As with most things on GNU/Linux, there are many ways to connect to wifi. What follows is one simple and relatively straight-forward way among others.

This guide makes two assumptions:

1) The driver for your wireless network interface controller (nic) is distributed with the linux kernel (see Note #1)

2) You know the name of the extension that contains your wireless nic's firmware (firmware-mediatek is used below merely as an example) (see Note #2)

A. These are the steps if your TCL computer already has a wired (ethernet) connection to the internet:

1. Load wifi-manager.tcz (see Note #3) and the extension that contains your wireless nic's firmware (again, firmware-mediatek.tcz here is just an example):

$ tce-load -wi wifi-manager firmware-mediatek

2. Copy wifi-manager's example config file into your ~/.config directory:

$ mkdir -p ~/.config; cp /usr/local/share/wifi-manager/wifi-manager.conf ~/.config

3. Use your favorite text editor to add your access point's ssid|password combination to ~/.config/wifi-manager.conf

4. Disconnect from ethernet by removing the ethernet cable or running:

$ sudo ifconfig eth0 down

5. Connect to wifi by running this command in a terminal:

$ sudo wifi-connect

B. These are the steps if your TCL computer does NOT have a wired (ethernet) connection:

1. Download Rich's FetchExt.sh script from here: https://gnuser.ddns.net/public/FetchExt.sh

2. Make sure the TC and ARCH variables at the top of FetchExt.sh match the TCL version and architecture you are using (for example, if you are using TCL16 Pure64 you need TC=“16.x” and ARCH=“x86_64”)

3. Copy FetchExt.sh to a GNU/Linux system that does have an internet connection.

Steps 4-6 are performed on the GNU/Linux system that has an internet connection.

4. Make the FetchExt.sh script executable.

5. Create and cd into an empty directory, for example:

$ mkdir /tmp/extensions; cd /tmp/extensions

6. Download wifi-manager.tcz, its dependencies, and the extension that contains your wireless nic's firmware (again, firmware-mediatek.tcz here is just an example):

$ /path/to/FetchExt.sh wifi-manager firmware-mediatek

7. Copy all the files in /tmp/extensions to your TCL machine's tce/optional directory

8. Boot into your TCL machine and load the necessary extensions:

$ tce-load -i wifi-manager firmware-mediatek

9. Follow steps A.2. through A.5. (see above)

Note #1: If the driver for your wireless nic is not distributed with the linux kernel, then connecting to wifi on GNU/Linux is complex and beyond the scope of this guide.

Note #2: To find the name of the extension that provides your wireless nic's firmware, you first need to determine the firmware's exact filename. Boot into your TCL machine then issue these commands:

$ tce-load -wi wireless-KERNEL bluetooth-KERNEL
$ dmesg | grep firmware
...
[   23.699520] platform regulatory.0: Direct firmware load for regulatory.db failed with error -2
[   23.785437] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-7260-17.ucode failed with error -2
[   23.843757] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: loaded firmware version 17.459231.0 7260-17.ucode op_mode iwlmvm
[  747.236848] bluetooth hci0: Direct firmware load for intel/ibt-hw-37.7.10-fw-1.80.2.3.d.bseq failed with error -2
[  747.239327] Bluetooth: hci0: Intel Bluetooth firmware file: intel/ibt-hw-37.7.10-fw-1.80.2.3.d.bseq

Some wireless nics require bluetooth drivers and firmware, which is why it is helpful to load bluetooth-KERNEL as shown above. In this example, you can see that the missing firmware files are iwlwifi-7260-17.ucode and ibt-hw-37.7.10-fw-1.80.2.3.d.bseq.

