New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

HAL_2000 · 2020-05-31 00:11

Hello Experienced Linux users,

Fairly new to Linux, and trying to revive some older hardware for donations. Up until now, I've been reviving older and RAM-restricted computers by installing Ubuntu-based Lubuntu, Linux Lite and LXLE. In those distros, wireless drivers, sound, video and webcam drivers are automatically identified and loaded in the first install process.

What sets Debian-Q4OS apart is how fast and light it is (I am using a machine with less than one gig of RAM to write this post) and how excellently and easily it can be made to look like Windows (e.g. XPQ4, or FreeXP). The trade-off, especially for one not terribly familiar with Terminal command strings and "compiling" Debian drivers, is the difficulty in locating and installing device drivers.

I have done some searching for my own part, but some clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Four Ways to Install DEB Files - WikiHow
https://www.wikihow.com/Install-DEB-Files

The specifics of the hardware and software connected with this question as are follows:

Software / OS = Q4OS->XPQ4 - 32 bit.

Hardware = Sony Vaio PCG-FRV26 = 2.8 GHz P4 CPU, 893Mi RAM.
https://www.sony.com/electronics/suppor … /pcg-frv26
https://www.amazon.com/Sony-PCG-FRV26-L … B0000APSKB

[I have tried upgrading the memory to at least 1024Mi to 2GB, but no joy. Machine will not recognize RAM above 893Mi.]

Hardware needing drivers = PCMCIA Wireless G card, Linksys WPC54G-2..
https://www.linksys.com/us/support-arti … Num=148592
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/vUIAAOSw … -l1600.jpg

I *do* understand that Debian device drivers are often found in repositories and downloaded in the form of .deb files.

It's "compiling" of drivers that has me mystified.

ASSISTANCE REQUESTED:

Plain English explanation on how to "compile" a Debian driver.

In the alternative, how to use Synaptic or Package Installers to achieve the same objective.

Thanks!

ADDENDUM: looking for a lightweight and easily-installed File Manager like Linux Dolphin, or one that behaves similar to Windows XP File Manager, but for Debian in 32-bit, but with a very small footprint.

Last edited by HAL_2000 (2020-05-31 00:50)

bin · 2020-05-31 06:42

The Linksys card *should* be a Broadcom b43 in which case you can install the drivers direct via synaptic
You'll need b43-fwcutter and firmware-b43-installer and possibly firmware-b43legacy-installer followed by a reboot.

You may need to fiddle with /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf as the b43 is normally blacklisted in there but try it first. I have found that sometimes you need to manually run sudo modprobe -r b43 then sudo modprobe b43 in order to get it all to light up. I that case it is probably blacklist.conf that needs a tweak but see what happens.

Obviously I'm guessing that the ethernet port is OK on this machine. Please be aware that some of the extra hardware/multimedia buttons (if any) may not work as expected - I have a Vaio VGN-AR31S.

Look in synaptic for dolphin-trinity if you're using TDE - no idea if it's there for 32bit - but you've got Konqueror anyway. If you have Konqueror on screen have you tried pressing the f9 key??

HAL_2000 · 2020-06-01 02:50

Bin,

Thank you so much for your post.

I see that there is a LOT of good information there, but as a new-to-Linux type, *implementing* all that sort of thing is still a mystery. Indeed, I was chatting with a software type tonight, telling him that if they can make *one* distro of Linux (probably called PLAYSKOOL LINUX for super simple), market share of Linux would leap from 1.89% to at least 30%.

I am looking at the information you've provided and see how the Linksys branded PCMCIA is likely Broadcom hardware and takes that sort of driver. That part is easily understood, as I've installed many Broadcom drivers on Windows-based machines, for the most part, laptops.

In anticipation of loading additional software and drivers on the initial install, I have placed icons for the Synaptic installer on the desktop.
I would imagine that the mechanics of performing the operations you have suggested involve opening the Synaptic installer, directing it to a software repository and looking for those items you've listed: b43-fwcutter, firmware-b43-installer, and (possibly) firmware-b43legacy-installer. Not having the machine with Q4OS on it in front of me, I would imagine that the Synaptic installer menu would have a search utility to enter the names of the packages into, and then a means to download it. My default download is to the /downloads directory.

So far, am I correct?

Now, fiddling with /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf similarly has me at a loss. I suppose the challenge for any experienced Linux user is understanding just how alien the Linux OS is to the average Windows user, and in particular, mastering the CLI / Terminal commands.

