Alright, I'm pretty well a newbie to Linux, despite attempting to use Slackware for the past couple of years. I've used this forum to solve many problems, and figured after so much time here, I should finally sign up. So firstly, hello LQ Slackware users. =)

As far as what I've got going with your guys' help, I'm running Slackware 12.1, and have things working well enough to get by (I can use wireless internet and my X has 3D acceleration), but wouldn't say I've got anything actually working correctly (wireless is funky, and graphics just aren't quite right). I'm hoping that maybe through direct interaction instead of just reading other peoples' posts, I can get things as clean as I'd like.

Alright, now for my issue...

As I mentioned, I've got wireless internet, but it just doesn't work as well as I'd like. Basically, every time I start up, the b43 module is loaded by default (I custom compiled my kernel and purposefully made sure that was the case, thinking that was the right thing to do). That module doesn't work for me, however. I believe due to never "cutting the firmware", or something like that. So instead, I went with the easy fix that is ndiswrapper. This means that when I want to use my wireless (which I always do), I have to do the following:

After the second command, my little blue wireless light would come on without fail. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't happy with always having to type in those commands. It seemed the first step to taking those steps away was adding the b43 module to my blacklist. I rebooted and saw that the b43 module was no longer loaded, and so went on to loading the ndiswrapper. It acted like it loaded fine, but my little blue LED didn't come on. Any attempt to actually connect to a wireless network failed without error. Pressing the wireless button did nothing to turn on the LED or to successfully connect to a network.

So, I took the b43 module out of the blacklist. After rebooting, I ran the same two lines I usually ran, but this time my blue LED still didn't come on. However, pressing the wireless button did turn it on. At this point, I was able to connect to a network just fine. Thinking it was maybe a fluke, I again blacklisted the b43 module and rebooted, only to find that again it made it impossible to connect to a network or turn on my little blue LED.

Now I no longer have the b43 module blacklisted, and have to type those two commands anytime I reboot. Except now in addition to those commands, I have to hit the button to make the LED come on. So, my direct question is how I can make it so that upon loading the ndiswrapper module, the LED and wireless functionality is enabled by default. Ideally, I would like to not have to type in those commands either, but at this point, just not having to hit the button will make me a bit happier.

Thanks,
Valiant

If you don't want to run those commands every time, you can put them in /etc/rc.d/rc.local. They will be run at boot every time. Not sure about the LED though.

I'm running Ubuntu Hardy {I know it is long of beard} and have troubles with both the Wifi Radio Switch and the Wifi Usage LED. Part of the reason to delay upgrades lies in the evolution of UDEV, ACPI, and friends and the pending deprication of HAL.

My laptop had a hardware slide switch to enable disable laptop radios -- both bluetooth and wifi {and broadband if installed}. The switch is present to make it easy to kill transmitters when flying or in explosives environments.

• Make things work -- that is effectiveness.
• Make things work well -- that is efficiency.

I'd like to have a working switch. I'd like to have enough details to make the switch work.

All works well for bluetooth, but wifi doesn't play. I don't have broadband. When I slide the switch off, I'd expect to see some "Wifi Off" and "Bluetooth Off" display with appropriate log entries. I expect the reverse to happen as well.