Now that you know the firmware's exact filename(s), you can find the extension(s) you need. If you have a TCL machine with any kind of internet connection, you can use provides.sh for this purpose:

$ provides.sh iwlwifi-7260-17.ucode
firmware-iwlwifi.tcz
$ $ provides.sh ibt-hw-37.7.10-fw-1.80.2.3.d.bseq
firmware-intel.tcz

If you don't have a TCL machine with an internet connection, not to worry: On any machine with an internet and web browser you can go to http://tinycorelinux.net/16.x/x86_64/tcz/provides.db (adjust the TCL version and architecture in the URL as appropriate), search the page for the filename you need (e.g., iwlwifi-7260-17.ucode), then scroll up until you see the extension (.tcz) that supplies it (which would be firmware-iwlwifi.tcz in this example).

Note #3: wifi-manager.tcz is available for recent versions of TCL (TCL15 or later), x86 and x86_64 architectures. If you are using an older version of TCL or an architecture other than x86 or x86_64, wifi-manager.tcz will not be in your repository but a similar extension, simply called wifi.tcz, should be available. wifi.tcz is well-maintained and works similarly to wifi-manager.tcz – both are just shell scripts that run iw or iwlist (to scan for available access points), then wpa_supplicant (to authenticate with an access point), then udhcpc (to get an IP address).

1. You have a working tinycore system with some support for persistence (ie: A tce directory and either a backup/restore point or a persistent /opt directory) ← add link to appropriate howtos.
2. Your wireless hardware is supported by a driver available in the repo.
3. You want to connect to an open access point, WEP or WPA-PSK secured AP (you do care about security don't you?)

1. Boot tinycore and install the needed wireless packages if you haven't already (if you have an Intel wireless card, you need to install firmware-intel.tcz first, and iwlwifi.tcz if it doesn't install it as a dependency).

  | wireless_tools.tcz | gives you iwconfig and other tools |
  | wireless-`uname -r`-tinycore.tcz | in-kernel wifi drivers |
  | wpa-supplicant.tcz | wpa_supplicant tool for negotiating secured access points |

If you will be installing to a system that depends on wifi access you may find it easier to pre-download these files and copy them to your tinycore tce directory so that they are installed at boot time (or use tce-load to install them after boot).

2. Check whether you can see your wireless hardware. in the console run: iwconfig

You should see a list of interfaces with some status info. your wireless interface may show up as wlan0 (but maybe ath0 or eth0?). You need to remember the name of this interface as it will be used later

If you don't see a connection, you may need to load or install drivers. The wireless-`uname -r`-tinycore contains all in-kernel wifi drivers. You can verify the drivers are present using something like (assuming Atheros card): modprobe -l | grep ath you should see the ath9k.ko.gz and ath5k.ko.gz device driver files

Verify they are loaded using: lsmod | grep ath

You can use modprobe to temporarily load and unload drivers as needed. For instructions on setting up alternative Atheros drivers, see Network Setup - Atheros Wireless Cards

1. To connect to a particular access point, all you need to do is type in the console: iwconfig *interface* essid *network-id* to search for access points, use the command: iwlist scanning to connect to the nearest access point, just use: iwconfig *interface* essid any
2. To finalize the connection (getting IP address etc), go to control panel, open the netcardconfig tool. switch eth0 to the name of your interface (e.g. wlan0). Change Use DHCP Broadcast? to yes, leave Save Configuration as yes. Hit apply. This will save and run a script /opt/*interface*.sh. In addition, the /opt/bootlocal.sh (the script run at boot) will now include /opt/*interface*.sh. If your /opt directory is not persistent, make sure you do a backup when you boot or you will need to rerun this tool each time you boot.
   Alternately, instead of running netcardconfig you could just issue the udhcpc command, e.g., udhcpc -i *interface*
3. At this point you should have a working network connection. If it doesn't work you might need to play around with the udhcpc commandline (the gui in step 2 makes a udhcpc call, but there are additional options that may be needed)
4. If you don't want to have to run step 1 and 2 every time you boot, you can add the command to your /opt/bootlocal.sh file before the line that calls /opt/*interface*.sh script (make sure you backup!)

Before you start, you need to look up your access point id (ssid) and passphrase (a string).

