Arch Linux

X75TIGER75X

Member

Registered: 2014-07-19

Posts: 8

Wifi Issues on linux kernel 3.16 with 2014 Macbook Air

Hi all, I'm having issues with getting my wifi to work on my MacBook Air. In my previous archlinux install, I followed a guide on frankshin.com (at the moment, the server is down) to download Broadcom-wl package and it works fine. But today I started a fresh install of ArchLinux with new kernel, the steps that worked for me in the past, did not work for me.

Copy and pasted method I used from frankshin.com guide to install the wifi driver

wget broadcom-wl.tar.gz https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/br/b … -wl.tar.gz
tar -xvf broadcom-wl.tar.gz
cd broadcom-wl
makepkg -s
pacman -U broadcom-wl-6.30.223.141-4-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

using ip link command gives me two interfaces and my wifi interface showed up in the list
2: wl3s0: <BROADCAST, MULTICAST, UP, LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 gdisc pfifo_fast state UP mode DEFAULT group default glen 1000 link/ether 64:76:ba:a8:42:e2 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

I tried enabling the interface using dhcpcd with this command:
systemctl start dhcpcd@wl3s0.service

After executing the command, terminal would wait for approx. 45 seconds then it reported that it has failed and check journalctl for reports. Contents of journalctl:
wlp3s0: soliciting a DHCP lease
wlp3s0: soliciting an IPv6 router
wlp3s0: no IPv6 Routers available (bold)
timed out (red)
exited
...
-- Subject: Unit dhcpcd@wlp3s0.service has failed
-- Defined-By: system
-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/li … temd-devel
--
-- Unit dhcpcd@wlp3s0.service has failed
--
-- The result is failed.

I am not sure what to do about this error (I'm still learning UNIX and Archlinux system.) I decide to try other method. I used wifi-menu command. It found the wifi networks including mine and a random unprotected wifi access. I tried to use my protected wifi network (WPA security). It said connection failed. I tried to use the unprotected one. It works fine.

I am not sure what to do next. Does anyone have a solution? Thanks in advance.

Richjn

Member

From: Perth (Australia)

Registered: 2004-03-22

Posts: 33

Re: Wifi Issues on linux kernel 3.16 with 2014 Macbook Air

Do you have wpa_supplicant installed ? it is not part of a base install.

Richard

X75TIGER75X

Member

Registered: 2014-07-19

Posts: 8

Re: Wifi Issues on linux kernel 3.16 with 2014 Macbook Air

Richard, yes I have wpa_supplicant installed. I have installed iw and dialog too. But I did not install anything other than that yet.

Richjn

Member

From: Perth (Australia)

Registered: 2004-03-22

Posts: 33

Re: Wifi Issues on linux kernel 3.16 with 2014 Macbook Air

You have already tried wifi-menu which should have prompted for the passphrase for your wireless access point so the following is unlikely to help but it may give some more journalctl output for wpa_supplicant authentication pass / fail

# wpa_passphrase YOUR_ACCESS_POINT_SSID "YOUR_PASSPHRASE" > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

# wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -i wlp3s0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Then try again with dhcpcd@wl3s0.service.

Richard

EDIT: Typoed the interface name

Last edited by Richjn (2014-08-23 02:18:09)

X75TIGER75X

Member

Registered: 2014-07-19

Posts: 8

Re: Wifi Issues on linux kernel 3.16 with 2014 Macbook Air

Okay, I have followed your steps and wpa_supplicant was successfully initialized but it produced a random string of characters and printed "Invalid argument"

Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant
ioctll][SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
ioctll][SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument

But starting dhcpcd service did not produce any errors. Should I be worried about those invalid arguments? I will go ahead and resume the installation including installing DE and stuff. I will come back here if I run into any more problems. Thanks, Richard.

EDIT: It appears that I have to enter those commands every time I need to restart the computer. Do I have to do this or do you have a better way to solve this?

Last edited by X75TIGER75X (2014-08-23 02:54:09)

mjj55409

Member

Registered: 2014-08-22

Posts: 2

Re: Wifi Issues on linux kernel 3.16 with 2014 Macbook Air

EDIT: It appears that I have to enter those commands every time I need to restart the computer. Do I have to do this or do you have a better way to solve this?

You should be following the guide, but install wpa_actiond and enable the service.