How to get wireless in new Wheezy PPC/iBook install?

[este_el_paz]

Folks:

Finally got the time to switch the iBook G4 over to straight Wheezy yesterday, and things seemed to go well overall using the "expert" install and things more or less are working out of the box--a little bit excessive on the fan noise, otherwise it looks like it's using GNOME 2 rather than the 3+ that got loaded with it. But, wireless says "no drivers" or something like that, and I've forgotten which driver I used when I set up the iBook 6 to 8 months ago. I tried to read through the Debian wiki on wireless, but that seemed to tell me everything I would need to build a wireless device from the ground up, the hard way . . . but nothing about doing it the easy way. Just looking for the CLI code, is it "sudo apt-get install wireless-tools" or apt-get install b43-driver" or "apt-get install b43legacy-driver"????? I think it's "b43legacy" . . . but I'm not sure how to type it out properly or where to find the instructions on how to use Terminal to fix the lack of driver(s) . . . . I have this card: [14e4:4320] BCM 4306/3 b/g in PPC iBook G4 933 MHz w/640 MB of RAM.

Thanks,

e.e.p.

[jheaton5]

Is this the wiki you looked at?

[este_el_paz]

Is this the wiki you looked at?

@jheaton5: Not this time until you posted it, but that is the one I used to help figure out what to use the last time . . . so thanks kindly for that link. It didn't seem to be too obvious how to get there from the main wiki page?? it seems difficult to find stuff there even running a search of "wireless" brought 0 results I believe???? Anyway that should give me something to play with, looks like I have to run both "install wireless-tools" and then the "install b43-legacy driver" or something like that . . . and then do "sudo iwconfig" ??? Fairly simple once the code is known to run . . . .

e.e.p.

[este_el_paz]

Gents:

The wireless issue continues to be a problem, not sure why. Term says "wireless-tools is the newest" and I "apt-get install firmware-b43-installer" and that seemed to go well. The desktop drop down menu on the network changed from "firmware not loaded" to "device not ready" and tried to enter the wep key in Network Manager, but it would not accept it. Tried a few commands like sudo iwconfig . . . didn't seem to show anything available. I even tried to change "lo" to "eth1" in /etc/network/interfaces using "nano" . . . crtl X and Y, but for some reason when I checked iwconfig it had changed back to "lo" . . . . I went through this about a year ago when I first went to a Linux partition, but this doesn't seem to be responding, and it was a convoluted process back then so I can't remember what worked to fix it.

And, then to top it off while typing this post the first time, the fan started blowing and the mouse control went away . . . I need the mouse in the iBook because the touchpad no longer works . . . would this be calling for the proper Xorg.config file?

One other thought, in the Debian wiki it said to add a line for "non-free" and "contrib" from Squeeze in the sources.list, but this is Wheezy . . . do I still need to add that Squeeze data? Actually in reading thru the CLI log in data on the black screen there was some comment that scrolled by quickly saying, "The b43 phy firmware is too new" ?????? But the b43 driver should be the correct one, but somehow the machine is not making the connection to my wireless signal probably 2 feet away. The network doesn't show up as available in the network manager "wireless" tab.

Code: Select all

~$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list
#

# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux testing _Wheezy_ - Official Snapshot powerpc NETINST Binary-1 20120207-15:30]/ wheezy main

#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux testing _Wheezy_ - Official Snapshot powerpc NETINST Binary-1 20120207-15:30]/ wheezy main

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main non-free contrib

deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:~$ cat /etc/network/interfaces
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
#NetworkManager#iface eth0 inet dhcp

---------------------------------------------
sudo iwconfig

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:off/any
         Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=0 dBm
         Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
         Encryption key:off
         Power Management:on



Thanks for any hints,

e.e.p.

[CiaW]

You might want to check here for the latest instructions and drivers, just in case.
http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

Though I think the bcm installer gets it's drivers from this location? And you installed wireless-tools, also? And I think you'll need wpa-supplicant, too. I'm sure all of that is on the wiki. I always go to the linuxwireless site when all else fails.

[este_el_paz]

@CiaW:

I do appreciate the reply, but that link was part of the wiki that Jheaton5 already posted, and I did try to follow those instructions, but there is a missing link in that process . . . that is, uh, missing . . . . And then stil the question remains do I need a "Squeeze" non-free" and "contrib" line or is what I have with the sources.list just fine? There is something else that isn't happening and the question is, what is that?

e.e.p.

[CiaW]

Hi e.e.p.,

Sorry, the short answer is I'm not sure. But, if you have the squeeze repo's enabled to get the right wireless files, you would want non-free and probably contrib also since the b43 drivers are non-free and some of the other wireless bits may fall in the same category.

[jheaton5]

Also you have to put the driver in the module list with modprobe.

[este_el_paz]

OK . . . again I appreciate the attention, but could it be more specific? I've got the /etc/apt/sources.list info posted there, so I'm wondering if that can be checked to see if what is there is adequate for the non-free or contrib portion, or whether the Squeeze data has to be there--would adding a Squeeze non-free contrib line to the sources.list create any problems? Or would there be "no harm" to just add it in? I'm wondering whether at what point I would want to change the "Wheezy" to just the generic "testing" so that whenever Wheezy becomes "stable" the newer versions would be collected?? Or, leave it because it's PPC and it's already pushing the envelope to have Wheezy running?

And to jheaton5: appreciate the "modprobe the modules" . . . but how? I don't know if that was in that Debian wiki of instructions, it was just the "non-free" "contrib" possibly from Squeeze, install "wireless-tools" and the b43 driver (which it did do, download and install) . . . and that was supposed to be it . . . . Could you kindly post the specific code to do whatever you are talking about? I only know enough to be able to type commands that someone gives me . . . otherwise I use only what the GUI can do . . . but the GUI is letting me down on wireless.

e.e.p.

[jheaton5]

IIRC, someone correct me if I'm wrong on the name of the driver

Code: Select all

# modprobe -r b43
# modprobe b43