Another Ultima Linux Post: Laptop Story

[vakkotaur]

I've gone and installed Ultima Linux on the Compaq Armada 7800 which I've named caspian.

Actually, I installed Ultima Linux on caspian twice. The first time I tried KDE and that was a mistake. KDE is nice, but it's just too much for a Pentium II. Too much candy, not enough speed. Since I'd not had all that much time invested in the install and didn't care to fiddle about with whatever Ultima (Slackware) requires to remove undesired packages I figured a quick re-install would be the fastest way to get what I wanted.

The F4 issue was still there, but other than that the install(s) went pretty much textbook perfect. CTRL-ALT-DEL to reboot worked. As caspian isn't just too old a machine, the pointer really is a PS/2 device and things just worked for the most part. I was glad I had one of the previous posts to refer to in order to take care of getting Xfce to act as I desired.

The one thing that I don't have working, or at least not working reliably, is wireless networking. I've not tried to use the built-in modem, so that could be another hassle if I ever need it. Wired networking (using a pcmcia card) worked fine, so it's not a pcmcia or general networking problem, at least.

I did find a page about setting up wireless networking in Slackware and it was somewhat useful. Somehow I got a wireless connection going, once. Just once. I took advantage of that to do a few things, but I likely should have done a few more when I had the chance.

The working wireless didn't survive a reboot and trying the same actions (I think) as earlier resulted in either nothing happening or in a screen rapidly scrolling over and over and over and things were pretty much locked up in that condition. Right now I'm assuming that I may have unintentionally broke something and need to fix it (I'd rather not do another install if I can help it). Also, I need to find out more about how Ultima or Slackware is configured for wireless so I can change the thing that needs changing only once and have things continue to work, at least on the same network. It's quite annoying and frustrating when a computer seems to behave in a non-deterministic manner.

Comments

Laptop modems

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Can't help you with wireless networking, so far I've succeeded in avoiding that completely.

Your internal modem though... is likely a "winmodem". Software controlled device rather than a real modem with a modem controller chip. Used to be those didn't work in Linux at all, but a group of dedicated coders have managed to get most of the major ones functioning. If you didn't know about it before, check out Linmodems.org for information and drivers.

Re: Laptop modems

[jmaynard.livejournal.com]

Actually, the Armada 7800 is old enough to have a real modem, not a Winmodem. It's on /dev/ttyS1, I think, and should Just Work.

Re: Laptop modems

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, that's certainly better than trying to figure out how to get one of these obnoxious winmodems to function. I've got a couple of them to deal with here.

RE: Wireless networking

[(Anonymous)]

I know, I'm probably too much like Big Brother... but anyway - Did you use NdisWrapper or linux-wlan-ng? I've got both set up with my system, so if you're having problems just ask me. My entire home network's wireless, except for the server. [TIPS: For linux-wlan-ng, you may have to add something like "alias wlan0=cs" to /etc/modules.conf... "ndiswrapper -m" will set up modules.conf for NdisWrapper.] -multima

Re: Wireless networking

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

And that points out a blunder I've been making. I've not really used either. I have more reading to do and maybe then I'll get somewhere.

As for Big Brother, that's nonsense. If I didn't want people to read what I write here, I could set it so that they couldn't read it. Go ahead and read and comment. That's what the public posts in a journal are for, after all.

Success! But not from tweaking Ultima.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

With jmaynard's help things got going, but it seems that the trouble was not with Ultima or the wireless card (Cisco Aironet 350). Jay discovered that the access point had an older firmware version and updated it. Once it was updated (and properly configured again) things "Just Worked." I've rebooted caspian a couple time now and the connection is established as the system comes up.

Or maybe it was a combination, as I have edited a few files to set the essid and key. Still, the access point upgrade where things went from not working (or not very reliably) to working reliably.

Now (well, tomorrow night) I can use the network and snag a couple items I want to have around. And I can see about other things, like how to see and use a USB flash drive.

Wireless Linux Networking

[(Anonymous)]

Thought you might appreciate the following:

Linux Wireless Network (http://www.joot.com/dave/writings/articles/wireless-linux-howto.shtml)

It's a technical step-by-step instruction guide on establishing a *working* wireless Linux network.