I'm setting up a Panasonic CF-29 Toughbook with Slackware 14, and so far I've gotten it up and running with XFCE as the desktop environment. However I'm not able to connect to networks yet.

If I go to Applications Menu > Settings > Network Connections the pointer shows an hourglass for a second, then nothing happens.

ifconfig -a returns two eth interfaces, one <UP, BROADCAST, RUNNING, MULTICAST> and one <BROADCAST, MULTICAST>, as well as a lo interface, <UP, LOOPBACK, RUNNING>

The CF-29 should have an Integrated 10/100 Network Card Integrated Wireless LAN.

I presume the solution involves downloading drivers, but I don't know what to do with them.

What is the output of lspci? Have you tried to look up the chipset and see if you need anything special? What is the chipset?

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"Engenius EMP-8602+S 802.11a/b/g miniPCI" is the exact card, but it registers as an "Atheros AR5006X Wireless Network Adapter". Took some digging on Google but I found it.

It should be loaded using the ath5k kernel module.

This page should explain some of what you have to do to enable it if it's not enabled by default:

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath5k

If the ath5k module is not present, you will have to reconfigure the kernel, and rebuild the kernel and modules to support ath5k and it's necessary modules and parameters. All details to do so are listed in the aforementioned webpage.

The output of my lspci is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

I'm now looking into ath5k

Apparently that device is supported by the ipw2200 kernel module. Does 'lsmod | grep ipw2200' show output?

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Yep:

ipw2200 127987 0
libipw 22828 1 ipw2200
lib80211 2889 2 libipw,ipw2200
cfg80211 144760 2 libipw,ipw2200

I have zero idea what this means.

Good, it means your device is being recognised and the appropriate kernel module and dependencies are being loaded.

Do you have the NetworkManager daemon running? Has /etc/rc.d/rc.networkmanager been set as an executable file so that the NetworkManager daemon is started at boot?

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I guess what you're saying is that there's some startup process which points to rc.networkmanager and will execute it if that's possible?

"file .../rc.networkmanager" returns: "./rc.networkmanager: POSIX shell script, ASCII text executable"

stat says the permissions are (0644/-rw-r--r--) and it is a "regular file"

ls says it is owned by root and of group root

SO I guess the proper solution is "chmod u+x /etc/rc.d/rc.networkmanager" right? Or does it need to be a+x?

Do the following:

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 stop
chmod -x /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1

chmod +x /etc/rc.d/rc.networkmanager
/etc/rc.d/rc.networkmanager start

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There's no reason to make rc.inet1 non-executable. Just don't configure any interfaces in rc.inet1.conf.

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Is there a hardware switch for the wireless interface? Maybe it's turned off?

Well, that did it! I'm now posting to this forum from a Linux machine for the first time.

Thank you all so much. This is really an incredibly helpful community.