Arch Linux

firekage

Member

From: Eastern Europe, Poland

Registered: 2013-06-30

Posts: 617

[solved]How to add driver for Atheros Killer e2400

Hi. I would like to ask for help. My MSI Z170A Gaming M3 has an atheros network card and it does not work on Archlinux.

Could somebody help me to install it? Currently i switch from Windows to Arch and form Arch to Windows when i found something out that could help me. I read that Qualcomm Atheros network card works with alx driver but not in my case with e2400. Could somebody tell me how to install it or compile for it?

There are few topics about this issue under linux, no fix. I found something like this

http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.network/376851

and

https://www.mail-archive.com/netdev@vge … 77021.html

but how to aaply it to my kernel?

Thank you for time and patinece.

Last edited by firekage (2015-10-16 19:59:32)

Xabre

Member

From: Serbia

Registered: 2009-03-19

Posts: 750

Re: [solved]How to add driver for Atheros Killer e2400

From what I found and links you gave, it seems that you will need a patched kernel.

Instructions here are for Ubuntu, but aside of getting the proper kernel sources, rest of it should be the same http://askubuntu.com/questions/670347/i … 00-drivers

Last edited by Xabre (2015-10-12 17:05:32)

firekage

Member

From: Eastern Europe, Poland

Registered: 2013-06-30

Posts: 617

Re: [solved]How to add driver for Atheros Killer e2400

It is too much for me, to complicated. I don't know even how to attach mentioned patch to kernel sources.

firekage

Member

From: Eastern Europe, Poland

Registered: 2013-06-30

Posts: 617

Re: [solved]How to add driver for Atheros Killer e2400

I would like to ask for one thing - it is possible to do something in order to have driver but without kernel compiling? I know that drivers are either built in in kernel or as a modules. It is possible to do a "module driver" without kernel compiling? I would like to have internet acces on Arch with E2400 Killer network but i'm not able to do a kernel compiling - it is too complicated, never done anything like this. So maybe "windows approach" with driver as a module is a way to workaround kernel compiling? I would have package for E2400 and would be able to install it?

I thought about this because if this is not built in kernel, with newer kernel i would have the same problem - no driver. Compiling again and again? So, i would prefer it as a loaded module. Could it be created?

I'm trying to build module by ubuntu faq approach. I'm currently at this

make -C /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build M=$(pwd) modules
sudo make -C /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build M=$(pwd) modules_install
sudo modprobe -r alx
sudo depmod
sudo modprobe -v alx

But something does not work. I did exacly what they said, no internet after reboot. One thing is not quite the same - they wrote that something from /extras should be inserted. It is inserted but not from extras in my case. System with lspci see this network card, but no connection.

I don't understand it. lspci sees this network, modules are correctly builded, but in network connection there is nothing with this network card.

0b:00.0 Ethernet controller: Qualcomm Atheros Device e0a1 (rev 10)
        Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI] Device 7978
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11
        Memory at df300000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K]
        I/O ports at a000 [size=128]
        Capabilities: <access denied>

I see that no driver is being used but i loaded and compiled alx.

Guys, no one?

Last edited by firekage (2015-10-14 14:06:10)

firekage

Member

From: Eastern Europe, Poland

Registered: 2013-06-30

Posts: 617

Re: [solved]How to add driver for Atheros Killer e2400

I would like to kindly ask somebody for help...

I downloaded kernel from Arch, and in this kernel there are not any files that would allow me to add new id line, mentioned in ubuntu. There are no main.c file and no reg.h files in arch kernel downloaded from arch website.

The only thing related to Atheros is here

/home/firekage/build/linux-4.2.3-1/usr/lib/modules/4.2.3-1-ARCH/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/atheros/

there are 4 catalogs named
-alx
-atl1c
-atl1e
-atlx

and in alx folder there is only one file named alx.ko.gz.

So, where i should add mentioned on ubuntu webpage my vendor ID for atheros?

Also, arch kernel structure downloaded from arch website is different than structure of plain kernel downloaded from kernel website, from here

https://www.kernel.org/

In the second one i have mentioned files in ubuntu "know how" with Atheros, with arch kernel from arch webpage i don't - only one, single alx.ko.gz file.

I won't be able to build only module? I need to play with kernel building? If yes, than where i should add my vendor id?

I did it! MY FIRST CREATED MODULE WORKS!

I would like to thank for all those helped me, especially for Emerson from LinuxQuestion that pushed me into right direction.

I was able to build my own module with Atheros Killer E2400 and it works like a charm. In order to do this there should be made few steps. Firstly

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … nel_module

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ke … ing_source

Big help from ArchWiki!

In short:

-don't download kernel from archwebsite
-download kernel from kernel archive
-decompress it
-add mentioned lines for Atheros Killer E2400
-build it not with the Ubuntu Approach but with the Arch approach mentioned on ArchWiki

THANKS!

Last edited by firekage (2015-10-16 20:03:14)

stueja

Member

Registered: 2015-10-18

Posts: 47

Re: [solved]How to add driver for Atheros Killer e2400

Hey firekage,

I just stumbled upon your post because, yay, I also have a Killer E2400 card in my laptop.
Before trying your method

-don't download kernel from archwebsite
-download kernel from kernel archive
-decompress it
-add mentioned lines for Atheros Killer E2400
-build it not with the Ubuntu Approach but with the Arch approach mentioned on ArchWiki

I'd like to know whether this will end up in a custom kernel then? So the functionality will be lost whenever pacman -Syu updates the kernel?

firekage

Member

From: Eastern Europe, Poland

Registered: 2013-06-30

Posts: 617

Re: [solved]How to add driver for Atheros Killer e2400

In newest kernel it should be added i think, because i did not had any problem after updating it.