misskey.okayurisotto.net
/home/rqm (@rqm)
I cannot believe all this. Working wifi under #9front on a Thinkpad x131e. Only in about 389 """ easy """ steps: 1) Get a 9front-compatible WiFi card 2) Swap it out to realise this laptop has a BIOS whitelist 3) Get ANOTHER 9-front compatible WiFi card that should be on the whitelist 4) Realise this doesn't work either 5) spend weeks digging through the internet to realise I will have to do it myself 6) read Libreboot docs because it has great info on using SPI flashers 7) dig through ancient GitHub repos to find appropriate patches 8) Seek help from Masto hive-mind (mad propz to @bpl@snac.bsd.cafe for talking me through the process and for putting up with message spam) 9) Order Pi Pico and clip 10) scour data sheets, tutorials, assemble programmer on breadboard 11) Realise certain tools will need Lunic 12) Install Lunico on old laptop 13) Uninstall distro that suxx and find another that suxx less 14) Lunic is terrifying, because what on earth is happening 15) compile a lot of strange software 16) take some deep breaths and attempt getting a read from the BIOS 17) physically hack out bits of plastic from the computer to allow access to chippage 18) read flash pleasantly surprised that it worked on second attempt 19) try patching only to get a nondescript "Error" 20) read sources, realise it is the "default error" and I will nevet know 21) Try running outdated Wimbo programmes to see if Wimbo is working when Lunic isn't 22) Givebup on Wine, also Wimbo 23) Realise Lenovo "engineers" glued the CMOS battery onto the SECOND BIOS chip 24) Get a readout of second BIOS chip (3x reads, comparing hashes) 25) Fail at it, try again at slower speed 26) Fail at it again, try again at slower slower speed 27) Get 3 consecutive and matching good reads 28) Try patching again, OMG IT WORKED 29) Flash it, with heart in throat 30) Nearly faint when it worked 31) Ignore loud beeping and RTC complaints 32) Boot 9front 33) Get appropriate firmware from OpenBSD and install in /lib/firmware 34) Rebuild kernel 35) Forget to copy over stuff to 9fat and rebuild the kernel again a few times scratching my head 36) Remember to copy stuff to 9far 37) Reboot and avoid collapsing once more when it loads the firmware 38) man wpa, run whatever is there 39) get over disbelief this actually worked 389) win (📎1)
