Arch Linux

Dero

Member

Registered: 2013-04-18

Posts: 10

Problems with WLAN driver

Hi,

when i upgraded my system last week after 3 weeks of not upgrading anything my system got hit pretty hard. At first I couldn't start a X server because of a kernel bug in vgaswitcheroo (dereference of a null pointer). When I deactivated vgaswitcheroo on startup, X worked fine again. After that I wanted to update some SVN repositories but each time I executed

svn up

the X server crashed, I got some output from the kernel and my system froze. Unfortunately nothing was written into journalctl. Then I thought it may have to do anythink with subversion so I wanted to downgrade it and tried downloading an old package using wget. Once wget had established a connection the same thing happened. Since I needed to work on my system fast I decided to do a quick backup and reinstall everything. Installation went through without problems but once I booted the system after the installation and tried to install avahi using pacman my system crashed again. After that I tried to use the internet via ethernet and everything worked perfect. So I figured, that it has to do something with the WLAN driver, but I just can't figure out what it is.

As said the system is freshly installed and I use wpa_supplicant to connect to my WLAN.

Any suggestions on how to fix this problem?

Greetings
Dero

Last edited by Dero (2013-08-16 18:37:56)

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: Problems with WLAN driver

Soooo... you think you have a problem with your wireless driver, but you don't once mention what that hardware (or module) is?  Is this some kind of a riddle?

Dero

Member

Registered: 2013-04-18

Posts: 10

Re: Problems with WLAN driver

The laptop is an Acer Asprice TimelineX 4820TG with an Acer Nplify 802.11b/g/n network adapter.
With the module I'm not sure if it is the one used by wpa_supplicant but the only one from the list provided by lsmod I could think of that it is, is cfg80211.

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: Problems with WLAN driver

Don't be afraid of the wiki. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wi … ice_driver

Dero

Member

Registered: 2013-04-18

Posts: 10

Re: Problems with WLAN driver

K. Thx. Here are the results of those command:

$ lspci -k
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43225 802.11b/g/n (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Foxconn International, Inc. T77H103.00 Wireless Half-size Mini PCIe Card
        Kernel driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge
        Kernel modules: bcma

$ ip link set wlp3s0 up
[  340.905648] brcmsmac bcms0:0: brcms_ops_bss_info_changed: qos enabled: false (implement)
[  340.907692] brcmsmac bcma0:0: brcms_ops_config: change power-save mode: false (implement)

'dmesg | grep firmware' returned no output (but according to the wiki that shouldn't be nessecary since ip link didn't throw the listed error). For the error messages that ip link threw: Those came for over 6 months now and everything worked fine just until nor so I don't think that this has something to do with my problem.

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: Problems with WLAN driver

Yeah, that is an ongoing issue with the module that is occurring with the brcmsmac module.  Here is a thread about it.

Basically there were some changes to some of the modules that the brcmsmac module depends on.  From what I have heard, it is fixed in the 3.11rc kernels.  So a solution is likely not too far off.  For now, you can use the broadcom-wl package from the AUR, as I have heard that it works as well.

Though, I think first you should try using the b43 module as I kind of think that your card is supported.  I think all you have to do is install the b43-firmware package from the AUR, and it will do everything else necessary to put that module in use.  Just install it, then reboot and it should get loaded automatically.  If things are still wonky, use lsmod | grep b4 to make sure it is loaded.  If it isn't then go to the Arch wiki page on braodcom and see if there is anythign else you need to do.

People say that using the b43 module is the way to go in general, so if it works, sticking with it might not be a terrible thing.

Dero

Member

Registered: 2013-04-18

Posts: 10

Re: Problems with WLAN driver

I installed the b43 module and added it to /etc/modules-load.d to be loaded on startup. lsmod | grep b4 lists the module as loaded as well, yet the loaded driver still uses brcmsmac and even if I remove all loaded modules and then lead the b43 module brcmsmac is loaded once again. So I guess that b43 depends on brcmsmac. Nevertheless my WLAN seams to work using broadcom-wl. So thank you very very much for your help.
Once kernel 3.11 is released I will try b43 once more and see if the issues have been solved.

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: Problems with WLAN driver

You may have to actually blacklist brcmsmac in addition (or instead of) simply specifying b43.

In any case, I have also heard that the b43 module is causing these panics as well.  Though it sounds like they are happening less frequently than with the brcmsmac module.  I cannot test any of this since I have a BCM43228, which forces me to use the broadcom-wl module (hopefully support will come my way eventually).