slackware and wifi

[john connolly]

Hi, I've been a slackware user since way back when and the one area
where I have been consistently frustrated is with wifi. My pc was
hard-wired into a router provided by our cable company until recently
when I moved my office to an adjacent room. I had an old wifi dongle
that worked until the router went down and probably took the dongle with
it. When the router was repaired I ended up running an ethernet cable
from one room to another to get back on line. There are any number of
wifi lans on the market that claim to be linux friendly but I have a
dickens of a time finding one that works with Slackware, (it usually
turns out that they work with Ubuntu and I'm not planning to change
distributions.) I know that wifi is a moving target for open source
software but what is it about Slackware that makes this so difficut? Any
ideas about this?
Thanks, jwc

[Javier]

Post by john connolly
Hi, I've been a slackware user since way back when and the one area
where I have been consistently frustrated is with wifi. My pc was
hard-wired into a router provided by our cable company until recently
when I moved my office to an adjacent room. I had an old wifi dongle
that worked until the router went down and probably took the dongle with
it. When the router was repaired I ended up running an ethernet cable
from one room to another to get back on line. There are any number of
wifi lans on the market that claim to be linux friendly but I have a
dickens of a time finding one that works with Slackware, (it usually
turns out that they work with Ubuntu and I'm not planning to change
distributions.) I know that wifi is a moving target for open source
software but what is it about Slackware that makes this so difficut? Any
ideas about this?

Wifi sucks in any Linux distro, not just Slackware. Bluetooth support
is even worser than wifi.

My advice is, if you want to avoid headaches, is to get a piece of
dedicated hardware that connects to wifi and that you can connect to
RJ-45. Some examples from a recent comp.os.linux.networking thread.

https://www.amazon.com/IOGEAR-Ethernet-2-WiFi-Universal-Wireless-GWU637/dp/B018YPWORE/?th=1
TP-Link AC750 Dual Band Wi-Fi Range Extender w/ Gigabit Ethernet Port
NETGEAR WiFi Range Extender EX3700

You can do the same with a raspberry pi, put a wifi card on it, and
configure it as dhcp server. There must be a tutorial somewhere, but
again you have the headache of configuring the pi.

[Jimmy Johnson]

Post by john connolly
Hi, I've been a slackware user since way back when and the one area
where I have been consistently frustrated is with wifi. My pc was
hard-wired into a router provided by our cable company until recently
when I moved my office to an adjacent room. I had an old wifi dongle
that worked until the router went down and probably took the dongle with
it. When the router was repaired I ended up running an ethernet cable
from one room to another to get back on line. There are any number of
wifi lans on the market that claim to be linux friendly but I have a
dickens of a time finding one that works with Slackware, (it usually
turns out that they work with Ubuntu and I'm not planning to change
distributions.) I know that wifi is a moving target for open source
software but what is it about Slackware that makes this so difficut? Any
ideas about this?
Thanks, jwc

I bought a old secondhand ibm t61 thinkpad a while back, it did not come
with internal wifi but came with 'proster' usb wifi stick and it works
good with any 32bit system I install on that laptop including slackware
14.2, wheezy, jessie, antix, puppy, etc., I also gave it a try on a
64bit hp server and it worked just like plug and play wicd configured it
and it was working. I would recommend giving it a try.

https://www.amazon.ca/Proster-Adapter-Wireless-Network-433Mbps/dp/B01FSEFZIE

[m***@bil.myplace.org]

Post by john connolly
Hi, I've been a slackware user since way back when and the one area
where I have been consistently frustrated is with wifi. My pc was
hard-wired into a router provided by our cable company until recently
when I moved my office to an adjacent room. I had an old wifi dongle
that worked until the router went down and probably took the dongle with
it. When the router was repaired I ended up running an ethernet cable
from one room to another to get back on line. There are any number of
wifi lans on the market that claim to be linux friendly but I have a
dickens of a time finding one that works with Slackware, (it usually
turns out that they work with Ubuntu and I'm not planning to change
distributions.) I know that wifi is a moving target for open source
software but what is it about Slackware that makes this so difficut? Any
ideas about this?
Thanks, jwc

Wifi always used to be problematic, for years I used to just run cable
ethernet and not bother with wifi because it was too unreliable.
But last week I installed slackware-current on my thinkpad, chose
'network manager' to configure my network (the setup default I believe)
and it seems to be working fine. This is on an old thinkpad with an
ancient intel wifi adapter, lspci tells me its one of these:-
"Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN", it came ready installed
with the laptop from ebay. I know that's an old adapter, and it definitely
used to be unreliable with linux in years gone by. My router says it's
connected using a 5GHz channel too. So I've been pleasantly surprised :-).