So, assume that I reach the machine with Q4OS loaded, get to the Synaptic installer and further assume that the Synaptic menu is intutitive and user friendly, and that I can locate and download the packages you've mentioned.

Assume, again, that fiddling with Blacklist file, came from the clicked-on and expanded downloaded files, which created the /etc/... directory and sub-directory, I would then open the Terminal and enter in the commands you have listed. After the sudo command runs, I should see the status lights of the PCMCIA card light up (so far, so good? Or please correct me if, as I suspect, I am wrong.)

Hopefully, any additional information you can provide will clear up my questions and get the PCMCIA card working.

With respect to the File Manager, I have been looking for ANY mention of a file manager, so what I have been using has been the icon marked 'find files.'

I appreciate your assistance.

bin · 2020-06-01 06:22

Software installation in linux uses packages - bundles of stuff that provide the files needed to make the software work.
In Debian and Ubuntu (which comes from Debian) these packages are package-name.deb files. Hence they are often referred to as deb(s). Managing the installation of packages, along with other packages in which they may depend (dependencies) is handled using a bit of software called apt. This is a CLI tool. Back in the early 2000's a GUI called synaptic was developed which made it much easier to search for and install software.
When you install software with synaptic it does the whole job for you. You just right click the package and mark for Installation. You do not download it and then run it like a windows .exe or .msi. After you have installed a package you can find it in /var/cache/apt/archives. If you wish you can revisit it in synaptic and reinstall with a Download only option which will just download the original(if required).

Synaptic is not installed by default on Q4OS - it can be installed from the Welcome screen/software installer.

Q4OS does have the firmware for b43 cards installed and there is every chance that it will 'just work' with your card. However I have found on occasions that re-installing (either via CLI or synaptic) can help to kickstart it.

Now, there are a huge number of if's and but's with b43 cards depending on vintage - and a PCMCIA is going to be vintage so you need to be forwarned or at least aware of this.

Linux drivers (kernel modules) can be loaded and unloaded via the modprobe tool. There are occasions where it is desirable to not load a specific module and that is handled through the blacklist system. That lives in /etc/modprobe.d
This is part of blacklist.conf and you can see from the comments some of the things it is doing.

# This file lists those modules which we don't want to be loaded by
# alias expansion, usually so some other driver will be loaded for the
# device instead.

# evbug is a debug tool that should be loaded explicitly
blacklist evbug

# these drivers are very simple, the HID drivers are usually preferred
blacklist usbmouse
blacklist usbkbd

# replaced by e100
blacklist eepro100

# replaced by tulip
blacklist de4x5

# causes no end of confusion by creating unexpected network interfaces
blacklist eth1394

# snd_intel8x0m can interfere with snd_intel8x0, doesn't seem to support much
# hardware on its own (Ubuntu bug #2011, #6810)
blacklist snd_intel8x0m

# Conflicts with dvb driver (which is better for handling this device)
blacklist snd_aw2

# Causes trackpads to stop working on Lenovo 11e 2nd gen (Ubuntu: #1802135)
# and Lenovo x240 to hang on boot (Ubuntu: #1802689)
blacklist i2c_i801

# replaced by p54pci
blacklist prism54

# replaced by b43 and ssb.
blacklist bcm43xx

There at the bottom is the b43 and it shows the old bcm43xx blacklisted in favour of the new b43 and ssb code that should be present - or will be if the b43 firmware is reinstalled. I have come across b43 cards that actually needed b44 to work!
You may not need to get involved with this at all - but you must be aware of its existence as debugging any issues often starts here.

If the card is going to 'just work' then you should see it in the TDE Network utility.
If there are no lights on the end of the card then the next step is to open Konsole and do sudo modprobe -r b43 then sudo modprobe b43.
If it still doesn't light up then you need to (re)install the b43 bits I have mentioned, reboot and see what happens - again it may still need the modprobe commands to get going.

File Manager - just open the Documents icon on the desktop - click the Up arrow, or press f9 and you'll see a variety of trees on the left. Click the Home button - it's all there. You need to play with this. Right click on the desktop - create new URL - call it File Manager, in the next line click the file browse icon at the right hand end and browse to your Home and the OK that URL. You'll then have that on the desktop if that's what you want.

It is not hard, but it is different and TDE is a bit of an edge case in its own right due to the way it was designed.

HAL_2000 · 2020-06-02 07:50

Wow, you put a lot of work into that.

I will not be able to experiment with that fix immediately, things have gotten busy on the work front, but I am looking forward to bringing that PCMCIA card to life.

