Minimal CD doesn't recognize my external wireless interface.

roboto

Craptop: Dell Laditude D531

Problem: When I boot the gentoo minimal installation CDm, it recognizes my obscure GPU, but not the TP-LINK USB wireless whatever.

Is there a way I can use an outdated kernel e.g. 3.14.53, for the CD to recognize this device whose vendor is almost bankrupt? Puppy Linux seems to be the only distribution that recognizes and uses it as the default wireless interface.

My other interfaces: Broadcom ethernet and wireless controller. They need a firmware update but I'm too lazy to get it done. I refuse to use Broadcom because I believe they're a violation to humanity.

Driver the USB interface requires: r8188eu
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Answers please.

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John R. Graham · Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2017 5:30 pm Post subject:

There's no need for an outdated kernel as r8188eu support is still in there in the latest. It's worth trying SystemRescueCd instead of the minimal install cd. It works just fine to install Gentoo and has superior wireless support.

- John
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roboto · Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 4:43 pm Post subject:

Back from a busy life. I booted up SystemRescueCD, but it failed to recognize the external interface. The only interface it could detect was the ethernet. I tried net-setup--no.

lsmod |grep r8188eu # No output

modprobe r8188eu # Failed

It seems that SystemRescueCD failed me.

Any other Gentoo-related suggestions for this obscure laptop designed for Windows XP?
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Answers please.

The true hater of man expects nothing from him and is indiscriminate to his works.
-Ayn Rand

The Doctor · Moderator Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 2678

Basically any linux that works will be suitable to install Gentoo. The only non-standard tool you need is chroot and plenty of live CDs include it. I believe knoppix is a popular choice. Puppy might work.

If you can accept the pain you can also do a sneakernet install.
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Apologies if I take a while to respond. I'm currently working on the dematerialization circuit for my blue box.

Tony0945 · Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2017 2:10 am Post subject:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2017 9:04 am Post subject:

roboto,

I seem to remember that knoppix is 32 bit only, do check before you go that route, since a 64 bit kernel is needed to support a 64 bit install.

Can you borrow a USB WiFi dongle for the duration of the install?
Sneakernet is not that painful. It will be easier that taking System Rescue CD apart to add the r8188eu module and firmware.
That's possible too but requires another linux install to rebuild the kernel.

You will need to sneakernet the stage3 tarball and portage snapshot in the first pass.
Using that, it will tell what is required for the kernel, boot loader and wpa-supplicant. That's the minimum get you going Gentoo.
The firmware for r8188eu is provided by the linux-firmware package, so that's four packages and their dependencies to sneakernet in the second pass.

Once your wifi is working, go back through the handbook and add a crond, logger and so on.
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Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
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