I have already downgraded.
I compiled the 64bit driver for the 64bit version of VL 5.9.
The computer is
Dell Inspiron I1521
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor TK-55 1.80GHz
The Wireless Card is Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN Mini-card.
or Broadcom 440x10/100 Integrated Controller.
So says Device Manager in windows ( stuck fragmenting at the moment )
But when I ran
lspci
from VL terminal it returned
Broadcam Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)
I looked up and secured the correct module, I believe, as well as properly set things up by inserting an alias into modprobe.conf, as well as set it to auto start.
iwlist scan? wlist scan?
as well as wifi radar ( once set up ) are detecting networks in range.
ifconfig
and
iwconfig
are returning that the interface is up and running.
The access point is there, I've had a connection that registered signal strength at one point, but I've seemed to have lost what ever setting was even getting me that far.
I've done a little messing around trying to assign a static IP address but I haven't had any luck.
Connecting through Wifi Radar yields me a Cannot obtain IP address.
Running
init 2
then going to root and running
vasm
Seems to allow me to set some settings for my wireless adapter but none seem to stick that well and while it tells me I connect, I'm still getting no IP address.
I've done some fiddling with rc.d/inet.rc??? ( most likely mispelled ) to try to set up the interface to use DHCP, but it seems to want to not work or revert back to only supporting eth0 which is for landline ethernet connections.
My reasoning for downgrading is because I intend to use the Eclipse Java IDE and I'm hoping that with this version of Vector Linux, with how heavy Eclipse can be, that I'll have better performance than I would on the other version of VL while I can also install and use the 64bit version of the JDK as well.
A lot of stuff I've read online seems to have people going down a route where they run
dhclient eth1
or
netconfig
but I don't seem to have those commands whether I'm logged into root or just me.
I think I'm really close, but at the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if I have no clue what I'm doing

Side note ( if this is the direction I go, I basically get left behind as the rest of the community moves on, I should be able to find most support by following threads or posting questions where the topic is of slackware??)