[Solved] NetworkManager not working with ath9k

Mystro256 · 2011-07-21 18:20:47

I installed arch via a netinstall on my laptop (ASUS T101MT), but after installing gnome, I installed networkmanager and can't for the life of me make it work with my wireless. I can scan/find and connect to my network with ease but network use seems to have issues (ranging from being very slow to not up/downloading anything at all).
The wireless card is supported by the kernel, ath9k if I'm not mistaken (works with Ubuntu and Debian without a non-free/non-kernel driver), and I know it's not an issue with my network.

Also I would like to point out that I've been using Debian for about 5 years now and only recently decided to switch to Arch, so I'm fairly new to arch but not Linux.

Anyway, the steps I took post-install were as follows (in case I just simply missed something along the way):

- connected a straight through cable to my router and ran:

dhcpcd eth0

- set up pacman databases and mirrors, along with my hostname, etc
- Installed gnome: (installed all packages but epiphany when prompted)

pacman -S gnome

- installed all the xorg stuff
- Installed the extra gnome stuff: (installed all packages but empathy, dasher, eok, some other irrelevant things)

pacman -S gnome-extra

- installed dbus, network manager, etc:

pacman -S dbus networkmanager network-manager-applet gnome-keyring

- added dbus, network manager and removed network to DAEMONS:

DAEMONS=( ...dbus networkmanager)

- included gdm and etc in /etc/inittab
- made a pkla for networkmanager (/etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.pkla) : (copied straight from the wiki)

[nm-applet]
Identity=unix-group:network
Action=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.*
ResultAny=yes
ResultInactive=no
ResultActive=yes

- added my non-root user and then added the user to the network group:

adduser
gpasswd -a USERNAME network

-unplugged my ethernet cable and restarted
-logged in as my user in GDM and connected to my wireless router
-opened gnome-terminal and tried to install a package via pacman:

su
pacman -S chromium

the last step went through all the mirrors and failed to download from each one. I also tried running this:

nm-applet --sm-disable

and the output I got when I connected was a warning about DCHP4 configuration and wasn't very descriptive, nor do I remember what it said.

I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this, and I was hoping maybe maybe someone was able to help.
If anyone is able to help, it would be greatly appreciated!

EDIT: I also forgot to say I used wifi to install, so I know arch supports my card via the kernel, and my wireless has WPA Personal

Last edited by Mystro256 (2011-07-26 04:50:31)

Mystro256 · 2011-07-26 04:49:39

After a lot of searching, I found a fix.

For anyone else with this issue, I'll post my findings and rename the topic

Turns out the issue seems to be a regression in the Linux kernel with the Ath9k driver and can be fixed by installing an extra driver (found here) OR by enabling the nohwcrypt option for the driver in the kernel:

#echo "options ath9k nohwcrypt=1" > /etc/modprobe.d/ath9k.conf

The latter option thanks to yellercat from ubuntu forums

Arch Linux

#1 2011-07-21 18:20:47

[Solved] NetworkManager not working with ath9k

#2 2011-07-26 04:49:39

Re: [Solved] NetworkManager not working with ath9k

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