Q4OS Forum

ChasHenry

Member

Registered: 2019-03-13

Posts: 44

Establishing a wireless connection.

My neighbor left my with an Acer Notebook and a Compaq Mini Netbook which I wish to rejuvenate (I tackle the notebook first).

On the Acer Aspire 3000 Notebook (MFG. DATE: 05 12), I replaced the pre-installed Windows XP HE (SP2) with Q4OS Centaurus, Trinity - 32bit / i386. The notebook is currently connected Ethernet and is functioning well albeit slow which should improve when upgrading the system memory from 512 MB to 2 GB (I may consider upgrading the CPU also). According to the notebook's specifications it utilizes a 'High-efficiency antenna technology' and is 'Wireless Protocols compliant'.

My attempts establishing a wireless connection are fruitless thus far. I installed 'Network Manager' from Software Centre and both check-boxes beside 'Enable Networking' and "Enable Notifications' are checked/ticked. The 'Connection Information' is displaying only the 'Wired Connection' and does not detect any other available (wireless) connections; (Q4OS 3.11 Centaurus installed to my Toshiba Laptop is detecting these).

I kindly request assistance setting up a wireless function to the Acer notebook.

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,300

Re: Establishing a wireless connection.

The wireless on this machine could be Atheros or Broadcom.

I hope it's Broadcom in which case install
b43-fwcutter
firmware-b43-installer
firmware-b43legacy-installer

You can do this in one go

sudo apt install - b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer firmware-b43legacy-installer

Reboot. You may need to then open Konsole and do

sudo -r modprobe b43

then 

sudo modprobe b43

I recall also having to go through TDE Network and Disable and the Enable Wireless

ChasHenry

Member

Registered: 2019-03-13

Posts: 44

Re: Establishing a wireless connection.

Thanks for assistance!

Installed the three b43 items successfully and rebooted the system (twice).

I then did

sudo -r modprobe b43

Unfortunately sudo: b43: command not found

The Aspire 3000 User Guide indicates:
Communication
Modem: 56K ITU V.92 modem with PTT approval; Wake-on-Ring ready
LAN: 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet; Wake-on-LAN ready
Wireless LAN (optional): integrated miniPCI 802.11b/g Wi-Fi CERTI-FIED TM solution
Acer SignalUp wireless technology support
Wireless PAN (optional): integrated Bluetooth®
System compliance
Mobile PC 2001
ACPI 1.0b
DMI 2.0
Wi-Fi®

Alas, the information does not indicate Atheros or Broadcom...

lspci revealed the following:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 760/M760 Host (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AGP Port (virtual PCI-to-PCI bridge)
00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS963 [MuTIOL Media IO] LPC Controller (rev 25)
00:02.1 SMBus: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS961/2/3 SMBus controller
00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 IDE Controller
00:02.6 Modem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AC'97 Modem Controller (rev a0)
00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS7012 AC'97 Sound Controller (rev a0)
00:03.0 USB controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.1 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.1 USB controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.1 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.2 USB controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 2.0 Controller
00:04.0 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet (rev 91)
00:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 02)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661/741/760 PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter

Last edited by ChasHenry (2020-06-29 04:44)

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,300

Re: Establishing a wireless connection.

I am so sorry - it was very early!!

sudo modprobe -r b43
sudo modprobe b43

ChasHenry

Member

Registered: 2019-03-13

Posts: 44

Re: Establishing a wireless connection.

No sweat!

Started from scratch and executed the commands as advised but the wireless function is still not showing/working.

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,300

Re: Establishing a wireless connection.

OK - lets see what we get about your machine. Please could you run inxi -F and then copy/paste the results?

Probably worth reinstalling firmware-atheros and firmware-linux-free in case that needs prodding.

rfkill may be able to tell us if there's been a firmware switch off for wifi - used to get this with HP machines.

Is there a key combination fn + x for wifi?

sudo rfkill list all should tell you what is disabled - if anything.

ChasHenry

Member

Registered: 2019-03-13

Posts: 44

Re: Establishing a wireless connection.

OK - lets see what we get about your machine. Please could you run inxi -F and then copy/paste the results?

System:
  Host: q4os-desktop Kernel: 4.19.0-9-686-pae i686 bits: 32
  Desktop: Trinity R14.0.6 Distro: Q4OS 3.11.2-n1
Machine:
  Type: Other-vm? System: Acer product: Aspire 3000 v: N/A
  serial: <root required>
  Mobo: Acer model: Lugano M serial: <root required> BIOS: Acer v: 3A27
  date: 08/24/05
CPU:
  Topology: Single Core model: Mobile AMD Sempron 3000+ bits: 32 type: UP
  L2 cache: 128 KiB
  Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 800/1800 MHz Core speed (MHz): 1: 800
Graphics:
  Device-1: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661/741/760 PCI/AGP or
  662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter
  driver: N/A
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: vesa unloaded: fbdev,modesetting
  resolution: 1024x768~N/A
  OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.6
Audio:
  Device-1: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS7012 AC97 Sound
  driver: snd_intel8x0
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.0-9-686-pae
Network:
  Device-1: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet
  driver: sis900
  IF: enp0s4 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: 00:16:36:02:84:90
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 55.89 GiB used: 3.71 GiB (6.6%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Hitachi model: HTS541060G9AT00 size: 55.89 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 54.33 GiB used: 3.71 GiB (6.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
  ID-2: swap-1 size: 445.0 MiB used: 3.8 MiB (0.8%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 48.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 116 Uptime: 2m Memory: 366.8 MiB used: 164.3 MiB (44.8%)
  Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.32

Probably worth reinstalling firmware-atheros and firmware-linux-free in case that needs prodding.