[m***@bil.myplace.org]

Post by m***@bil.myplace.org

Post by john connolly
Hi, I've been a slackware user since way back when and the one area
where I have been consistently frustrated is with wifi. My pc was
hard-wired into a router provided by our cable company until recently
when I moved my office to an adjacent room. I had an old wifi dongle
that worked until the router went down and probably took the dongle with
it. When the router was repaired I ended up running an ethernet cable
from one room to another to get back on line. There are any number of
wifi lans on the market that claim to be linux friendly but I have a
dickens of a time finding one that works with Slackware, (it usually
turns out that they work with Ubuntu and I'm not planning to change
distributions.) I know that wifi is a moving target for open source
software but what is it about Slackware that makes this so difficut? Any
ideas about this?
Thanks, jwc

Wifi always used to be problematic, for years I used to just run cable
ethernet and not bother with wifi because it was too unreliable.
But last week I installed slackware-current on my thinkpad, chose
'network manager' to configure my network (the setup default I believe)
and it seems to be working fine. This is on an old thinkpad with an
ancient intel wifi adapter, lspci tells me its one of these:-
"Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN", it came ready installed
with the laptop from ebay. I know that's an old adapter, and it definitely
used to be unreliable with linux in years gone by. My router says it's
connected using a 5GHz channel too. So I've been pleasantly surprised :-).

In case it's of interest, they seem to be dirt cheap on ebay, there are lots
of them up there for sale. Search for "intel 4965 wireless". Price
ranges from 2-4 UKP on the uk ebay site.

[m***@bil.myplace.org]

Post by m***@bil.myplace.org

Post by m***@bil.myplace.org

Post by john connolly
Hi, I've been a slackware user since way back when and the one area
where I have been consistently frustrated is with wifi. My pc was
hard-wired into a router provided by our cable company until recently
when I moved my office to an adjacent room. I had an old wifi dongle
that worked until the router went down and probably took the dongle with
it. When the router was repaired I ended up running an ethernet cable
from one room to another to get back on line. There are any number of
wifi lans on the market that claim to be linux friendly but I have a
dickens of a time finding one that works with Slackware, (it usually
turns out that they work with Ubuntu and I'm not planning to change
distributions.) I know that wifi is a moving target for open source
software but what is it about Slackware that makes this so difficut? Any
ideas about this?
Thanks, jwc

Wifi always used to be problematic, for years I used to just run cable
ethernet and not bother with wifi because it was too unreliable.
But last week I installed slackware-current on my thinkpad, chose
'network manager' to configure my network (the setup default I believe)
and it seems to be working fine. This is on an old thinkpad with an
ancient intel wifi adapter, lspci tells me its one of these:-
"Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN", it came ready installed
with the laptop from ebay. I know that's an old adapter, and it definitely
used to be unreliable with linux in years gone by. My router says it's
connected using a 5GHz channel too. So I've been pleasantly surprised :-).

In case it's of interest, they seem to be dirt cheap on ebay, there are lots
of them up there for sale. Search for "intel 4965 wireless". Price
ranges from 2-4 UKP on the uk ebay site.

NB before buying one check your system can accept it... these "full
size" cards have been superseded years ago by "half-size" cards.

[K. Venken]

Post by john connolly
Hi, I've been a slackware user since way back when and the one area
where I have been consistently frustrated is with wifi. My pc was
hard-wired into a router provided by our cable company until recently
when I moved my office to an adjacent room. I had an old wifi dongle
that worked until the router went down and probably took the dongle with
it. When the router was repaired I ended up running an ethernet cable
from one room to another to get back on line. There are any number of
wifi lans on the market that claim to be linux friendly but I have a
dickens of a time finding one that works with Slackware, (it usually
turns out that they work with Ubuntu and I'm not planning to change
distributions.) I know that wifi is a moving target for open source
software but what is it about Slackware that makes this so difficut? Any
ideas about this?
Thanks, jwc

John,

Some time ago (2015) I bought A USB one for my Raspberry PI but it works
also in Slackware 14.2. Unfortunately it is unavailable anymore. My
guess was that if it works for the Raspberry PI it probably works with
most distro's. But it's a guess anyway. One of the things you might want
to check if it is listed in the kernel modules. If so it should work out
of the box. Linux support sometimes means you have the sources, but it
is not always guaranteed you can build it.