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venehan_snakes

Member

Registered: 2011-08-30

Posts: 16

[solved] Kernel 3.6.2-1 stole my network devices (atheros AR8161)

# lspci
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 08)
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01)

Before the kernel update via pacman -Syu both were working. Admittedly it took quite some time to get there as the install medium did not provide any working drivers for the ethernet and the wifi was very unstable, disconnecting every few seconds. Anyway, I got through the installation, I managed to wget the compat-wireless-3.5.4-1-snpc and install them and from there on I could go ahead and install the broadcom-wl drivers from the AUR and thus get both the ethernet as well as wlan working (even though the wlan showed up as eth1 instead of wlan0).

Now, after the kernel update ifconfig -a shows neither of my networking devices. lspci still lists the hardware. Fruther:

#ip link set eth0 up
Cannot find device "eth0"

Same goes for wlan0 and eth1.

There is probably an easier solution to this than downgrading the kernel, but since I'm still not very comfortable with systemd and the way services are handled, I have no idea how to proceed or what I could look for. Any help is very much appreciated, thanks.

edit: marked topic as solved

Last edited by venehan_snakes (2012-10-15 15:52:19)

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: [solved] Kernel 3.6.2-1 stole my network devices (atheros AR8161)

I have never used compat wireless, but I assume that if they are modules, they will need to be rebuilt when you upgrade kernels.  I think it is only when you go from, say 3.5 to 3.6, and not necesarily when you go from 3.6.1 to 3.6.2, for instance.  But I am not entirely positive on that.  I just notice that the extra modules directory on my machine only specifies 3.6 at the moment, and the PKGBUILDs for extra modules only specify >=3.6 and <3.7.

venehan_snakes

Member

Registered: 2011-08-30

Posts: 16

Re: [solved] Kernel 3.6.2-1 stole my network devices (atheros AR8161)

I will try to rebuild them, thanks for the hint. I also just noticed this:
>Please be aware that the releases below contain code from the given version of the Linux kernel. Therefore to add functionality, you should select a version that is later than your kernel version.
From: http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Download/stable/
So, I guess I should not use the same compat-wireless-3.5.4-1-snpc again but a newer version, or is that of little importance? I rather ask now before I do more damage.

Last edited by venehan_snakes (2012-10-15 14:55:37)

venehan_snakes

Member

Registered: 2011-08-30

Posts: 16

Re: [solved] Kernel 3.6.2-1 stole my network devices (atheros AR8161)

It worked with compat-wireless-3.6-rc7-1-snpc (see http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Download/stable/ ), the wired network is back. I got one unexpected connection loss, but since then it's been working okay. For the wifi to work I had to install the new broadcom-wl from the aur and everything's running again. Thanks for the help.

Last edited by venehan_snakes (2012-10-15 15:49:09)