[gentoo-user] update catch-22 with Wifi

[gentoo-user] update catch-22 with Wifi

[Philip Webb]

I no longer have a landline available (even via friends)
& rely on Wifi for I/net service, incl software downloads.

I've been a happy Gentoo user since 2003,
but want to be able to use Wifi with my  15 yr-old  netbook (32-bit),
which has always had Gentoo installed & whose hardware incl's Wifi.
This presents a Catch-22 : how can I install Wifi software ?
-- I need the I/net to download the files,
but can't access the I/net without that software installed.

Is there any way around it ? -- eg could I download files on my desktop,
then transfer them to the netbook & get that system to use them ?

Can anyone offer suggestions ?

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Re: [gentoo-user] update catch-22 with Wifi

[Jack Ostroff]

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resending to the list, instead of directly (fat fingered the first time)

On 12/23/24 6:45 PM, Philip Webb wrote:
> I no longer have a landline available (even via friends)
> & rely on Wifi for I/net service, incl software downloads.
>
> I've been a happy Gentoo user since 2003,
> but want to be able to use Wifi with my  15 yr-old  netbook (32-bit),
> which has always had Gentoo installed & whose hardware incl's Wifi.
> This presents a Catch-22 : how can I install Wifi software ?
> -- I need the I/net to download the files,
> but can't access the I/net without that software installed.
>
> Is there any way around it ? -- eg could I download files on my desktop,
> then transfer them to the netbook & get that system to use them ?
>
> Can anyone offer suggestions ?

What you suggested sounds fine.  You need to download the necessary 
ebuld(s) if not already present, and then source files - both things 
that go in the distfiles folder, plus those (if any) that go in the 
files folder in the ebuild folder.  Download on the desktop and transfer 
by USB stick?

An alternative would be to boot with a live USB, then chroot into Gentoo 
and emerge away.

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Re: [gentoo-user] update catch-22 with Wifi

[Michael]

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On Monday 23 December 2024 23:53:38 GMT Jack Ostroff wrote:
> resending to the list, instead of directly (fat fingered the first time)
> 
> On 12/23/24 6:45 PM, Philip Webb wrote:
> > I no longer have a landline available (even via friends)
> > & rely on Wifi for I/net service, incl software downloads.
> > 
> > I've been a happy Gentoo user since 2003,
> > but want to be able to use Wifi with my  15 yr-old  netbook (32-bit),
> > which has always had Gentoo installed & whose hardware incl's Wifi.
> > This presents a Catch-22 : how can I install Wifi software ?
> > -- I need the I/net to download the files,
> > but can't access the I/net without that software installed.
> > 
> > Is there any way around it ? -- eg could I download files on my desktop,
> > then transfer them to the netbook & get that system to use them ?
> > 
> > Can anyone offer suggestions ?
> 
> What you suggested sounds fine.  You need to download the necessary
> ebuld(s) if not already present, and then source files - both things
> that go in the distfiles folder, plus those (if any) that go in the
> files folder in the ebuild folder.  Download on the desktop and transfer
> by USB stick?
> 
> An alternative would be to boot with a live USB, then chroot into Gentoo
> and emerge away.

If the OS is also 15 year old, you may well find ebuilds will not compile on 
your netbook, because their build-time dependencies will be much more recent 
than what your netbook has.  Upgrading it will be a never ending back and 
forth from the desktop to the netbook and the significant architectural 
changes over the last 15 years have been too many to overcome via a straight 
forward upgrade.

I think you have 3 options to upgrade your netbook.

1. Patch & Mend:

Find all suitably old ebuilds matching the age of the netbook OS and required 
to install your wireless software, from the portage attic archive:

https://gitweb.gentoo.org/

Download each one, transfer to netbook with a USB, then try to emerge them and 
see if you succeed.  I expect success will be measured, if any at all.

2. A new OS installation using source files and compiling locally:

Download an 'Admin CD' to boot your netbook from here:

https://www.gentoo.org/downloads/#x86

Check if the wireless interface works when you boot with it.  If yes, carry on 
using the Gentoo Handbook to install a fresh x86 OS on your netbook, including 
all necessary wireless drivers, firmware, et al.

If not, download a Stage 3 i686 archive and transfer this to your netbook over 
USB to complete the installation as per the Gentoo Handbook.

3. Build your own binhost server for the netbook, on your faster desktop:

Create a new partition or directory on your desktop and chroot into it.  
Install a full x86 OS for your netbook in there, copying over from your 
netbook /etc and /var/lib/portage/world to save you manually editing these on 
the binhost.  You could also copy over the netbook's kernel .config file, 
although I expect this would be quite ancient.  There's probably a wiki page 
highlighting the kernel modules needed for your netbook's hardware.

Once the installation of the new x86 OS is complete, use 'tar -czpv --xattrs -
f' to compress your newly installed x86 OS filesystem and transfer it to the 
netbook with a USB to untar it on the netbook's reformatted OS partition.

Thereafter, you can keep your netbook up to date by emerging all software 
updates with '--buildpkg y' on your faster desktop within the chroot, then 
transfer the binaries to your netbook (or export the "/var/cache/binpkgs" 
directory on the desktop over NFS) for the netbook to fetch and emerge locally 
as binaries.

This method will bring your netbook up to date and will keep it up updated 
without spending weeks at a time to emerge software from source.

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Re: [gentoo-user] update catch-22 with Wifi

[Frank Steinmetzger]

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Am Mon, Dec 23, 2024 at 06:45:43PM -0500 schrieb Philip Webb:
> I no longer have a landline available (even via friends)
> & rely on Wifi for I/net service, incl software downloads.
> 
> I've been a happy Gentoo user since 2003,
> but want to be able to use Wifi with my  15 yr-old  netbook (32-bit),
> which has always had Gentoo installed & whose hardware incl's Wifi.
> This presents a Catch-22 : how can I install Wifi software ?
> -- I need the I/net to download the files,
> but can't access the I/net without that software installed.
> 
> Is there any way around it ? -- eg could I download files on my desktop,
> then transfer them to the netbook & get that system to use them ?
> 
> Can anyone offer suggestions ?

That’s not really a Gentoo-specific problem, right?
When I had lousy Internet, I did my usual emerge command, but with 
--fetchonly -pv. That way, emerge prints out what it would like to download, 
i.e. the actual concrete URLs with versions and mirrors filled in. I put the 
output into a textfile on a USB drive and carried it to a connected machine, 
where I would run wget --input-file on said drive. I’d been keeping a small, 
old copy of wget for Windows around for exactly that purpse.

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