Arch Linux

aytekinar

Member

From: Stockholm

Registered: 2013-12-19

Posts: 25

[Solved]ish Installation Problem on Alienware 13 R2

Hey!

I used to be an Arch-user for more than 2 years so far... I have been able to follow the Wiki's to install Arch on my machines and configure them to my taste. However, now I am stuck with installation for my new hardware. I have recently bought an Alienware 13 R2, and I am having problems with the Ethernet and Wireless devices. The wireless is Killer 1535 (QCA6174) and I do not know how to proceed as the installation process needs a network connection for downloading packages. I'd appreciate any help of yours.

Thanks

Last edited by aytekinar (2015-12-28 16:08:25)

tyrannis

Member

Registered: 2015-11-06

Posts: 94

Re: [Solved]ish Installation Problem on Alienware 13 R2

Could you elaborate on what exactly the problem is, i.e. is it an issue finding the network, an issue connecting to it, etc?

aytekinar

Member

From: Stockholm

Registered: 2013-12-19

Posts: 25

Re: [Solved]ish Installation Problem on Alienware 13 R2

The problem is [actually, was] that I could not get my internet devices (namely, ethernet and wireless) identified properly by the live image of archlinux (20151201). Then, I followed the workaround proposed in some other linux forums. I needed to download board-2.bin and firmware-4.bin_WLAN.RM.2.0-00180-QCARMSWPZ-1 to an external drive from another machine, and saved those as

/lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/board.bin
/lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-4.bin

respectively (while making sure that they have +x file modes). Then,

echo "options ath10k_core skip_otp=y" > /etc/modprobe.d/ath10k.conf
rmmod -v ath10k_pci
rmmod -v ath10k_core
modprobe -v ath10k_pci

solved my problem. By "solved," I mean I still get a dmesg error complaining about the module's not finding the "firmware-5.bin" file in the corresponding folder, but I can at least use the wireless device to connect to internet. Of course, upon installing the system, I needed to follow the above steps to get my wireless device up and running.

Now, I am experiencing Xorg problems (lightdm does not show up) tho I followed the steps in the Wiki related to NVIDIA Optimus (my laptop is using NVIDIA 960M and Intel Skylake integrated graphics cards, and I cannot disable neither using the BIOS).

tyrannis

Member

Registered: 2015-11-06

Posts: 94

Re: [Solved]ish Installation Problem on Alienware 13 R2

Now, I am experiencing Xorg problems (lightdm does not show up) tho I followed the steps in the Wiki related to NVIDIA Optimus (my laptop is using NVIDIA 960M and Intel Skylake integrated graphics cards, and I cannot disable neither using the BIOS).

I'm glad you got your original problem solved, please feel free to start another topic for your new issue, as the guidelines dictate one technical issue per post.