wireless lan not working

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anonymous2
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Posts: 8
Joined: 18 Sep 2014, 22:50

wireless lan not working

Postby anonymous2 » 18 Sep 2014, 23:16

Im running the recent version (15.4) of alphaos. There are two problems with my wireless lan though:
First I can't get the proper driver iwlwifi ( for Intel Corporation Wireless 7260 ) to load on boot ( I tried via the MODULES line in rc.conf as well as putting a .conf file in modules-load.d ).
Second even if I

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 modprobe iwlwifi
the output of

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 lspci -v/ lspci -k
doesn't list a kernel module for use with the network controller. The output of

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 dmesg | grep iwlwifi
is nothing ( after loading iwlwifi via modprobe )...
The same network controller is working perfectly with regular arch linux.
In case somebody asks: I do have the proper ucode in /lib/firmware.

jonas
Competent
Posts: 21
Joined: 19 Sep 2014, 11:46

Re: wireless lan not working

Postby jonas » 19 Sep 2014, 12:08

I had the same problem and got it working by installing iwlwifi driver from the kernel backports project. Download and extract backports from latest stable release:

https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/backports/stable/

Then cd to extracted dir and:

make defconfig-iwlwifi
make -j4
make install

You need to have kernel headers and devel bundles activated (download from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/alphaos/files/).

It would be nice if for the next alphaOS release, the kernel could be compiled with Intel Wireless 7260 driver already enabled.

anonymous2
Apprentice
Posts: 8
Joined: 18 Sep 2014, 22:50

Re: wireless lan not working

Postby anonymous2 » 19 Sep 2014, 16:21

Thanks, that worked :D
But I still don't understand why the MODULES line in /etc/rc.conf gets ignored...
I looked at the rc.sysinit, it sources rc.conf
and the loading_kernel_modules in /etc/rc.d/functions seems to be doing what it should.
What am I missing?

Scooby
Site Admin
Posts: 826
Joined: 09 Sep 2013, 16:52

Re: wireless lan not working

Postby Scooby » 19 Sep 2014, 18:48

anonymous2 wrote:putting a .conf file in modules-load.d ).

Isn't that used by systemd, if so won't work in alphaos
alphaos uses sysvinit

I also use iwlwifi. For me it works out of the box
/usr/lib/modules/3.14.1-ALPHAOS/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/iwlwifi/iwlwifi.ko
is present in alpha_15.sb

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lspci -v | grep iwlwifi
   Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
   Kernel modules: iwlwifi


anonymous2 wrote:But I still don't understand why the MODULES line in /etc/rc.conf gets ignored...

It should work. I load modules from there

I have

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MODULES="cpufreq_powersave"


and get

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> lsmod | grep cpufreq_powersave
cpufreq_powersave        934  0


I have wifi card

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>lspci | grep -i wireless
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 1030 [Rainbow Peak] (rev 34)


I don't know why it doesn't work for you?

I tried building the backports version and

alphaos original
139K
backports
257K


So I guess maybe it is old version or sim liked to keep the size down

My vote is with you, the kernel should be compiled with Intel Wireless 7260 driver already enabled.

I did hack up an sb containing the backports version of iwlwifi
it seems to work for me,

put it in alphaos/modules directory (a. k. a. dir form were you boot)
OBS! for kernel 3.14.1
wireless_iwlwifi_full.sb

anonymous2
Apprentice
Posts: 8
Joined: 18 Sep 2014, 22:50

Re: wireless lan not working

Postby anonymous2 » 20 Sep 2014, 01:30

The problem solved itself when I made a .sb from my savefile. Now iwlwifi gets loaded at boot :)
I guess at the stage where the modules get loaded it didn't see my modifications of the rc.conf from the savefile yet.
I don't know if this is intended/expected behaviour though :?:

Scooby
Site Admin
Posts: 826
Joined: 09 Sep 2013, 16:52

Re: wireless lan not working

Postby Scooby » 20 Sep 2014, 09:20

anonymous2 wrote:The problem solved itself when I made a .sb from my savefile. Now iwlwifi gets loaded at boot :)
I guess at the stage where the modules get loaded it didn't see my modifications of the rc.conf from the savefile yet.

