Fujitsu Amlio Li 2735 Wireless card issues

Nimphina · 2013-02-06 21:43:25

Hello,

I have a laptop that I want to run Arch Linux but I have a issue that I do run into with many Linux distros, not just Arch in particular. The issue is that Fujitsu have made it that my wireless card does not automatically start on boot and it does not have a physical switch on the laptop, what you have to do (For windows at least) is have a application installed that allows you to enable the card. Now this software is only avalible on Windows, not Linux but, Ubuntu and Debian based distros seem to be able to automatically enable the card on boot. This does not happen however in other distros like CentOs.

So I know that it is possible to get the drivers working under linux but I have no idea how to get them working in Arch and preferably in the live cd install although, I can install the base system through other means but I would like to use the internal card.

From lspci | grep -i net it is identified as:
Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x / AR542x Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 04)

And from iwconfig

wlp8s0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:off/any
Mode: Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=off
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off FragmentL thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off

ip link set wlp8s0 up does nothing and dmesg | grep firmware produces no output.

(I do know there is a hardware 'modification' that you can perform to break contact with one of the pins on the wireless card but I would rather leave that as a last resort)

Any help is appreciated and I hope you can solve my issue.

Last edited by Nimphina (2013-02-06 21:46:54)

the sad clown · 2013-02-07 03:00:05

The easiest way to figure it out is to boot a Ubuntu live cd, and check dmesg for what is enabling your wireless card, then check the configurations associated with that event and translate them to your arch setup.

Edit: You might want to also run "rfkill list" and see if it really is a hard lock that is preventing the card from working.

Last edited by the sad clown (2013-02-07 03:03:26)

Nimphina · 2013-02-07 16:27:24

the sad clown wrote:

The easiest way to figure it out is to boot a Ubuntu live cd, and check dmesg for what is enabling your wireless card, then check the configurations associated with that event and translate them to your arch setup.
Edit: You might want to also run "rfkill list" and see if it really is a hard lock that is preventing the card from working.

The card seems to have a soft lock on it.

I did today somehow manage to get the card to work on Arch but I am not 100% how or why is started enabled, I'm guessing it was somehow enabled from this morning when I used a liveUSB LMDE.

Anyway, this is the dmesg I get under that live USB:

[   14.395332] Registered led device: ath5k-phy0::rx
[   14.395356] Registered led device: ath5k-phy0::tx
[   14.395369] ath5k phy0: Atheros AR2425 chip found (MAC: 0xe2, PHY: 0x70)
[   14.619395] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
[   14.619400] cfg80211:     (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
[   14.619404] cfg80211:     (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[   14.619407] cfg80211:     (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[   14.619411] cfg80211:     (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[   14.619414] cfg80211:     (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[   14.619418] cfg80211:     (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[   14.619437] cfg80211: Calling CRDA for country: AM
[   14.626874] cfg80211: Regulatory domain changed to country: AM
[   14.626879] cfg80211:     (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
[   14.626883] cfg80211:     (2402000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (N/A, 2000 mBm)
[   14.626886] cfg80211:     (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (N/A, 1800 mBm)
[   14.626889] cfg80211:     (5250000 KHz - 5330000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (N/A, 1800 mBm)

(Full dmesg is here https://dl.dropbox.com/u/47430381/dsmeg.txt)

EDIT:

Regarding the softblock, I spent the last hour or two trying to get it working and found I could just run: rfkill unblock 0
Excuse my Linux noobines, I don't usually spend a lot of time getting my wifi working via CLI.

But on a final note, it there a way to get this to work on start up? Via bash scripts of similar?

Last edited by Nimphina (2013-02-07 22:14:15)

the sad clown · 2013-02-08 07:06:31

There probably is, but I'm not good enough at bash to write something that checks for softblocks and removes them. I would suggest first checking and seeing if the removal of the soft block is persistent across boots. If it isn't, I would post a new thread requesting help with a bash script that checked for it and removed it if present.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-02-06 21:43:25

Fujitsu Amlio Li 2735 Wireless card issues

#2 2013-02-07 03:00:05

Re: Fujitsu Amlio Li 2735 Wireless card issues

#3 2013-02-07 16:27:24

Re: Fujitsu Amlio Li 2735 Wireless card issues

#4 2013-02-08 07:06:31

Re: Fujitsu Amlio Li 2735 Wireless card issues

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