Arch Linux

Bazzaah

Member

Registered: 2010-03-15

Posts: 69

new kernel won't recognise module

I use Ralink drivers for my wireless connection and have to recompile after each kernel upgrade. It's been fine the last few times.

I upgraded to 3.2.4-1 (I think) today and wento to recompile the drivers but the new kernel would not recognise the driver module.

I've reversed the changes (pacman -U etc) but am curious to work out why that might have happened.

Any ideas on where to start?

skunktrader

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2010-02-14

Posts: 1,680

Re: new kernel won't recognise module

Did you reboot after the kernel upgrade?

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: new kernel won't recognise module

Your description of the issue is too vague. Post exact error messages, complete build output, etc, so people have a clue what you're talking about.

Bazzaah

Member

Registered: 2010-03-15

Posts: 69

Re: new kernel won't recognise module

OK apologies for vague inital post.

For my Asus USB-N13 wireless dongle, I use proprietary Ralink drivers. They need to be recompiled after a kernel upgrade.

There was a kernel upgrade to 3.2.4-1 today and after compiling the driver, I reboot.

The driver generates a module - rt5370sta - and it's not recognised by the new kernel. I know it's been generated because the drivers compile without error.

I go back to kernel 3.2.2 and the drivers work just fine.

udev kicks out a fail message at boot so I know the module's not being picked up then and if I load the module with modprobe I get

FATAL could not find module or no such module

(or words to that effect)

I have this error in /var/log/errors.log.

Feb  6 06:59:54 localhost NetworkManager[517]: <error> [1328511594.994599] [nm-device-wifi.c:3079] real_update_permanent_hw_address(): (ra0): unable to read permanent MAC address (error 0)

There are no errors when I compile the drivers. The native module doesn't work with my dongle.

I guess it's some upstream problem/error. In the meantime, I've added linux to ignorepkg in pacman.conf. I can't have kernel upgrades nerfing my wireless - it was bad enough when kernel 3 came out!

EDIT

tried 3.2.5 and all's well again - must have been some small glitch in 3.2.4 as the .ko file was in the right place.

Last edited by Bazzaah (2012-02-08 16:58:41)