most

Code:

dmesg | most

Strange. Even no eth0. It should list all devices available to your system. It seems that kernel drivers are not loaded. For PCI devices this should be done automatically.
Run:

Code:

lspci -v

and search for "Kernel driver in use" and "Kernel modules" lines for devices you are interested in.

it says in the bottom-most lines for the ethernet controller and the network controller respectively:

Code:

kernel modules: b44

and

Code:

kernel modules: ssb, wl

The first (and only) thing I notice is that for those two devices, unlike all of the other devices in that list, these are the only ones that don't have a "Kernel driver in use" line.

Any idea why that is?

colorpurple21859 · 06-29-2019, 09:56 AM

did you do a

Code:

modprobe wl

700 · 06-29-2019, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by colorpurple21859

did you do a

Code:

modprobe wl

no but I just tried it now and nothing happened. No text, nothing.
Tried iwconfig again, said no wireless extensions.

Labinnah · 06-29-2019, 10:09 PM

Modprobe usually don't output anything. To check if something happen run dmesg just after modprobe. Last lines in output should be connected with your action.

For sure before modprobe you can run

Code:

depmod -a

It refresh module dependency. If they are nonexistent or outdated module can be not loaded.

colorpurple21859 · 06-29-2019, 10:53 PM

modprobe -v wl

700 · 06-30-2019, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Labinnah

Modprobe usually don't output anything. To check if something happen run dmesg just after modprobe. Last lines in output should be connected with your action.

For sure before modprobe you can run

Code:

depmod -a

It refresh module dependency. If they are nonexistent or outdated module can be not loaded.

ah ok, thanks

700 · 06-30-2019, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Labinnah

Modprobe usually don't output anything. To check if something happen run dmesg just after modprobe. Last lines in output should be connected with your action.

For sure before modprobe you can run

Code:

depmod -a

It refresh module dependency. If they are nonexistent or outdated module can be not loaded.

ok, so in the dmesg; it said:

Code:

wl driver 6.30.223.271 (r587334) failed with code 21
ERROR @wl_cfg80211_detach : NULL ndev->ieee80211ptr, unable to deref wl