An option worthwhile to explore further (kindly request assistance in obtaining such firmware).

rfkill may be able to tell us if there's been a firmware switch off for wifi - used to get this with HP machines.
Is there a key combination fn + x for wifi?

No, there isn't.

sudo rfkill list all should tell you what is disabled - if anything.

adminq@q4os-desktop:~$ sudo rfkill
[sudo] password for adminq:
adminq@q4os-desktop:~$

Please note, no detection sighted after entering the password.

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,300

Re: Establishing a wireless connection.

The fact that there is no wireless card shown in inxi says to me that it is disabled - or possibly broken.

According to the manual for your machine there is a wifi button on the front edge of the machine next to the speaker/mic jack ports.

If you press that and then run inxi -N what does it show.

ChasHenry

Member

Registered: 2019-03-13

Posts: 44

Re: Establishing a wireless connection.

The fact that there is no wireless card shown in inxi says to me that it is disabled - or possibly broken.

According to the manual for your machine there is a wifi button on the front edge of the machine next to the speaker/mic jack ports.

If you press that and then run inxi -N what does it show.

adminq@q4os-desktop:~$ inxi -N
Network:
  Device-1: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet
  driver: sis900

Please note, pressing or not-pressing the wifi button - the output is the same.

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,300

Re: Establishing a wireless connection.

Well, we seem to be in a nothing to lose situation here.

I think the wifi is either broken or switched off in firmware which was an issue with HP laptops back in the day. It was something to do with the combined Bluetooth/Wifi device.

The rfkill command is

sudo rfkill list all

Does that give anything?

The cure that worked on HPs was to go into the BIOS and do a Reset to Default and save it - that would be your choice if you want to take that route but in all the time I've been doing that it has not caused any problems. However I do not know if yours uses UEFI and that's a different story and would be worth investigating more fully before doing it.

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,989

Re: Establishing a wireless connection.

Just to add to the excellent advice from @bin I have found most UEFI enabled machines (laptops at least) have an option (UEFI settings / BIOS) for disabling WiFi and on rare occasions disables USB devices at the same time, a good reason to double check.

Last edited by Dai_trying (2020-06-30 16:08)

ChasHenry

Member

Registered: 2019-03-13

Posts: 44

Re: Establishing a wireless connection.

Well, we seem to be in a nothing to lose situation here.

I think the wifi is either broken or switched off in firmware which was an issue with HP laptops back in the day. It was something to do with the combined Bluetooth/Wifi device.

The rfkill command is

sudo rfkill list all

Does that give anything?

The cure that worked on HPs was to go into the BIOS and do a Reset to Default and save it - that would be your choice if you want to take that route but in all the time I've been doing that it has not caused any problems. However I do not know if yours uses UEFI and that's a different story and would be worth investigating more fully before doing it.

Unfortunately the rfkill command does not produce any output.

I rebooted, pressed F2 accessing the PhoenixBIOS Setup Utility. Under the Exit tab I selected 'Load Setup Defaults' pressed Enter to execute command i.e. 'Load previous values from CMOS for all SETUP items' and then pressed F10 to Save configuration changes and Exit the setup utility.

This did not fix the issue.

I went through the entire procedure as advised previously... again no luck.

Please note, the PhoenixBIOS Setup Utility has five (5) tabs viz: Info.; Main, Security, Boot and Exit. After carefully examining the entries under each tab I am confident that this Utility does not have an UEFI setting.

I agree with your assessment that the wifi part of this (ancient) laptop is broken. Well, it is what it is, at least the wired Ethernet connection is working.

ChasHenry

Member

Registered: 2019-03-13

Posts: 44

Re: Establishing a wireless connection.

Just to add to the excellent advice from @bin I have found most UEFI enabled machines (laptops at least) have an option (UEFI settings / BIOS) for disabling WiFi and on rare occasions disables USB devices at the same time, a good reason to double check.

Thanks for chipping in.

Please note, the PhoenixBIOS Setup Utility has five (5) tabs viz: Info.; Main, Security, Boot and Exit. After carefully examining the entries under each tab I am confident that this Utility does not have an UEFI setting.

DavidB

Member

From: Saskatchewan, Canada

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 180

Website

Re: Establishing a wireless connection.

I suppose, if the internal WiFi device is non-functional, you could always try a USB WiFi dongle.  I have a Cisco Linksys WUSB54GC which I've used in a pinch that worked just fine with Q4OS.

---

Current setup:  Acer Aspire One D257 / Q4OS Centaurus / TDE / SeaMonkey 2.53.8.1

ChasHenry

Member

Registered: 2019-03-13

Posts: 44

Re: Establishing a wireless connection.

I suppose, if the internal WiFi device is non-functional, you could always try a USB WiFi dongle.  I have a Cisco Linksys WUSB54GC which I've used in a pinch that worked just fine with Q4OS.

This would most probably be an agreeable solution, thanks.