Arch Linux

catar

Member

Registered: 2012-01-10

Posts: 2

lack required packages for huawei modem after base system installed

Hi

I've recently installed Arch on my netbook, the 2010 core version.  I have a functioning base system now.  Except I can't connect to the internet as I normally do using my Huawei E620 modem.

A bit about my set up: I have Arch and home on seperate partitions, another for Ubuntu, Windows and a data partition.  I've edited fstab so data partition shows in Arch's home.  I use network manager to run the modem in Ubuntu.

I'm thinking I need network manger, ppp or perhaps wvdial to get my modem working in Arch - I've searched the Wiki, except most posts assume I can run pacman.  But no internet connection means I can't use pacman.

How do I grab the necessary packages?  I propose using internet connection in Ubuntu, save this to my data partition then access it in Arch.  I'd like to do this from command line, so any suggestions for commands would be really helpful.

Thanks in advance.

mfs

Member

Registered: 2011-11-27

Posts: 10

Website

Re: lack required packages for huawei modem after base system installed

Hi,

first, save a list of installed packages (in Archlinux) to your data partition:

pacman -Qsq > /mountpoint/of/data/package-list

To download networkmanager, go to http://www.archlinux.org/packages/ in a web browser in Ubuntu and search for networkmanager. Choose i686 or x86_64 and then "Download from Mirror" (under "Package Actions" on the right). Save the package on your data partition. If you do not have any graphical environment, you can e.g. use the command line browser "lynx" for this task:

lynx http://www.archlinux.org/packages/

If you don't have lynx in your Ubuntu installation, you can easily install it:

apt-get install lynx

Now you need to check if all dependencies of networkmanager are already installed on your Archlinux system. Those are listed under "Dependencies" on the website you opened in lynx. To check for example, if dbus-glib is installed, you could issue

grep -r dbus-glib /mountpoint/of/data/package-list

If the output shows "dbus-glib", it is already installed in Archlinux, if the output is empty, it is not. You need to do this with every dependency for networkmanager listed on the website (except the optional ones). If it is not installed, you need to download it as you downloaded the networkmanager package (including subsequent dependency checks).

Once you have downloaded all needed packages and their not-installed dependencies to your data partition, switch back to Archlinux and issue (as root)

pacman -U /mountpoint/of/data/packages/*

where I assumed /mountpoint/of/data/packages to be the folder to which you downloaded all the packages.

Hope this helps,
mfs

catar

Member

Registered: 2012-01-10

Posts: 2

Re: lack required packages for huawei modem after base system installed

Hi mfs

Thanks for the excellent step by step here, I went through it as suggested.  However, couldn't find a couple of packages in the extras repository.  One is in the AUR, but I'm lost as to how to download it from there (newb that I am)

Also, I got an error, something like "unable to update file" when using the command

pacman -U

I'm wondering if the packages I downloaded off the mirror should somehow be listed in /etc?  I see no changes there when I open that directory.

Would like to hear any other suggestions, if you have?

Thanks
catar

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: lack required packages for huawei modem after base system installed

Read the wiki on how to use AUR.

Also, I got an error, something like "unable to update file" when using the command
pacman -U

Please post the exact full command you've used and the exact output.

/etc has nothing to do with it, it's where some configuration files of the already installed packages are.

mfs

Member

Registered: 2011-11-27

Posts: 10

Website

Re: lack required packages for huawei modem after base system installed

Hi mfs

Thanks for the excellent step by step here, I went through it as suggested.  However, couldn't find a couple of packages in the extras repository.  One is in the AUR, but I'm lost as to how to download it from there (newb that I am)

Hi catar,

I guess the networkmanager and its dependencies should only depend on packages in core, extra and community (and no packages in the AUR). So please be sure to enable all of these 3 repos in /etc/pacman.conf.

And please let us know the exact commands you executed and the errors you got, otherwise we cannot help much.

mfs