Thanks for your assistance. I will put those instructions into practice and report back to the forum with my progress ASAP.

-- HAL

allen04084 · 2020-06-03 18:33

Timely. I've just installed q4OS on several older 32 bit systems. Enjoy the speed and simplicity. One of those systems is a Dell D620 laptop with integrated Broadcom 4311 wifi. I can verify that after installing Synaptic, and then all 3 " b43-fwcutter and firmware-b43-installer and possibly firmware-b43legacy-installer" as bin suggests above - all 3 show up when searching for "b43" in Synaptic - and after a reboot, a wireless connection does show up in the lower right tray. Right click on that icon, and edit your connection for security and it works. Hope that helps!

HAL_2000 · 2020-06-06 06:05

bin wrote:

The Linksys card *should* be a Broadcom b43 in which case you can install the drivers direct via synaptic
You'll need b43-fwcutter and firmware-b43-installer and possibly firmware-b43legacy-installer followed by a reboot.
You may need to fiddle with /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf as the b43 is normally blacklisted in there but try it first. I have found that sometimes you need to manually run sudo modprobe -r b43 then sudo modprobe b43 in order to get it all to light up. I that case it is probably blacklist.conf that needs a tweak but see what happens.
Obviously I'm guessing that the ethernet port is OK on this machine. Please be aware that some of the extra hardware/multimedia buttons (if any) may not work as expected - I have a Vaio VGN-AR31S.
Look in synaptic for dolphin-trinity if you're using TDE - no idea if it's there for 32bit - but you've got Konqueror anyway. If you have Konqueror on screen have you tried pressing the f9 key??

Okay, busy week and I'm finally able to start applying the hints and suggestions, including from @tolkem
https://linux.org/threads/new-user-loca … post-93514

In that forum, I applied the advice and got this:

01) EDIT: Okay, tried the code suggested above and after the Debian package was reinstalled, cut and pasted the most recent Terminal Command suggested and this was the result:

==========================
dpkg --list | grep firmware-b43-installer
ii firmware-b43-installer 1:019-4
==========================

02) I searched the [archives - Control Panel] harddrive and located the installer here:

file:///usr/share/doc/firmware-b43-installer

03) I have installed SYNAPTIC and it is on my desktop.

04) Turning back to your suggestion, I opened Terminal and plugged in:

sudo modprobe -r b43

and

sudo modprobe b43

The result in Terminal was an immediate carriage return with no further commentary or action by Terminal.

05) Searching Synaptic Package Manager I found the following:

b43-bwcutter

firmware-b43-installer

firmware-b43legacy-installer

06) Since the time I have downloaded and installed the b43 package the machine has been rebooted several times.

I have tried starting the machine with the USB WLAN dongle in place and without it being in place. Currently the machine recognizes and relies upon the USB WLAN for wireless internet.

The LinkSys PCMCIA card remains in the PCMCIA slot, and I have tried extracting and replacing it to see if Linux recognizes new attached hardware. No joy. The status lights of the PCMCIA are lit, but the machine is not recognizing it within recognized devices or networks.

07) You may need to fiddle with /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf as the b43 is normally blacklisted in there but try it first. I have found that sometimes you need to manually run sudo modprobe -r b43 then sudo modprobe b43 in order to get it all to light up. I that case it is probably blacklist.conf that needs a tweak but see what happens.

Could this be the step I am missing? If that's the case I'll need a block of instruction on remedial Linux fiddling.

I suspect I am close and that there must be one more step to actually get the drivers for this PCMCIA installed.

Certainly, it would be easier to simply just give up and rely upon the external USB WLAN dongle, but this is an educational exercise as much as anything else.

08) ADDENDUM: I thought being able to ScreenCap to illustrate problems or progress would be helpful. In Windows PRNT SC puts the screencap in buffer and pastes easily into whatever image editor you have loaded.

This has not worked for me here. I've tried SCREEN RECORDER, which is one of the baked-in applications that comes with Q4OS, but that has not worked, most likely because it seems to be geared to video files as opposed to simple image files.

I found this package gnome-screenshot_3.30.0-2_i386.deb. Download into /downloads, click on it to install?

Thanks in advance, as always.

bin · 2020-06-06 11:30

Screenshots - sudo apt install ksnapshot-trinity

PCMCIA card - boot machine with just the card - no USB dongle.

If it lights up then that's good. Click the TDE Network icon in the system tray - that's the little box of goodies bottom right.

Now, it might show the wireless connection for the card there in which case you'll click it and go through the password wizard.

