Author Topic: Arca OS and WiFi  (Read 9816 times)

RickCHodgin

  • Guest
Arca OS and WiFi
« on: May 30, 2017, 03:26:58 am »
Are there any drivers that work with various WiFi hardware variations?  I have tried on two Toshiba Notebooks (one from 2007, the other from 2015), and neither of them recognize the WiFi.

Thank you,
Rick C. Hodgin

Pete

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1281
  • Karma: +9/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Arca OS and WiFi
« Reply #1 on: May 30, 2017, 04:16:32 am »
Hi Rick

Wireless nic drivers are usually found in the genmac packages - if the drivers exist.

So, the big question is: What hardware is involved?
Run this command
 [BootDrive]:\sys\install\rsp\pci.exe /s > pci_s.txt

Open the pci_s.txt file and read through to spot the wireless nic and obtain the Vendor:Device IDs.
Then it is time to play "hunt the driver package"  :-)


You may also want to have a read through my response to Eric in http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,1396.msg13365.html#msg13365 and use it as a "how to".


Regards

Pete



Doug Bissett

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1593
  • Karma: +4/-2
    • View Profile
Re: Arca OS and WiFi
« Reply #2 on: May 30, 2017, 04:15:10 pm »
Are there any drivers that work with various WiFi hardware variations?  I have tried on two Toshiba Notebooks (one from 2007, the other from 2015), and neither of them recognize the WiFi.

Check out ftp://ftp.os2voice.org/ (use the word "unsupported", with no quotes, as a password, if it asks).

RickCHodgin

  • Guest
Re: Arca OS and WiFi
« Reply #3 on: May 31, 2017, 12:30:25 am »
Hi Rick

Wireless nic drivers are usually found in the genmac packages - if the drivers exist.

So, the big question is: What hardware is involved?
Run this command
 [BootDrive]:\sys\install\rsp\pci.exe /s > pci_s.txt

Open the pci_s.txt file and read through to spot the wireless nic and obtain the Vendor:Device IDs.
Then it is time to play "hunt the driver package"  :-)


You may also want to have a read through my response to Eric in http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,1396.msg13365.html#msg13365 and use it as a "how to".

I am wondering:

Does Arca OS (and OS/2 4.52 in general) ship with every driver that was available at the time of the release?

And do some drivers fail to load simply because the PCI inquiry returns values that are not an exact match for hardware, even though some family drivers might work?

Thank you,
Rick C. Hodgin

Dave Yeo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4786
  • Karma: +99/-1
    • View Profile
Re: Arca OS and WiFi
« Reply #4 on: May 31, 2017, 04:49:44 am »
I am wondering:

Does Arca OS (and OS/2 4.52 in general) ship with every driver that was available at the time of the release?

And do some drivers fail to load simply because the PCI inquiry returns values that are not an exact match for hardware, even though some family drivers might work?

Thank you,
Rick C. Hodgin

There are some network drivers floating around that aren't included, some on Hobbes, some where Doug pointed to and others I'm sure.
Not sure about the PCI inquiry thing but wouldn't be surprised

RickCHodgin

  • Guest
Re: Arca OS and WiFi
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2017, 05:00:18 am »
Not sure about the PCI inquiry thing but wouldn't be surprised

When you read back data from the PCI bus, it returns a type of family and model.  Sometimes the models vary by number, but their internal functionality is the same as another.  I wrote an app similar to the pci.exe utility above, which polls everything in the system to return all types of system devices.  I tried to look for it in my OS source code tonight, but it's not there.  I'll have to go back to my old hard drive and see if I can find the source.

I have a book here by Tom Shanley / Don Anderson called PCI System Architecture from August 1999.  It was one of the books I used in developing my kernel.  It has up through PCI 2.2, and has tons of information in it about the PCI bus.  I also have an AGP book, but nothing newer than that, as I stopped development on my kernel in 2002.

-----
I'm wondering if we couldn't scan the Linux driver source code and pick up on some of their mappings and incorporate those.  I had actually planned to do that back in 2012 when I wanted to work on GNU's HURD kernel.  I knew I couldn't write all of the drivers, so I was going to write tools which scanned Linux source code and derived the ports in use, memory ranges, commands, and timings, so drivers could be constructed and tested fairly quickly through a type of "Driver Wizard" I'd create.

I'm thinking something similar might work for OS/2 ... at the very least to find those family / model combinations which do actually work, and then include the driver automatically with a warning at startup that a fallback driver is being used.

Thank you,
Rick C. Hodgin
« Last Edit: May 31, 2017, 05:07:42 am by Rick C. Hodgin »

Doug Bissett

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1593
  • Karma: +4/-2
    • View Profile
Re: Arca OS and WiFi
« Reply #6 on: May 31, 2017, 03:52:58 pm »
Don't do much work on WiFi, until the Arca Noae drivers are released. Apparently the drivers are done (using the BSD source), and the only missing part now, is an interface to manage the radio.

RickCHodgin

  • Guest
Re: Arca OS and WiFi
« Reply #7 on: May 31, 2017, 05:43:09 pm »
Don't do much work on WiFi, until the Arca Noae drivers are released. Apparently the drivers are done (using the BSD source), and the only missing part now, is an interface to manage the radio.

Acknowledged. :)

Thank you,
Rick C. Hodgin

roberto

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 810
  • Karma: +3/-6
    • View Profile
Re: Arca OS and WiFi
« Reply #8 on: May 31, 2017, 08:25:15 pm »
For many years the radio and the wifi is solved. Just look at your system for xwlan *.
In this web you can see how they were installed and some drivers not supported.
http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Testing_an_UnSupported_Network_Driver_with_GenMAC
The problem is now with the new ones.
I have a wifi card N6200, according to pci.exe If you can do something about it, I would try it. Or if you tell me that your invention works and you explain it, I'd try it.
Saludos
« Last Edit: May 31, 2017, 08:27:27 pm by roberto »

guzzi

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 331
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Arca OS and WiFi
« Reply #9 on: May 31, 2017, 08:28:38 pm »

Neil Waldhauer

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1024
  • Karma: +24/-0
    • View Profile
    • Blonde Guy
Re: Arca OS and WiFi
« Reply #10 on: May 31, 2017, 09:00:35 pm »
Ironically, that presentation used my eCS laptop running an Intel 5100 WiFi.
Expert consulting for ArcaOS, OS/2 and eComStation
http://www.blondeguy.com