[SOLVED] Archlinux installation - wireless adapter driver

kox · 2015-05-01 07:57:14

Hello everyone. I decided to try Arch Linux after I got tired of Debian and it's unstability (the system bricked after upgrading from version 7 to 8). I love the installation, it's so simple just mount the partitions and download software. But I have problem with getting my wireless usb adapter to work. I changed ISP a few months ago and I can't use a wired connection anymore, this is basically the first time I'm installing linux relying on this adapter, I knew it's gonna be a big problem.

The adapter is Asus USB-N10. I have drivers for it, compiled it on Debian before and it worked. I still have the binaries, however I tried make install and make is not found. Is make on the installation DVD? If so, how do I install it from there?
Also in case I somehow manage to install the driver, the module won't load by itself, will it? I will have to somehow load it, if so how?

Last edited by kox (2015-05-02 20:14:13)

jasonwryan · 2015-05-01 08:03:49

You need to install the base-devel group for make

kox · 2015-05-01 11:00:45

So it seems I can't do it without ethernet connection. Before I move my computer to access ethernet cable, I'd like to try usb tethering with my phone. I tried it actually, a new device popped in ip link, but I don't know what to do with it. When I try to up it, it says device not found.

http://postimg.org/image/3u7u39it7/

Edit: I noticed there'a a page on wiki about android tethering. I will try it.

Last edited by kox (2015-05-01 11:07:19)

Gusar · 2015-05-01 11:18:27

Unless there's a new revision of the device out there, you shouldn't require any special drivers, the in-kernel r8712u should work out-of-the-box.

Compiling stuff in the installation media is far from simple. Not only do you need to fetch beforehand all packages for the compile chain, you also need to get the linux-headers package for the same kernel version that's on the media. Overall, not pretty.

About tethering, of course the device can't be found, you made a typo , ethernet devices start with en, you wrote em

kox · 2015-05-01 13:58:40

Yes I realized it. I thought it was m, am I blind I didn't post it, because since I gained network connection I've been messing with installation. I had a little trouble with display managers, lightdm didn't work at all, slim was not able to log in, finally lxdm worked. I still haven't set my wifi adapter. There's much more important issue with graphics drivers.

So I will tell you how it was on debian with the drivers. My graphics card is Radeon HD4850, at the beginning I used the default driver, known in debian as firmware-linux-nonfree, This is the driver that makes terminal shiny and all. However there was a big problem with that. My gpu had big temperatures, like 90C plus, even in text mode! I deleted firmware linux nonfree and installed ati properiaty drivers. Console wasn't shiny and text was much bigger, but it reduced temepratures greatly

So now it's the same case, I've been killing my graphics during this few hours of installation with 107 centrigrade. (now in Windows the temperature is 63C) I installed sensors after getting DE to work, but most likely in text mode I had the same temperature knowing from my expeirience with debian.

During the installation I installed the open source driver as recommended. Now I don't know, maybe if I remove it and install properiaty drivers, it will work. But I'd like to check if the default linux driver is loaded, maybe it need to be disabled and open source driver will work. In debian I would remove linux-firmware-nonfree, is it possible to remove this default driver completely in Arch?

So basicall I need to check whether the system uses the default driver or open source driver. Also I'd like to get rid of the default driver completely.

kox · 2015-05-01 19:18:28

I want to try the AMD properiaty driver. I need to downgrade xorg to 1.16. Does it mean that I have to remove Xorg first and all things that depend on it?

And how do I remove the open source ati driver? Removing with pacman will suffice or do I need to do something more?

jasonwryan · 2015-05-01 19:20:31

Please read the wiki entries on pacman and AMD.

kox · 2015-05-02 08:29:33

I managed to install the AMD driver, temperatures are normal now.

However I'm still struggling with getting wifi to work. I checked and there's indeed the driver was there, however it was not not there when I ran lsmod. I added it in modules-load.d and now it's there when I run lsmod. Here's the output of dmesg | grep usbcore

[    0.542742] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[    0.542750] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[    0.542784] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[    4.477349] usbcore: registered new interface driver rtl8192cu
[    6.852031] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_ether
[    6.878800] usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_host
[    6.942523] usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_wlan

So the driver is there, but I still haven't got a wireless interface in ip link. I don't know what to do.

This is ip link

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: enp2s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 50:46:5d:68:58:66 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
5: enp0s18f2u5c2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

The second one is ethernet, right? 5th is usb tether.

This is what I get about the adapter from lsusb -v
http://pastebin.com/kuYgecuZ

I don't see there "kernel driver in use" or "kernel modules"

Gusar · 2015-05-02 08:49:49

You have the "N10 nano", not the "N10". Different device. Yours won't work until the 4.1 kernel, though it's possible support will show up in a 4.0.x release, as all that's needed is to add the usb-id to the driver.

For now, try this as root

echo "0b05 17ba" > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/rtl8192cu/new_id

If the rtl8192cu module isn't loaded, load it manually before running that command.

kox · 2015-05-02 11:28:01

Thank you, it's visible now. However after reboot I have to do it again. I haven't even get to the point of making connection at startup. Not all networks are shown, including mine. I tried iw wlan0 scan and it shows only 3 networks. Same with wifi-menu. I changed the regulatory domain to my country's and it still doesn't work. My network isn't detected by this.

kox · 2015-05-02 13:00:52

Finally I got it working. I installed 8192cu-dkms from AUR and it works, even without your tweak.

Gusar · 2015-05-02 13:43:06

8192cu-dkms is Realtek's vendor driver. While these drivers are quite crappy when it comes to code quality (lots of unneeded/unused functions, unnecessary abstraction layers, a whole private wireless stack instead of using the kernel one), they do work quite well. It's also my own experience that 8192cu works better than the in-kernel rtl8192cu driver.

I meant to suggest 8192cu, it's highly likely what you were using on Debian, but how could you install stuff from AUR without a connection?

kox · 2015-05-02 13:55:52

I had the connection from android usb tethering since I began installation. I've written that I dealt with desktop manager and graphics driver. How else could I get past the point of installing base system without connection . Anyway It's been hard to set it all up, but I learned a lot of new things about linux

Arch Linux

#1 2015-05-01 07:57:14

[SOLVED] Archlinux installation - wireless adapter driver

#2 2015-05-01 08:03:49

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux installation - wireless adapter driver

#3 2015-05-01 11:00:45

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux installation - wireless adapter driver

#4 2015-05-01 11:18:27

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux installation - wireless adapter driver

#5 2015-05-01 13:58:40

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux installation - wireless adapter driver

#6 2015-05-01 19:18:28

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux installation - wireless adapter driver

#7 2015-05-01 19:20:31

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux installation - wireless adapter driver

#8 2015-05-02 08:29:33

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux installation - wireless adapter driver

#9 2015-05-02 08:49:49

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux installation - wireless adapter driver

#10 2015-05-02 11:28:01

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux installation - wireless adapter driver

#11 2015-05-02 13:00:52

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux installation - wireless adapter driver

#12 2015-05-02 13:43:06

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux installation - wireless adapter driver

#13 2015-05-02 13:55:52

Re: [SOLVED] Archlinux installation - wireless adapter driver

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