I had almost no trouble configuring a Belkin wireless card to my HP laptop. The built-in wireless card needs proprietary drivers so I solved that problem with the Belkin card. No problems! Now I am trying to set up an older laptop with only 256K RAM with no built-in wireless. Using the same Belkin card, the system fails to find it. So I tried the LInksys Wireless G card that works in this older Gateway notebook in Windows. Alas, Puppy doesn't recognize it either.
So my dilemma is that two cards that work in this same older laptop to run Windows XP does not work with Puppy Linux. I tried all of the searches from the setup programs within Puppy 4.0. None of the drivers works. I even tried using the Wrapper option to install the Windows driver for the Linksys Wireless G card. But Puppy stil can not find the wireless connection on the older Gateway Laptop.
Any suggestions? If the wireless card works on the Windows side and in the other laptop runnign the Puppy OS, why doesn't the same OS see either wireless card with the setup functions exhausted?
I'm hoping there is a fix for this. I couldn't believe how fast Puppy Linux runs on the older notebook.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Wirelesss connection troubles
I have several queries??
1. 256k ram do you mean 256 meg?
If so then running puppy4 on this means your running at puppy4's prefered minimum, try adding a swap partition (if you can) of about 500megs this might see thru enough to get the wifi working (if the particular cards are recognised by puppy in the first place..)
2. are you running from a usb stick?, frugal install, or cd..when attempting to run puppy on the older laptop??
Reasons I ask: a)puppy4 has issues with any usb attached drives and wifi together, ie a usb external hardrive can cause errors in grub install if its attached while doing the install but it is fine to re-attach the external usb drive after installing grub...
So I would suggest trying to run the puppy as a frugal install or from the cd rahter than the usb stick or external hardrive, if you want to try running usb wifi items....
If the card is detected by puppy then it could have a driver/module conflict with something on the computer ie a bad usb controller (or an older model 1 that the newer wifi card doesnt like ).....
as a sad note I've seen that Linksys/ Belkin cards and Netgear cards always seem to have more issues than most....My preference is for dlink 54meg wfi cards (im not sure about the new 108meg and n series wifi)
Also WinXP (or Windows in general) is not Puppy Linux (or linux in general) ....so dont expect the same thing they are completely different Operating Systems....and should be treated as such...sorry if this upsets you ..but it is the way it is....
1. 256k ram do you mean 256 meg?
If so then running puppy4 on this means your running at puppy4's prefered minimum, try adding a swap partition (if you can) of about 500megs this might see thru enough to get the wifi working (if the particular cards are recognised by puppy in the first place..)
2. are you running from a usb stick?, frugal install, or cd..when attempting to run puppy on the older laptop??
Reasons I ask: a)puppy4 has issues with any usb attached drives and wifi together, ie a usb external hardrive can cause errors in grub install if its attached while doing the install but it is fine to re-attach the external usb drive after installing grub...
So I would suggest trying to run the puppy as a frugal install or from the cd rahter than the usb stick or external hardrive, if you want to try running usb wifi items....
If the card is detected by puppy then it could have a driver/module conflict with something on the computer ie a bad usb controller (or an older model 1 that the newer wifi card doesnt like ).....
as a sad note I've seen that Linksys/ Belkin cards and Netgear cards always seem to have more issues than most....My preference is for dlink 54meg wfi cards (im not sure about the new 108meg and n series wifi)
Also WinXP (or Windows in general) is not Puppy Linux (or linux in general) ....so dont expect the same thing they are completely different Operating Systems....and should be treated as such...sorry if this upsets you ..but it is the way it is....
1) 256k ram do you mean 256 meg?
Yes, sorry for the misdirection. How do I do set up a swap file?
2) are you running from a usb stick?, frugal install, or cd..when attempting to run puppy on the older laptop??
Yes. I boot from the CD and have the szve file on the hard dricve. The OS runs from a thumb dribve.
Alas, since the Wifi works fine on my newer laptop, I was hoping to have the same cards work on the older model. The drivers seem to be included in Puppy 4.0 only the older computer isn't seeing the device. Thanks for your input.
Yes, sorry for the misdirection. How do I do set up a swap file?
2) are you running from a usb stick?, frugal install, or cd..when attempting to run puppy on the older laptop??
Yes. I boot from the CD and have the szve file on the hard dricve. The OS runs from a thumb dribve.
Alas, since the Wifi works fine on my newer laptop, I was hoping to have the same cards work on the older model. The drivers seem to be included in Puppy 4.0 only the older computer isn't seeing the device. Thanks for your input.
Try booting off of a puppy 3.01 cd and see if you can get wirelss to work. And try the NDIS wrapper.
I have an older Dell with 256 MB of ram and D-Link b/g wireless card. With puppy 3.01, booting from CD or installed on the hard drive, I had to use the windows driver using the wrapper. I set it up once and it works great and upon reboot it continues to work great. I tried puppy 4.0 many many times booting from CD, installing into reformatted fresh partions, installing and upgrading over 3.01, I tried every possible combination I could think of for days determined to beat this wireless issue. Final solution - revert back to 3.01.
If I could figure out a way to use the 3.01 networking components with 4.0 I would.
I have an older Dell with 256 MB of ram and D-Link b/g wireless card. With puppy 3.01, booting from CD or installed on the hard drive, I had to use the windows driver using the wrapper. I set it up once and it works great and upon reboot it continues to work great. I tried puppy 4.0 many many times booting from CD, installing into reformatted fresh partions, installing and upgrading over 3.01, I tried every possible combination I could think of for days determined to beat this wireless issue. Final solution - revert back to 3.01.
If I could figure out a way to use the 3.01 networking components with 4.0 I would.