[SOLVED] Wireless connection on Dell laptop Slackware 14.0

Rockitglider7 · 11-13-2013, 12:27 PM

Hello,

I have gone through lots of web info and man pages info to try and figure out my wireless cards connection, I was able to get the card lit up and I can now see it in the ifconfig and iwconfig commands, before installing the firmware I was getting no device enabled. I installed the b43 firmware from slackbuilds.org and I edited the rc.inet1.conf file to see the cards properties, but I still can't connect, I haven't seen a way to enter the password for the WPA-2 security encription so I know I need that, but I'm not sure where to enter that. This is my second slackware install, and my first on a laptop (Dell Inspiron 1420). Other than that it works pretty good. Thanks for any help you can give. Wireless card reports as BCM 4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY

Sincerely, Kit

Nh3xus · 11-13-2013, 12:47 PM

Hi,

If you have performed a full install of Slackware 14, then you have Network Manager installed.

If your drivers is already installed (I assume you've done so), log in a TTY as root (which is default when you are booting in runlevel 3) and do this :

Code:

 # netconfig

A ncurse interface will appears and will ask you the way you want to connect to the Internet.

Select Network Manager and apply the settings.

Then reboot, and log in as a regular on your DE of choice, and the nm-applet should be there.

If you don't have the applet, just do this as a regular user :

Code:

 $ nm-applet &

Rockitglider7 · 11-13-2013, 02:04 PM

hello, well that didn't work. I didn't want to reconfigure the entire network I want to be able to plug in with a wired connection or connect with wireless as well. I already was able to connect with dhcp on a wired lan. I just need to add wireless to the mix when needed.

Rockitglider7 · 11-13-2013, 04:57 PM

Hello again,

Here's my ifconfig output:

Code:

wlan0: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        ether 00:22:5f:5d:5d:a0  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        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

Code:

eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.0.192  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.0.255
        inet6 fe80::223:aeff:feb4:7422  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 00:23:ae:b4:74:22  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 18  bytes 1992 (1.9 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 18  bytes 1934 (1.8 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
        device interrupt 17  

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 16436
        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0
        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>
        loop  txqueuelen 0  (Local Loopback)
        RX packets 20  bytes 1000 (1000.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 20  bytes 1000 (1000.0 B)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

I'm still reading to see if I can figure it out, I think I'm getting close. I found an app called wpa_gui, not sure what it is but it looks like something to configure wireless and wired connections. How do I get software off the dvd? and what is the source dvd for? I read that thw wicked app can be installed from the installation disk, but I'm not sure how to install from the disk. Any help would be great, or if you could point me in the direction on where to read about it. I think I'm not sure how to find out what's available in the man pages, is there a T of C for this?

Thanks alot people, Kit

Rockitglider7 · 11-13-2013, 05:35 PM

Hello again,

OK I figured out how to install from the dvd and I installed wicd. My question is do I comment out the entire rc.inet1.conf file even for the wired connections too?

Thanks, Kit

Rockitglider7 · 11-13-2013, 06:04 PM

OK If I give myself enough time it seems like I can figure things out, but I'm going to post what I did so it might help someone else trying to do the same thing.

I installed the wicd program from the dvd @

Code:

# installpkg /media/SlackDVD/extra/wicd/wicd-1.7.2.4-i486-4.txz

Then made the rc.wicd file executable:

Code:

# chmod +x /etc/rc.d/rc.wicd

then comment everything out in the file /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf even the wired network settings.

then restart machine and start wicd from the tray. Everything is easy from there, at least if your firmware is setup good, and the wireless card is working ok.

Works Great!

Thanks, Kit