a thumbs up, three issues, and one suggestion

Bart_ · 2008-09-19 21:04:11

hello everyone,

I'm using Archlinux for a while now and I'm quite satisfied with it. I appreciate the light-weight idea very much. Even witk KDE 4.1, it is still running smooth on a Athlon thunderbird 900 MHz with 256 RAM.

However... (yes, there's always the terrible 'however').. I am having three issues and after some searching on the web and this forum I still haven't found a solution.
1) Kate was present in KDE 3.5, but after updating to KDE 4.1 it seems to be no longer there. I searched the system, but it doesn't return Kate (only a settings directory which was created with KDE 3.5). Typing 'kate' in the console, now simply gives me: "bash: kate: command not found".

2) Rebooting and shutting down from KDE 4.1 is fine. But logging out of KDE 4.1 doesn't seem to go as it should, because if I do that, I am presented with a black screen and a blinking cursor and can't do anything anymore. Only hitting ctr+alt+del seems to be the option.

3) After performing a system-wide update once, I started to receive the following message during booting of Archlinux (when it's connecting to the wireless network):
"Failed to connect to wpa_supplicant - wpa_ctrl_open: No such file or directory"

Fortunately, there is nothing wrong, I still have Internet access. But seeing this error during booting, looks rather stupid and it would be nice if someone knew how to resolve this.

Furthermore, one suggestion for the Archlinux installation. When I downloaded the iso-file and burned it to a CD, it did not contain the packages for wireless networking. What I did, is simply grab the necessary packages manually from a server, burn it on a CD-RW and installed them, so I could continue installing Arch using my wireless connection. Why not include these packages in the iso-file? (it has been a while after the installation, so perhaps this has been done now) I've seen solutions on this forum which seem to be quite a lot of hassle, like first plug in a network card which has a wired connection and later replace it with your wireless network card.

For the rest, Archlinux is very good. Great work.

ghostHack · 2008-09-19 21:41:43

for 1) install the kdesdk package, thats where kate is now (upstream choice presumably).
for 2) are you using a session manager (kdm)? if so are you starting it via the DAEMONs array or /etc/inittab?
not sure about 3) but the latest version of netcfg made a few changes to wireless during bootup, if you use netcfg maybe you need to double check that your config is still ok with the latest version.

Which packages in particular did you find were missing from the install iso? I've not really looked at the latest isos but I'm sure things like wireless-tools/wpa-supplicant and most re-distributable firmware packages used to be on there, maybe they are not selected by default :shrug:

Misfit138 · 2008-09-19 21:56:51

Everything needed for wireless, including drivers and userspace tools are on the iso...

Bart_ · 2008-09-20 11:35:26

1) thanks!

2) I'm using /etc/inittab and kdm as session manager

3) My settings are:
profile:

CONNECTION="wireless"
INTERFACE=wlan0
SCAN="yes"
ESSID="SomeName"
SECURITY="wpa-config"
WPA_CONF="/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf"
IP="dhcp"
TIMEOUT=20

wpa_supplicant

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1

network={
       ssid="SomeName"
       psk=<my key>
       key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
       proto=WPA
}

In rc.conf there is then NETWORK pointing to my profile and DAEMONS includes net-profiles

As for the packages on the iso-file. Looking at my install CD, I noticed that netcfg isn't present on it.

Last edited by Bart_ (2008-09-20 11:38:38)

Bart_ · 2008-09-24 19:37:06

anyone?

ghostHack · 2008-09-24 20:55:08

I use inittab too (but with gdm currently), the relevant lines from mine are:

id:5:initdefault:
x:5:respawn:/usr/sbin/gdm -nodaemon

also, looking at my rc.conf I notice that I have NETWORKS not NETOWRK with net-profiles in DAEMONS too.

As for the networking packages, the 2008-06-core-i686 iso does contain all the networking packages (netcfg, wpa-supplicant, wireless-tools, all the firmware packages etc). They are in /addons/core-pkgs, although I think the default install only installs the packages from the 'base' group which is only a subset of the packages on the iso.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-09-19 21:04:11

a thumbs up, three issues, and one suggestion

#2 2008-09-19 21:41:43

Re: a thumbs up, three issues, and one suggestion

#3 2008-09-19 21:56:51

Re: a thumbs up, three issues, and one suggestion

#4 2008-09-20 11:35:26

Re: a thumbs up, three issues, and one suggestion

#5 2008-09-24 19:37:06

Re: a thumbs up, three issues, and one suggestion

#6 2008-09-24 20:55:08

Re: a thumbs up, three issues, and one suggestion

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