VectorLinux Core-Alpha-3.5 is up for testing

[newt]

nightflier (perhaps Paul too),

I just recently experimented with a different distro on my laptop and had a VERY similar situation as your wireless issues. I also have a broadcom bcm4306 wireless chipset (linksys pcmcia card). As it turned out, even though the b43 driver was included and loaded with the new distro, the actual lower-level device drivers that are utilized by b43 were not. The simple solution was to simply copy them over from a VL6Std installation on the same system - then unload and reload b43.

cp -dr /mnt/vl6std/lib/firmware/b43* /lib/firmware/
cp /mnt/vl6std/lib/firmware/bcm* /lib/firmware/
rmmod b43
modprobe b43

Good news: My wireless was actually working.
Bad news: I got terrible speeds in the new distro (kernel 2.6.35.x). As a comparison, using vl6std I normally get 150kb/sec wirelessly and the new distro only acheives ~1-9kb/sec (painfully slow).

I then used a slackbuild to build new lower-level drivers for the kernel, removed the vl6std drivers, installed the newly compiled drivers, reloaded b43. Even though my wireless continues to work and the speeds have been improved, they are still in the "unacceptable" range (~16-30kb/sec).

[nightflier]

@newt: good tip.

There were no b43* nor bcm* files or directories in /var/lib. I only found BCM-LEGAL.txt, BCM2033-MD.hex and BCM2033-FW.bin. Copying the files from my VL6 install did bring the card to life. 

I don't have a good signal to test with here at the hotel, will see when I get back home.

[stretchedthin]

toothandnail and nightflier would you run iwconfig in a terminal see if you guys are getting any kind of wireless interface or not. Trying to determine if this is a kernel problem or a tools problem i.e wicd.

Wicd sees no wireless networks. I quit wicd-client and killed wicd, then:

Code:

root:# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"linksys" 
          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:off

Code:

root:# ifconfig wlan0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory

Code:

root:# dhcpcd wlan0
err, wlan0: ioctl SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory

Code:

root:# lsmod | grep b43
b43                   162019  0
mac80211              170573  1 b43
cfg80211              123341  2 b43,mac80211
ssb                    41186  1 b43
mmc_core               49129  2 b43,ssb
pcmcia                 32408  2 b43,ssb
led_class               1883  1 b43

I have a Zydas zd1211 device (zd1211rw).  I can't get wireless internet as well, and this device has never failed me on any distro.
iwconfig show...
lo      no wirless extensions.
eth0  no wireless extensions
wlan0 IEEE.802.11bg ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Managed Access Poijnt:  Not-Associated Tx-Power=0 dBm
          Retry long limit:7  RTS thr:off    Fragment thr:off
          Encryption Key:off
          Power Management:off

 ifconfig wlan0 up
gets the same as quoted above.

dhcpcd wlan0
gets the same as quoted above.

lsmod | grep 1211
results in...
zd1211rw                                40442   0
mac80211                               170573 1 zd1211rw
cfg80211                                 123341 2 zd1211rw,mac80211

[vector]

I have a Zydas zd1211 device (zd1211rw).  I can't get wireless internet as well, and this device has never failed me on any distro.

This is a firmware package problem. I was under the impression that all the firmware needed for the kernel driver modules was in the kernel source tree now. I did some research after the wireless problems occured and that is not true.............. Next release will have an updated firmware package that has all the missing blobs. Thanks for testing this alpha would not have known otherwise...............

Cheers,
Vec

ps try installing this package see if wireless goes now:
http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-6.0/packages/drivers/firmware-1.1-noarch-2vl60.tlz

[stretchedthin]

Nice, installed firmware and was up and running without even a reboot. Good signal as well. Thanks.

[toothandnail]

I have a Zydas zd1211 device (zd1211rw).  I can't get wireless internet as well, and this device has never failed me on any distro.

This is a firmware package problem. I was under the impression that all the firmware needed for the kernel driver modules was in the kernel source tree now. I did some research after the wireless problems occured and that is not true.............. Next release will have an updated firmware package that has all the missing blobs. Thanks for testing this alpha would not have known otherwise...............

Cheers,
Vec

ps try installing this package see if wireless goes now:
http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-6.0/packages/drivers/firmware-1.1-noarch-2vl60.tlz

Still no help here - no wireless networks found.

Paul.

[nightflier]

Back home, testing b43 wireless. Works well, but a little slower than under VL6.
Using scp, I see transfer speeds of about 2.1 MB/s in VL7, vs. 2.5 in VL6.

[nightflier]

When enabling firewall (vasm > service > srvset ..), it cuts off wireless network connectivity.
Wired network works with firewall enabled.

[GrannyGeek]

I was able to do more testing today. I installed SoftMaker Office (third party), which went fine. I played some music with Exaile. After it played for several minutes, Exaile just disappeared and playing stopped. I got a message that said it was busy and did I want to terminate. I clicked on Yes and it was gone. I haven't tried again. I was using Firefox and Midnight Commander at the time this happened. I then continued playing the music with MPlayer and it didn't terminate, but there was a lot of delaying and short interruptions. I then switched to Gnome MPlayer, and it was much better, played smoothly without interruptions. However, TextMaker (from SoftMaker Office) really slowed down while I was playing music. I had TextMaker open to a new document with nothing in it and had a very small database running at the same time (plus Gnome Player, Firefox, and Midnight Commander).

