X.org fails to load, wifi unrecognized [SOLVED]

syntaxvorlon · 2012-08-27 02:35:03

I've been getting an issue where several of my devices seem not to be working simultaneously.

Most annoying is that X.org is failing with a:

(EE) No devices detected
Fatal server error:
no screens detected.

I had been attempting to get my computer using the Intel(Atom processor [D,N][4,5]xx Integrated Graphics) driver recently, and in doing so I came across something odd I'll get to below. That aside, I removed the 20-intel config file that is in the see if that might be the issue, natural 1.

In looking for similar problems I found this thread Dell 15z...

Which suggested a possible fix, but as so often happens with solutions on this board, no actual pathology was described. Nonetheless, I tried modifying my kernel settings with acpi=off and acpi=noirq. Still nothing.

Similarly, I no longer seem to be able to use my wifi card(RTL8188, has been working previously) and I have not confirmed it but I believe my ethernet adapter is also not being loaded.

The odd thing that I was noticing in my attempt to make sure the intel driver was configured correctly was that when I tried to enable KMS by modifying my kernel with i915, I found on rebooting that the kernel had not updated. That is I:
Added i915 (and later intel_agp) to MODULES in mkinitcpio.conf
Ran mkinitcpio -p linux
Remembered that I don't mount the boot partition, mounted it, then ran mkinitcpio again.

Everything seemed to work correctly, saying things like:
Starting build: 3.4.9-1-ARCH
Build hook: base, udev, autodetect, pata, scsi, sata, filesystems, usbinput, fsck
Image Generation Successful

So, I thought, all right, maybe it didn't load last time. On reboot however I see on the console:
Arch Linux 3.4.7-1-ARCH

Now, this seems like it might be cosmetic, but running lsmod I find no i915 or intel_agp. Combined with not loading other devices, this suggests to me that for whatever reason it didn't actually build everything correctly.

Other approaches to this issue I've had have been: disabling new software installed since last reboot (daemons and so forth) along with anything that runs X at boot or attempts to use the wifi card.

I'm not sure where to go from here. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Keep in mind that I cannot dump system files easily at the moment. Could the way forward be system file reinstallation with pacstrap on a LiveUSB be the answer?

Last edited by syntaxvorlon (2012-08-29 17:08:36)

ConnorBehan · 2012-08-27 03:41:25

It might be just early start that is broken. Does everything work if you put i915 and rtl8187 in rc.conf's MODULES array?

syntaxvorlon · 2012-08-27 16:31:31

I tried adding

 MODULES = (rtl8187 i915)

to rc.conf and got

 
Failed to lookup alias 'rtl8187': Function not implemented. 
Failed to lookup alias 'i915': Function not implemented.

I am confused about the installation process now, shouldn't the i915 stuff be in the kernel modules natively?

Also, why would these be necessary for the system being able to see the screen device and load the network adapters.

For completeness, I don't think it'll matter, but hey, here is my DAEMONS array:

 (syslog-ng dbus !network @crond !acpid net-auto-wireless !slim !laptop-mode)

Also I checked with uname -a and got:

 Linux ArchMango 3.4.7-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT ...

Which suggests that for somehow I am not actually booting in the latest kernel and that every time I have been running mkinitcpio or reinstalling the latest linux package with pacman, something has just gone wrong. I have even gone so far as to clean my boot partition of both images and vmlinuz-linux and reinstall from the linux (3.4.9) package to no avail.

syntaxvorlon · 2012-08-27 16:39:08

According to this thread here I should be using the rtl8192ce driver. I'll play around with this but I'm pretty sure my system is just not loading the devices correctly.

Could this be a udev problem?

2ManyDogs · 2012-08-27 16:49:40

syntaxvorlon wrote:

Also I checked with uname -a and got:
 Linux ArchMango 3.4.7-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT ...
Which suggests that for somehow I am not actually booting in the latest kernel and that every time I have been running mkinitcpio or reinstalling the latest linux package with pacman, something has just gone wrong. I have even gone so far as to clean my boot partition of both images and vmlinuz-linux and reinstall from the linux (3.4.9) package to no avail.

What's "ArchMango" ?

Strike0 · 2012-08-27 18:35:05

For your i915/nvidia woes, if you have not seen - have a look here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_15z

syntaxvorlon · 2012-08-27 20:18:17

I added the i915.semaphores=1 flag to the grub.cfg, similar to the suggestion in that page, but I have seen no change, same no screens found, no i915 or agp in lsmod, no wlan0 or eth0 device found by ifconfig or in /dev. It's as if I'm missing half of my boot process.

ConnorBehan · 2012-08-27 21:24:38

If your kernel package is 3.4.9 but your kernel image is 3.4.7, then that is the expected behaviour. Your kernel will be looking for modules in /usr/lib/modules/3.4.7-1-ARCH which doesn't exist. Thus, no modules will be loaded. Does

pacman -S linux
reboot

really fail at making your package and image versions the same?

syntaxvorlon · 2012-08-28 02:59:28

Yes. I have gone so far as to backup and delete the vmlinuz-linux as well as the img files in /boot before running pacman -S linux.

Last edited by syntaxvorlon (2012-08-28 03:00:49)

WonderWoofy · 2012-08-28 03:25:34

I have the crappy rtl8188 you speak of. It is indeed the rtl8192ce module you need. I load the module with fwlps=0 and ips=0 because the low power state was disassociating the card from my router every few minutes. It improved, but didn't fix the problem. I still experienced some heavy latency issues with it.

As for the ethernet card, you don't mention what it is. But assuming that with a realtek wifi card there is a good chance you have a realtek ethernet card, my problem was that the low end realtek card is an rtl8111/8168b which needs r8168. Udev loads r8169 because it is theonly module available to it. But you can get r8168 from the repositories, assuming that this is even your problem.

ConnorBehan · 2012-08-28 19:27:27

Did you run "locate" to search for image and ramdisk files located elsewhere? It might be best to post your menu.lst and fstab.

syntaxvorlon · 2012-08-29 17:06:32

I had not. I think I must have mistakenly installed grub and images to /home when I reinstalled. I remember now doing something like that and thinking I'd corrected things. Now it looks like things are back to normal.

So the problem here is that kernel side drivers do not install correctly when you have a superfluous boot sector. Solved, thank you.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-08-27 02:35:03

X.org fails to load, wifi unrecognized [SOLVED]

#2 2012-08-27 03:41:25

Re: X.org fails to load, wifi unrecognized [SOLVED]

#3 2012-08-27 16:31:31

Re: X.org fails to load, wifi unrecognized [SOLVED]

#4 2012-08-27 16:39:08

Re: X.org fails to load, wifi unrecognized [SOLVED]

#5 2012-08-27 16:49:40

Re: X.org fails to load, wifi unrecognized [SOLVED]

#6 2012-08-27 18:35:05

Re: X.org fails to load, wifi unrecognized [SOLVED]

#7 2012-08-27 20:18:17

Re: X.org fails to load, wifi unrecognized [SOLVED]

#8 2012-08-27 21:24:38

Re: X.org fails to load, wifi unrecognized [SOLVED]

#9 2012-08-28 02:59:28

Re: X.org fails to load, wifi unrecognized [SOLVED]

#10 2012-08-28 03:25:34

Re: X.org fails to load, wifi unrecognized [SOLVED]

#11 2012-08-28 19:27:27

Re: X.org fails to load, wifi unrecognized [SOLVED]

#12 2012-08-29 17:06:32

Re: X.org fails to load, wifi unrecognized [SOLVED]

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