SilverSurfer60 Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 Well I got 2009 installed fine with the method I wrote in 'Tips and Tricks', however, the poor old machine was so slow I could launch an application and make a cup tea whilst it was ready. A slight exaggeration there, but it was still slow. The wireless card refused to work no matter what I did. Yes I googled and trawled through the Mandriva forums where a number of postees where having difficulty with cards that had worked previously as had mine. In the end I gave up, something I don't do easily, and am now in the process of putting back in 2007. That's the last version that was on cd's apart from the One version. It was suggested to try the One version of 2009. I tried that and that was even slower at starting than installing the full version, the wireless card didn't work in the end. I'll give it a while and maybe try again when a proper solution comes out. What I am disappointed mostly is that If I had been a newcomer and came up with a distro that behaved as 2009, I would have said goodbye to Mandriva. :sad: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 I'll have to try it on my old Toshiba laptop (Celeron 2.2GHz, 1GB RAM, 20GB HDD) and see how it fares out. On my current laptop, it's faster than any other distro I've had installed on it so far (except Gentoo of course). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamw Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 How much RAM does your old system have, and what desktop were you using? There've been Free CDs for every release to date, including 2007 Spring, 2008, 2008 Spring and 2009. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverSurfer60 Posted October 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 The laptop specs are:- Toshiba satellite S1800 CPU Celeron (Coppermine) 801.831 MHz Ram 256 MB <--------------------------------That's all I could afford at the time & it's been sufficient. Videocard CyberBlade/DSTN/Ai1 The wireless card is a sitecom WN-PCC-01 (This has worked with the auto selected driver with each distribution) Don't get me wrong I didn't expect it to fly, but it was painfully slow even, with numerous services disabled, and I was using kde4. (Ouch) What I meant about Mandriva on disk was the distribution was issued on a 3/4 disc set. That is not a complaint just that was the only way I could install on this machine without copying the DVD contents and using the method I described in 'Tips and Tricks'. The laptop does have what is supposed to be a DVD reader as standard, but I have never had it read anything other than commercially produced video discs. Possibly because I have used the wrong format i.e. DVD+R instead of the more expensive DVD-R. The only thing that I was perturbed about was the wireless card not working, which was fine with previous releases. If you wish I can go into details. Sorry Adamw, I didn't mean to rustle feathers. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted October 17, 2008 Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 I guess KDE4 must be requiring a lot more ram then than previously. Maybe try something a little lighter, perhaps icewm or xfce. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverSurfer60 Posted October 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 I guess KDE4 must be requiring a lot more ram then than previously. Maybe try something a little lighter, perhaps icewm or xfce. Yes I would certainly do that if I could get the network up and running. But that will not perform even without a graphical desktop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted October 17, 2008 Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 Try downloading Mandriva Free 2009.0 if you don't already have it. Then when you're installing packages, just don't installed KDE and then install icewm or xfce in it's place. Then you'd have the gui you'd need to see if you can get your network working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Edwards Posted October 17, 2008 Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 Wot he said - xfce4 is a lovely desktop environment and it's lean enough to work well on the most modest of hardware. In fact, I think I'll install it and use it for a while to see how I get on with it for everyday tasks. I've upgraded my laptop to 2009.0 and I'm happier with it now than I was to start with - just a case of getting used to the KDE4 way of doing things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Edwards Posted October 17, 2008 Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 I think I'll install it Yikes! Package manager is now furiously downloading and installing no less than 137 RPMs for me. Thank $DEITY for fast Internet connections. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverSurfer60 Posted October 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 Update: I have now installed 2009.0 as a dual boot, this time I have installed gnome, that'll please you Ian. Anyway it does run quite a bit faster and I don't have time to put the kettle on now. :P However the problem with the wifi still remains. When using drakconnect or drakconf method, they complete with 'Congratulations your Connection is complete. Someone is lying to me. I can't cut and paste my syslog but I get a line something like:- kernel : wifi0: invalid skb->magic (0x00000168, expected 0xf0836a2) dhclient: NO DHCPOFFERS received. Looks like a kernel problem to me, I have never come across this wifi0 before. It is even listed when I issue ifconfg in a konsole and tells me it:- Link encap: UNSPEC HWaddr 00-60-B3-68-E5-0F-A0-BF-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00 and then the usual lines below. wlan0 output is all ok, receiving packets and sending them no problem. If I issue the iwconfig command I find that both wifi0 and wlan0 are associated with my access point :unsure: Any ideas are welcome. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted October 17, 2008 Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 What wireless card do you have? Can you post the lspci output or lsusb if it's USB attached. Glad to hear Gnome is working well :) I used to be a KDE fan until I forced myself to use Gnome and get used to it. Now I like it, and can't see myself returning to KDE yet. Although maybe I'll try it again one day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverSurfer60 Posted October 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 The card is a Sitecom WN-PCC-01 IEEE.802.11b It is not listed with lspci, so I booted into 2008 and it wasn't listed there either. What I did notice that with iwconfig & ifconfig it is shown as eth0 not wlan0 Yes I am getting a feel for gnome on this laptop it leaves a nice big workspace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted October 17, 2008 Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 Do you have a normal cable ethernet card in your machine as well? Or just the wireless? I find it strange it's not listed with lspci, unless it's a usb attached one or something else. Either that, or it's not even being recognised by anything in the system since lspci isn't picking it up. Unless I'm wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverSurfer60 Posted October 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 (edited) Definitely nothing else connected and the machine does not have any other network ports. As I say it does not come up when in mandriva 2008 either. Yet it is listed when I go into drakhardware in 2008 and 2009 so it must be detected. It is also set up in ifconfig & iwconfig, there is a script for it in /etc/sysconfgi/network-scripts (ifcfg-wlan0). The card has always worked very well in all the releases so far up until 2009. According to iwconfig wlan0 the card is associated with the ap. The only clue to work with is the lines in syslog which I typed in. I have also tried another card which works in 2008.0, but that will not connect in 2009. Edited October 17, 2008 by SilverSurfer60 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverSurfer60 Posted October 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2008 Got it working. I deleted the entry in the access point (BT Home Hub) and connected using a static ip address. It's obviously something to do with DHCP. Any way many thanks for your perseverance and attempted help. If you do know the reason I would be glad to hear it. Thanks Again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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