Nope, does't matter if in savefile or .sb

The union is assembled earlier, before switch_root, so when
loading_kernel_modules() is called the MODULES line(in rc.conf) from savefile
is visible

If you did the backports of jonas's suggestion then when you make install
the *.ko's is put in /usr/lib/modules/3.14.1-ALPHAOS/updates/
and will be loaded by default without MODULES line in rc.conf

perhaps this is done in /etc/rc.d/functions-->starting_udev_daemon()
when depmod is called

Maybe if you put iwlwifi in MODULES line then the original iwlwifi
from alphaos iso is tried to be loaded???

anonymous2
Apprentice
Posts: 8
Joined: 18 Sep 2014, 22:50

Re: wireless lan not working

Postby anonymous2 » 20 Sep 2014, 14:07

Scooby wrote:
anonymous2 wrote:The problem solved itself when I made a .sb from my savefile. Now iwlwifi gets loaded at boot :)
I guess at the stage where the modules get loaded it didn't see my modifications of the rc.conf from the savefile yet.

Nope, does't matter if in savefile or .sb

The union is assembled earlier, before switch_root, so when
loading_kernel_modules() is called the MODULES line(in rc.conf) from savefile
is visible

If you did the backports of jonas's suggestion then when you make install
the *.ko's is put in /usr/lib/modules/3.14.1-ALPHAOS/updates/
and will be loaded by default without MODULES line in rc.conf

perhaps this is done in /etc/rc.d/functions-->starting_udev_daemon()
when depmod is called

Maybe if you put iwlwifi in MODULES line then the original iwlwifi
from alphaos iso is tried to be loaded???


^^ I doubt that the original iwlwifi gets loaded because before I applied jonas's suggestions loading the module by hand didn't give me wifi, so if the original version was loaded I would notice that (by absence of wlan).

Well I tried various combinations and here are the results:
WITH .sb version of savefile:
  • with entry in rc.conf -> iwlwifi gets loaded at boot ( and I get wifi so its the right version )
  • without entry in rc.conf -> no iwlwifi ( confirmed by lsmod and logs )
WITHOUT .sb version of savefile:
iwlwifi doesn't get loaded at boot no matter what I try ( confirmed by lsmod and logs )

jonas
Competent
Posts: 21
Joined: 19 Sep 2014, 11:46

Re: wireless lan not working

Postby jonas » 20 Sep 2014, 22:30

Adding MODULES in rc.conf does not work for me either when I boot with usbmode but it works without usbmode. It seems the savefile is not visible to rc.sysinit when mounted in usbmode (what does this mean exactly?). This seems like unintended behaviour to me.

Scooby
Site Admin
Posts: 826
Joined: 09 Sep 2013, 16:52

Re: wireless lan not working

Postby Scooby » 20 Sep 2014, 22:38

anonymous2 wrote:^^ I doubt that the original iwlwifi gets loaded because before I applied jonas's suggestions loading the module by hand didn't give me wifi, so if the original version was loaded I would notice that (by absence of wlan).

yeah well as I said

alphaos original
139K
backports
257K

So there are differences between the iwlwifi ko's

and probably the original iwlwifi will fail silently to load on your system
you tried it yourself with modprobe, right?

anonymous2 wrote:Well I tried various combinations and here are the results:
WITH .sb version of savefile:
  • with entry in rc.conf -> iwlwifi gets loaded at boot ( and I get wifi so its the right version )
  • without entry in rc.conf -> no iwlwifi ( confirmed by lsmod and logs )
WITHOUT .sb version of savefile:
iwlwifi doesn't get loaded at boot no matter what I try ( confirmed by lsmod and logs )


So how do YOU explain that?

Do you say that with backports version of iwlwifi installed in savefile and entry in rc.conf it won't load?

I repeat if you have savefile or sb version of savefile the union would be exactly the same in most cases
with the exception of you having som other sb that contain stuff in the relevant locations

if you don't believe that check for yo self

Scooby
Site Admin
Posts: 826
Joined: 09 Sep 2013, 16:52

Re: wireless lan not working

Postby Scooby » 20 Sep 2014, 22:42

jonas wrote:Adding MODULES in rc.conf does not work for me either when I boot with usbmode but it works without usbmode. It seems the savefile is not visible to rc.sysinit when mounted in usbmode (what does this mean exactly?). This seems like unintended behaviour to me.


I will investigate and come back to you and explain the difference

yepp in this case it is true
setup_services() which will add savefile to union is called after loading_kernel_modules()
so rc.conf from is not visible at that time.

No this is not intended behaviour

anonymous2 are you running usbmode?


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