ipw2200 firmware

lithium · 2007-09-24 21:19:09

Hey,

I just switched over to Arch from Gentoo and I must say that it has been excellent so far. No more waiting for hours on end to install software only to find that my laptop overheated and nothing was installed!

Anyway, I'm having an issue with my ipw2915 card and ipw2200 firmware. I've searched these forums and Google and I've found a lot of people asking this same question but no real answers. These are the errors I get when I start up:

[root@darkstar lithium]# dmesg | grep -i ipw2200
ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.2.0kmprq
ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Network Connection
ipw2200: ipw2200-bss.fw request_firmware failed: Reason -2
ipw2200: Unable to load firmware: -2
ipw2200: failed to register network device
ipw2200: probe of 0000:03:03.0 failed with error -5

iwconfig shows no wireless adapters,etc. Now, I DID install ipw2200-fw and the firmware is there:

[root@darkstar lithium]# ls /lib/firmware/
LICENSE.ipw2200-fw  ipw2200-bss.fw  ipw2200-ibss.fw  ipw2200-sniffer.fw

Here's the really interesting part. I can get the wireless to work. Here's what I have to:

[root@darkstar lithium]# rmmod ipw2200
[root@darkstar lithium]# modprobe ipw2200

Thats it...iwconfig sees the card and everything works fine. But I shouldn't have to do this. Any ideas?

Last edited by lithium (2007-09-24 21:20:14)

Sigi · 2007-09-25 07:52:15

How do you load modules in your /etc/rc.conf? Autoload?
Have you tried putting ipw2200 in the modules array of it?

Last edited by Sigi (2007-09-25 07:55:54)

lithium · 2007-09-25 23:57:33

I'm not sure what you mean exactly. I think that the module may be loading before any of the rc scripts are called since it occurs right after "Loading initramfs" and before the "Arch Linux" colored output occurs. Is it possible that the system is trying to load this module before the root filesystem is mounted (and therefore it can't read the firmware for it)?

Here is the relevant part of /etc/rc.conf in case that helps:

#
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# HARDWARE
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# Scan hardware and load required modules at bootup
MOD_AUTOLOAD="yes"
# Module Blacklist - modules in this list will never be loaded by udev
MOD_BLACKLIST=()
#
# Modules to load at boot-up (in this order)
#   - prefix a module with a ! to blacklist it
#
MODULES=(slhc tg3 ipw2200 ac97_bus snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm-oss snd-page-alloc snd-pcm snd-timer snd snd-ac97-codec snd-intel8x0 snd-intel8x0m soundcore acpi-cpufreq)
# Scan for LVM volume groups at startup, required if you use LVM
USELVM="yes"

The only thing I changed there was adding acpi-cpufreq. I also tried putting a ! before ipw2200 but that made no difference. Thats another reason why I think the rc scripts may not be whats loading ipw2200 initially.

Last edited by lithium (2007-09-25 23:57:57)

lithium · 2007-09-26 00:13:49

Found it!

I was right. I just thought about it some more:

Q: what runs before the rc scripts?
A: initramfs.

Q: Where do you configure that?
A: mkinitcpio.conf!

I added "firmware" to HOOKS and that took care of it.

Sigi · 2007-09-27 13:38:13

Glad to hear that. And sorry that I didn't bring up the initcpio-stuff. I've "fw" and "autodetect" in my mkinitcpio.conf and totally forgot that this was detecting ipw2200 fw.

tomk · 2007-09-27 15:58:30

FWIW, I let udev load my modules, and the firmware for my Ralink device is loaded correctly, without the firmware hook.

rico1986 · 2007-10-12 18:22:56

thanx for that post :} it solved my problems.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-09-24 21:19:09

ipw2200 firmware

#2 2007-09-25 07:52:15

Re: ipw2200 firmware

#3 2007-09-25 23:57:33

Re: ipw2200 firmware

#4 2007-09-26 00:13:49

Re: ipw2200 firmware

#5 2007-09-27 13:38:13

Re: ipw2200 firmware

#6 2007-09-27 15:58:30

Re: ipw2200 firmware

#7 2007-10-12 18:22:56

Re: ipw2200 firmware

Board footer