[SOLVED] No wireless on my EeePC 900

NotMarkus · 2009-05-19 20:40:23

Last night I decided to try a full system upgrade (pacman -Syu). I figured upgrading the kernel might negatively affect the delicate balance I had achieved when I initially installed Arch--at least in regards to my wifi--but I had heard that the newer kernels worked much better with Eee's. After rebooting my upgraded system, my wireless was no longer working.

# dhcpcd wlan0
dhcpcd: version 5.0.2 starting
dhcpcd: wlan0: waiting for carrier
dhcpcd: timed out

I've heard from multiple people that Arch with the stock kernel works out of the box with EeePC 900s, but I get this error every time. My madwifi drivers are up to date.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

Last edited by NotMarkus (2009-05-22 15:55:20)

brisbin33 · 2009-05-19 21:18:26

i've also heard the stock kernel is good, but kernel-eee from toofishes repo is just too easy to pass up. i'd recommend that, it's maybe a fifteen minute process to get going and you can just leave your exiting grub entry in menu.lst to go back to stock if it doesn't work out.

add his repo to pacman.conf:

[eee]
Server = http://code.toofishes.net/packages/eee

install via pacman -S kernel-eee

adjust /boot/grub/menu.lst

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch EEE Kernel
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuzeee root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/74398cff-692f-435e-ab0a-b101c50bc302 ro elevator=noop
initrd /kernel26.img

# (1) Arch Linux
title  Arch Stock Kernel
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/74398cff-692f-435e-ab0a-b101c50bc302 ro elevator=noop
initrd /kernel26.img

then just reboot.

with this kernel i have MODAUTOLOAD set to NO, i manually load ath5k, mac80211, and cfg80211, and i use netcfg to manage profiles. i have perfect wireless bahavior and functional two-finger scroll (w/o a xorg.conf). these things i did not have with the stock kernel.

it's worth a try.

NotMarkus · 2009-05-20 02:24:45

Thanks for the reply. I grabbed kernel-eee, and while I haven't achieved flawless wifi or two-finger scrolling, I'm making some progress. I didn't use netcfg before because I didn't have much use for it, but I will need it in about a month anyway when I move, so I've installed that too.

I set up a "main" profile in /etc/network.d/ and I added "net-profiles" to my DAEMONS line in rc.conf.

If I run

# netcfg main

it goes up smoothly. However, when it tries to start the daemon on boot, it fails, saying:

:: main up                                        [BUSY]
dhcpcd: timed out
            - DHCP IP lease attempt failed        [FAIL]

However, if I then immediately log in and type netcfg main, it works perfectly.

I've attempted to edit the TIMEOUT line in /etc/network.d/main, but whatever timeout I use, it times out after 10 seconds.

Is there a way to get verbose output from netcfg during the boot process? Even without a @ prefix, the only information it provides is what I quoted above.

Thanks again!

Ferrenrock · 2009-05-21 21:27:34

instead of doing dhcpcd right off the bat, did you try modprobing the module and then the classic 'ifconfig wlan0 up' 'iwconfig wlan0 essid foobar'? Netcfg might be automatically doing this--I don't use netcfg, so I'm running on that assumption.

NotMarkus · 2009-05-22 07:57:18

I actually tried adding

PRE_UP='ifconfig wlan0 up && sleep 3'

to my config file, but it didn't work (even with sleep 10). Then I tried

PRE_UP='ifconfig wlan0 up && iwconfig wlan0 essid linksys && dhcpcd wlan0 && sleep 10'

and it connected to the network. It's got to be a bug in netcfg, and I've come across a few threads about it now but none are really resolved. :\

Daenyth · 2009-05-22 13:22:52

Did you try using the 'preup' quirk?

NotMarkus · 2009-05-22 15:54:57

I looked up the quirks at http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Net … d_later.29

After some trial and error, it turns out that

QUIRKS=(preessid)

solves the problem. Thanks a million, Daenyth--and everyone else who helped me out here!

Arch Linux

#1 2009-05-19 20:40:23

[SOLVED] No wireless on my EeePC 900

#2 2009-05-19 21:18:26

Re: [SOLVED] No wireless on my EeePC 900

#3 2009-05-20 02:24:45

Re: [SOLVED] No wireless on my EeePC 900

#4 2009-05-21 21:27:34

Re: [SOLVED] No wireless on my EeePC 900

#5 2009-05-22 07:57:18

Re: [SOLVED] No wireless on my EeePC 900

#6 2009-05-22 13:22:52

Re: [SOLVED] No wireless on my EeePC 900

#7 2009-05-22 15:54:57

Re: [SOLVED] No wireless on my EeePC 900

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