Ubuntu LTSP over WIFI - TP-LINK TL-WN422G - Update

After spending weeks researching and days trying to implement it, success may not be too far away after all. This morning, on my VM, I was able to finally get to the login screen. I couldn't login, though. However, that may not be such a big issue. I've had similar issue with a regular LTSP client setup and probably a server restart can fix that. I was also able to load the LTSP client on my Fujitsu Stylistic 3500 tablet till the login screen as well. That was very exciting.


Update: Got past the authentication after restarting server and nbd-server service. I get authenticated but yet to see the desktop. So far, so good.

Update: Seems like I get stuck here and can not proceed any further. However, my VM works fine. I'll try changing certain settings to see if that helps.

Update: I'll continue researching this, however, not as aggressively any more. There are so many other things to try and I've only now begun the LTSP experience.
Here is a picture.




Progress on this topic can be followed on the following pages:
Unfinished business: Ubuntu LTSP over Wifi
Ubuntu LTSP over Wifi (Continued)
Ubuntu LTSP over WIFI - TP-LINK TL-WN422G
Ubuntu LTSP over WIFI - TP-LINK TL-WN422G - Update

Ubuntu LTSP over WIFI - TP-LINK TL-WN422G

Couple days ago, I received the two Wireless USB adapters I had ordered. They are both from the same manufacturer, just different speed specs and model numbers and both came with antennas. The model numbers are TL-WN422G and TL-WN722N. The really fun part began when I attempted to load them on my Linux laptop.

I had bought them because I read somewhere that they used Atheros chipset which was also in my laptop's built-in wifi adapter. I had successfully tested LTSP over wifi on my laptop after customizing the initial ramdisk. So, I thought, eh, should be a piece of cake to repeat the steps using USB adapters. Bad judgment. While the built-in wifi adapter used "ath5k" module to work, these two needed "ath9k_htc" module. Now, "ath9k" was stable and packaged with the Linux distribution, however, at the time of this article, "ath9k_htc" was still under development and was not packaged with the operating system. What more? A firmware binary was needed to be present on the computer in order for the adapters to work, a situation I was hoping to avoid.

I did some researching on www.linuxwireless.org and found the right driver modules. After spending few uneventful hours trying to figure out the driver installation on my laptop and on a VM, I was finally beginning to make some progress. Then I started working on customizing the initial ramdisk by packaging the wireless drivers and activating them during the init process. Again, after spending few more very frustrating hours with it, I was able to load the module, load the firmware, activate the wireless adapter, and join the wireless network with WPA security.

The modified LTSP client now hangs while trying to load the network shares. If I recall correctly, I had encountered this in my prior attempts and should be able to fix the issue without wasting too much time.


Progress on this topic can be followed on the following pages:
Unfinished business: Ubuntu LTSP over Wifi
Ubuntu LTSP over Wifi (Continued)
Ubuntu LTSP over WIFI - TP-LINK TL-WN422G
Ubuntu LTSP over WIFI - TP-LINK TL-WN422G - Update

Ubuntu LTSP over Wifi (Continued)

This entry is a continuation of Unfinished business: Ubuntu LTSP over Wifi
I have a laptop with a built-in Atheros wireless adapter and an Belkin wireless usb adapter. After some more testing with the customized initial ramdisk, I realized that, while I could use the custom image and easily start the LTSP client with the Atheros interface, on the other hand, Belkin kept dropping the connection and failed to acquire the IP address. I am probably missing something here. However, since I am only beginning to explore the realm of ramdisk customization, I'll pass on trying to get the Belkin adapter to work for now and search for different inexpensive wifi usb adapters to work with.
I'll write more on this after further testing.
In the mean time, I would also welcome any help with getting the Belkin wireless adapter to work.



Progress on this topic can be followed on the following pages:
Unfinished business: Ubuntu LTSP over Wifi
Ubuntu LTSP over Wifi (Continued)
Ubuntu LTSP over WIFI - TP-LINK TL-WN422G
Ubuntu LTSP over WIFI - TP-LINK TL-WN422G - Update

Unfinished business: Ubuntu LTSP over Wifi

For some time now, I have been working on figuring out LTSP (Linux Terminal Services Project) over wifi. The idea is simple (aren't they all):

1. Modify the Initial Ramdisk for the PXE boot image to include the Wifi drivers
2. Update the start up script to load the driver
3. Connect to wireless router prior to issuing dhcp request

Since wireless drivers are being loaded at boot time, the true PXE nature is lost. Also, the kernel and the initial ramdisk would reside on the client computer's hard disk. However, the computer would boot directly into the LTSP client, using the LTSP servers resources for storage and processing and only using the client machine's inputs and outputs.

When I added the wifi drivers and all the dependencies, the setup did not work. There was still a "not so obvious" component missing. So, I decided to start with a fully loaded initial ramdisk and work my way backwards from there, by removing modules that seemed not necessary. I replaced the /lib/modules/`uname -r` folder of the LTSP ramdisk with that from my desktop installation. Initial tests resulted in a successful startup of LTSP client on my laptop and in Virtual Machines. This also caused my compressed ramdisk image to increase from 8 MiB to about 30 MiB in size.

Now the real challenging part. My laptop is not the intended target for this test. I want to run the customized LTSP client with wifi enabled on old Fujitsu tablets. They have 128 MB in RAM and 500 MHz processor. Yes, very ancient hardware, but that is where the finalized clients will reside. First trials on the tablets failed. After testing on virtual machines with limited resources, I quickly realized that RAM was the problem. Since I can not increase the RAM in those tablets, I'll have to shrink the ramdisk by a significant size.
I haven't worked on this in past few days. Hopefully, I can pick up from where I left in coming days.

Progress on this topic can be followed on the following pages:
Ubuntu LTSP over Wifi (Continued)
Ubuntu LTSP over WIFI - TP-LINK TL-WN422G
Ubuntu LTSP over WIFI - TP-LINK TL-WN422G - Update