Having used a different wifi connection you may need to go to the Edit Connections link and delete any wifi connection for the USB thing.

What I have found in the past is that having removed any othe connections, clicking Deactivate Connection> Disable Wireless - followed by the same with Enable Wireless will bring it to life.

The modprobe command for b43 would only work once the firmware was properly installed - cart>horse.

Dai_trying · 2020-06-06 11:47

To capture screenshot without installing anything simply press PrtScr key and then right click the desktop and select "Paste clipboard contents" and then you should have a dialog box where you can select image format and file name.This works even before installing software with the desktop profiler although I'm not sure about when using a different DE.

bin · 2020-06-06 11:53

There is that of course...

Dh48 · 2020-06-10 16:48

I have a b43 wireless card, specifically the BCM4318 Broadcom card. I got it to work by first installing b43-fwcutter through the console, not synaptics. I hate that Synaptics thing. I just opened a terminal and typed in sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter. and hitting Enter Then I typed in sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-install and hit Enter again. I rebooted and voila! The card was recognized and ready to go. I then installed Network manager and set it to connect automatically.

Dh48 · 2020-06-10 16:55

Dh48 wrote:

I have a b43 wireless card, specifically the BCM4318 Broadcom card. I got it to work by first installing b43-fwcutter through the console, not synaptics. I hate that Synaptics thing. I just opened a terminal and typed in sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter. and hitting Enter Then I typed in sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-install and hit Enter again. I rebooted and voila! The card was recognized and ready to go. I then installed Network manager and set it to connect automatically.

It's firmware-b43-installer not just install If you don't know how to open a terminal, just click the Start button and type term in the search box. You should get 3 different terminal items. Any one of them will work.

HAL_2000 · 2020-06-12 22:32

@bin @Dh48 @allen04084 @Dai_trying

[Honorable mention to @Tolkem from Linux.org, who also rendered a great deal of assistance.]

SUCCESS!

The PCMCIA Linksys WPC54G-2 wifi aka Broadcom b43 WiFi card is NOW recognized and working.

How it worked.

Called up the SYNAPTIC installer (one of the optional programs offered in Q4OS via its baked-in, easy installer), and then

plugged the following, one at a time in the SEARCH utility:

- b43-fwcutter
- firmware-b43-installer
- firmware-b43legacy-installer

Then, MARK FOR INSTALLATION. Then APPLY.

After running through each, rebooted (pulling out the external USB WLAN dongle during the reboot).

Upon rebooting, the Network sniffer alerted the nearby presence of several networks. Select / enter password.

Bingo.

Hoh-lee CR@P that was a lot of work, but now it works, thanks to all of you.

Since I need to learn Linux I've stuck with it.

I hope to get this machine set up as much as possible so whoever gets it as a donation won't have to mess with the machine. But you folks have helped me learn to use the SYNAPTIC installer, which is actually pretty simple once you look at it. I still have no idea about how you install anything via a "console" but I will eventually learn how to use that too.

THANKS!

bin · 2020-06-13 08:19

It gets easier

Dh48 · 2020-06-13 12:14

Good job. I have fooled around more with the Synaptics app and it's not as bad as I thought. I didn't understand it before so it was easier for me to use the terminal.

upALLnight · 2021-04-03 21:04

Dai_trying wrote:

To capture screenshot without installing anything simply press PrtScr key and then right click the desktop and select "Paste clipboard contents" and then you should have a dialog box where you can select image format and file name.This works even before installing software with the desktop profiler although I'm not sure about when using a different DE.

omg THIS ^ is the simple Linux advice I've been looking for all this time. Using the screenshot utility crashes my session if I've got browser tabs and a word app open, so that is a HUGE help, thank you.

Dai_trying · 2021-04-03 21:09

You are welcome, I'm glad you found it helpful

Q4OS Forum

#1 2020-05-31 00:11

New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#2 2020-05-31 06:42

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#3 2020-06-01 02:50

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#4 2020-06-01 06:22

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#5 2020-06-02 07:50

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#6 2020-06-03 18:33

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#7 2020-06-06 06:05

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#8 2020-06-06 11:30

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#9 2020-06-06 11:47

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#10 2020-06-06 11:53

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#11 2020-06-10 16:48

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#12 2020-06-10 16:55

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#13 2020-06-12 22:32

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#14 2020-06-13 08:19

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#15 2020-06-13 12:14

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#16 2021-04-03 21:04

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

#17 2021-04-03 21:09

Re: New User - Finding and Installing Device Drivers in Q4OS

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