• At the command line, run wpa_passphrase *essid* *passphrase*
  For example: wpa_passphrase mynetwork mypassphrase network={ssid=“mynetwork”,psk=f242925f83787084d58101d5eb52485989e2a553983bfe6fc5b8d27fdfa063bd}
• Now create a file in your favorite editor replacing the ssid and psk values below with result from step 1: ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

network={
      ssid=mynetwork
      proto=WPA
      key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
      pairwise=TKIP
      group=TKIP
      psk=f242925f83787084d58101d5eb52485989e2a553983bfe6fc5b8d27fdfa063bd
}

Note: This assumes a fairly conventional WPA-PSK setup. If you need to use other security (e.g. WEP) or are connecting to a more sophisticated network you may have to tweak this file. See the wpa_supplicant manual for more info. (What if you connect to more than one WPA-PSK network? You can add as many network sections to the conf file as needed.) save it as /opt/wpa_configure.conf (then to ensure it is persistent in the system, add the line opt/wpa_configure.conf to /opt/.filetool.lst)

• to connect to the access point, run in the console: wpa_supplicant -i*interface* -c/opt/wpa_configure.conf &
  For diagnostic run this command with debugging option -d
  sudo wpa_supplicant -i*interface* -c/opt/wpa_configure.conf -d (Close debugging mode with Ctrl+c)
  You can verify the connection with iwconfig. After successful association you get all connection data in command output: AP BSSID, Bit Rate, Link Quality etc. Another simple method is watching card LINK diode. Diode shines with constant light, when Adapter is connected to AP.
• now to finalize the connection (getting IP address etc), go to control panel, open the netcardconfig tool. switch eth0 to the name of your interface (e.g. wlan0). Change Use DHCP Broadcast? to yes, leave Save Configuration as yes. Hit apply. This will save and run a script /opt/*interface*.sh. In addition, the /opt/bootlocal.sh (the script run at boot) will now include /opt/*interface*.sh. If your /opt directory is not persistent, make sure you do a backup when you boot or you will need to rerun this tool each time you boot.

Alternately, instead of running netcardconfig you could just issue the udhcpc command, e.g.: udhcpc -i *interface*

• At this point you should have a working network connection. If it doesn't work you might need to tweak the wpa_supplicant configuration or the udhcpc command line.
• If you don't want to have to run step 3 and 4 every time you boot, you can add the wpa_supplicant command in line 3 to your /opt/bootlocal.sh file before the line that calls /opt/*interface*.sh script (make sure you backup!)

Connect to non-secured access point. (Script that displays local Access Points to connect to. Only works with unsecured APs.)

• Connect to either non-secure or WEP protected access point
  NOTE: requires editing of shell script to set ESSID (network name) and wep key (set to blank if network is unsecured).
  NOTE: to set your WEP key using a plain text string (i.e.: not HEX) then put an s: in front of the key iwconfig wlan0 key s:BlahBlahBlah

#!/bin/sh
  - Example usage:
  - 
  - sudo sh mywifi.sh
  - 
  - Can automate this stuff by putting into /opt/bootlocal.sh (without the need for sudo)
  - using cpanel, network autocreates /opt/my*
 
  - Determine device name (assume one wifi device; use head, etc. to restrict to first, last...)
|wlan=`iwconfig 2>/dev/null |grep IEEE |awk '{print $1}' `|
echo $wlan
 
essid=myessid
  - set wepkey to hex digits, leave blank if no wep-security is used
wepkey=deadbeafdeadbeaf
 
echo SID ${essid}
if [[ -n "${wep}" ]]
then
    echo WEPKEY $wepkey
fi
 
iwconfig ${wlan}
 
iwconfig ${wlan} essid ${essid}
if [[ -n "${wep}" ]]
then
    iwconfig ${wlan} enc ${wepkey}
    iwconfig ${wlan} key ${wepkey}
fi
iwconfig ${wlan} commit
 
  - now setup IP address, route, gateway, etc.
  - Use DHCP
  - after netcardconfig and save settings
  - TC@BOX:~$ cat /opt/eth1.sh 
  - !/bin/sh
pkill udhcpc
udhcpc -H box -b -i ${wlan}