VL7 a3.5.1 feels more sluggish to me than VL6 SOHO Deluxe running XFce. The one time I ran KDE4 for a few minutes on this computer, it was so slow as to be virtually unusable. XFce runs great, however. I don't know if VL7 is in need of tweaking or it's just that this old Celeron 1.3 GHz desktop is finally being outclassed by software.

I don't have wireless on this computer, so I can't report on that. My wired network is fine and set up easily, as usual. Yesterday I installed two printers with no problems.
--GrannyGeek

[GrannyGeek]

I'm writing this from Firefox on VL7 a3.5.1. Things are going well.

I downloaded the source for the just-released Scribus 1.3.9 and compiled and installed it for a3.5.1. Very easy--I did cmake, make, make install and put the whole thing in my home directory as I didn't want to wipe out or affect Scribus 1.3.8 that comes with VL7. I had no missing dependencies to fetch before compiling. I copied my home directory for Scribus 1.3.9 to my other desktop computer that uses VL6 SOHO Deluxe and it's running okay so far. I was missing about three needed libraries, but I just copied them from /usr/lib over to that computer and it's no longer complaining.

I copied tuxcards from another partition and as usual, it was missing a library or two. I simply copied them over and it's running fine now.

I'm now working on an important Christmas project (our greeting card) in a3.5.1 and both Gimp and Scribus are doing very well. I'm not finding the slowness I experienced the other day. (My test computer is the 1.3 GHz Celeron desktop, which of course is no speed demon.)

I can't think of anything else at the moment.
--GrannyGeek

[toothandnail]

Latest brings up the wireless LED, but I've still no network - Wicd won't run.

When I log in, I get a prompt that Wicd requires root access. Enter the root password and I get an error:

Code:

Could not connect to wicd's D-Bus interface.  Check the wicd log for
error messages.

Checking the Wicd log, I can't see the cause. Maybe someone else can spot the cause:

Code:

2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: ---------------------------
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: wicd initializing...
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: ---------------------------
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: wicd is version 1.7.1b2 565
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: setting backend to external
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: trying to load backend external
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: successfully loaded backend external
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: trying to load backend external
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: successfully loaded backend external
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: Automatically detected wireless interface wlan0
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: setting wireless interface wlan0
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: automatically detected wired interface eth0
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: setting wired interface eth0
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: setting wpa driver wext
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: setting use global dns to False
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: setting global dns
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: global dns servers are None None None
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: domain is None
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: search domain is None
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: setting automatically reconnect when connection drops True
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: Setting dhcp client to 2
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: Wireless configuration file found...
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: Wired configuration file found...
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: chmoding configuration files 0600...
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: chowning configuration files root:root...
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: Using wireless interface...wlan0
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: Using wired interface...eth0
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: Traceback (most recent call last):
2010/12/03 10:12:18 ::   File "/usr/share/wicd/daemon/wicd-daemon.py", line 1843, in <module>
2010/12/03 10:12:18 ::     main(sys.argv)
2010/12/03 10:12:18 ::   File "/usr/share/wicd/daemon/wicd-daemon.py", line 1811, in main
2010/12/03 10:12:18 ::     shell=False, close_fds=True).pid
2010/12/03 10:12:18 ::   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 623, in __init__
2010/12/03 10:12:18 ::     errread, errwrite)
2010/12/03 10:12:18 ::   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 1141, in _execute_child
2010/12/03 10:12:18 ::     raise child_exception
2010/12/03 10:12:18 :: AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'rfind'

Getting closer...

On another matter, keyboard selection is broken, again. I've now ended up with the US layout instead of the UK layout in X.

Paul.

[stretchedthin]

If I leave the screensaver on random, the computer will be locked up by morning.  Not sure which screensaver is causing the problem or if it is OpenGL related. Maybe someone else has noticed this?
When we get to the release candidate stage maybe the random feature can be turned off, so a new user does not experience the problem and imagine the worst.

[GrannyGeek]

When I test a release, I like to add all the programs I need for day-to-day use. Scribus 1.3.9, which I compiled yesterday, is working well. I've been using Gimp a lot, too, and it seems solid and is surprisingly quick on this old 1.3 GHz Celeron. Today I added the latest Wine from the VL6 repo. All is fine. I also added Inkscape from the VL6 repo. LOTS of missing libraries, but I copied them from my VL6 SOHO Deluxe partition on the same computer. I didn't overwrite any existing libraries, but I did make symlinks to files already in the VL7 /usr/lib. I get a lot of error messages when starting Inkscape, but the program loads and looks like it will work--I haven't had time to test it yet beyond making sure it starts.

I added Adobe Reader 9.4; no problems.

Did I mention that both my scanners are working?
--GrannyGeek

[Andy Price]

Is there an md5 for Alpha 3.51? I've got lots of problems with the install and want to be sure I've got a good download and burn before reporting them.
Cheers
Andy

[toothandnail]

Is there an md5 for Alpha 3.51? I've got lots of problems with the install and want to be sure I've got a good download and burn before reporting them.
Cheers
Andy

Generated from my copy (install worked ok for me...):

5b65f688a07ff005b2b1a210c7820ebc  VL7.0-CORE-ALPHA-3.5.1.iso

I had problems with wireless, plus the install had a few other oddities, but it did work, so I guess the md5sum should be correct.

Paul.