Arch Linux

sonnyka

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2011-11-16

Posts: 10

HELP: How to enable an Atheros AR8161 Ethernet?

Dear community,

I received my new laptop today, it is an i5-3xxx Ivy Bridge notebook and includes as network interface an "Atheros Communication Inc. AR8161 Gigabit Ehernet [1969:1091] (rev 10)".
Of course, I want to install Arch Linux on it.

Unfortunately, I was not able to activate the network card. I did several searches with Google to find out, how to activate the network card, but with no success. Can you please help me?

The notebook is a clean and empty notebook, so no OS installed on it.

Thank you,
Andreas

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: HELP: How to enable an Atheros AR8161 Ethernet?

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-931478.html

Yeah, it's the Gentoo forums, but the thread is about this exact ethernet card.

sonnyka

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2011-11-16

Posts: 10

Re: HELP: How to enable an Atheros AR8161 Ethernet?

Thank you for the link!

I've downloaded the driver file on my current 32-bit machine. I am stopped by two problems:

(1) The driver do not compile. Error:
make -C /lib/modules/3.4.6-1-ARCH/build M=/home/acs/Download/compat-wireless-2012-07-03-p modules
make: *** /lib/modules/3.4.6-1-ARCH/build: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden.  Schluss.
The error says, "file or directory not found". Probably, I miss a package containing the modules' sources. Can someone help me out how this packages might be called?

(2) I need to cross-compile for a 64-bit architecture and the kernel version on the Arch install ISO.
How do I do this?

Last edited by sonnyka (2012-07-31 14:46:19)

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: HELP: How to enable an Atheros AR8161 Ethernet?

1) linux-headers is the package you want.

2) Hmm, that's an interesting question, I don't have much experience with cross-compiling, so someone else will need to help here.

sonnyka

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2011-11-16

Posts: 10

Re: HELP: How to enable an Atheros AR8161 Ethernet?

Ok, I got the thing working. :-)

Here is, what I did:
- I used my smart phone for tethering via USB for the Arch installation (modprobe usbnet && dhcpcd usb0).
- After basic installation I downloaded the package "compat-wireless-2012-07-03-cp" from linuxwireless.org - please note the "c" in the name, it does not work with the "-p" packages!
- Unpack it, ./scripts/driver-select alx && make && sudo make install, reboot.

LAN works.

Still, I was not able to get WLAN working.

lspci says:
01:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Device 4365 (rev 01)

Anyone ideas on this one?

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: HELP: How to enable an Atheros AR8161 Ethernet?

Still, I was not able to get WLAN working.

lspci says:
01:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Device 4365 (rev 01)

Anyone ideas on this one?

The forum search function is your friend: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=145884

Last edited by Gusar (2012-08-02 15:31:54)

sonnyka

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2011-11-16

Posts: 10

Re: HELP: How to enable an Atheros AR8161 Ethernet?

Thank you for the link Gusar.

Seems i was to silly/lazy to use Google for that
Anyway, thank you for the link, I am watching the thread.

bericp1

Member

Registered: 2013-02-17

Posts: 17

Re: HELP: How to enable an Atheros AR8161 Ethernet?

I know this thread is old but I've been using the AUR package `dkms-alx` for the AR8121 drivers and it's been working beautifully; however, the 3.10 kernel will have alx drivers packaged in so that's good news .

Unfortunately, as of this posting, 3.10 has yet to hit [core] but you can get it from [testing] if none of your packages require <3.10. For me, my nvidia drivers and bbswitch require linux<3.10 dkms-alx still builds and works fantastically though.