Arch Linux

tim

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-10-29

Posts: 98

no network cards at all

OK I just bought a new laptop which requires the ipw3945 driver for an intel wireless card and some other driver I havent figured out yet for the Agere systems LAN card. Now I'm pretty sure there are no drivers for the LAN card in the arch repos and the ipw3945 driver etc is only available from extras. SO! Since I cant get online to download the drivers, has anyone got any ideas how I could actually get the ipw driver?

p.s. I downloaded the required packages for the ipw3945 driver manually and attempted to install them locally with pacman but I get and error message about missing information files (or header files or something like that) and nothing is installed.

Any help would be very much appreciated. I've been a huge fan of arch for at least a year now and I would hate to have to start using mandriva; which is the only distro to come with all the drivers for my new laptop apart from $ellout $u$e which I am currently and begrudgingly using as a last resort.

Help Help Help. Please Please Please

tim

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: no network cards at all

What does lspci say about your wired NIC?

tim

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-10-29

Posts: 98

Re: no network cards at all

it says:

marvin:/home/tim # lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controller AHCI (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility X1400
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Agere Systems ET-131x PCI-E Ethernet Controller (rev 02)
05:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
06:00.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
06:00.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
06:00.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
06:00.3 Generic system peripheral [Class 0805]: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller

BTW.

I downloaded the linux ipw3945 package straight from intel and I think I managed to do everything correctly except 1 thing. I need to put the ipw3945-ucode file somewhere and I have no idea where its supposed to go. I tried putting it in /lib but no joy there. The documentation says it should be in the firmware directory for hotplug or something to that effect.

tim

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-10-29

Posts: 98

Re: no network cards at all

I might add that that output from lspci came from suse not arch.

tim

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: no network cards at all

The ucode file goes in /lib/firmware, which you will need to create first.

fk

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2006-04-29

Posts: 524

Re: no network cards at all

This is the driver for your NIC

http://sourceforge.net/projects/et131x

you must compille manually

I found it here

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_LG_A1

---

Have you tried to turn it off and on again?

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: no network cards at all

And the et131x driver for your wired nic is available here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/et131x/

Not in the Arch repos yet, as you suspected.

(fk - snap)

Last edited by tomk (2007-03-27 11:05:33)

tim

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-10-29

Posts: 98

Re: no network cards at all

The ucode file goes in /lib/firmware, which you will need to create first.

thanks tomk! the driver loads properly now.

tim

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-10-29

Posts: 98

Re: no network cards at all

OK so my efforts have proven fruitless with the wireless card. dmesg shows that arch detects I have an intel pro wireless card and loads the ipw345 driver but I have absolutely no network devices. The only thing that shows up with iwconfig or ifconfig is loopback.

I'll try the wired card and see if that works.

Thanks tomk and thanks fk

tim

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-10-29

Posts: 98

Re: no network cards at all

Ok so I downloaded the source for the wired nic and I cant even make it.
A milliion errors appear about some some function expecting 3 parameters but only two were given and others of that nature??? Can't be bothered with this anymore.

thanks again tomk and fk for all your help ...

and so long archers, it was sweet while it lasted. Arch was the best linux distro on the planet in my view. But now, I guess thats all over. If anyone thinks the ipw3945 drivers will be included with the main iso for 8.0 then let me know. I'll come back for sure.

tim

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: no network cards at all

Wow.... sorry it didn't work out, but if you really think it's "the best distro on the planet", I'd hate to see you give up just like that. Could you borrow (or even buy, given the et131x status) a PCMCIA NIC to get yourself installed, and then get ipw3945 up and running? (It's not going to be on the 0.8 iso, by the way).

The errors you describe, btw, are due to changes in the 2.6.20 kernel, which the et131x devs have apparently not accounted for yet. That doesn't help you, I know - It's just for information.

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: no network cards at all

OK, turns out I'm hooked on this one. I've built et131x with no errors, so here's an Arch package for it:

http://www.archlinux.org/~tom/packages/ … pkg.tar.gz

This is for the current default Arch kernel, package kernel26 2.6.20.x, uname 2.6.20-ARCH, and it is of course untested, as I do not have the hardware. If you're still here, install Arch with the latest beta ISO, which provides the 2.6.20-ARCH kernel, and install this package from floppy, CD-ROM, USB Stick, or whatever.

And if you're already gone, well... good luck.

tim

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-10-29

Posts: 98

Re: no network cards at all

No I'm still here. I couldn't really ever give up on arch. It's just way too cool. I used to be a freebsd junkie but the flakey linux compatability layer stuff was just unacceptable when it came to hardcore applications like matlab and mathematica which I need to run rock solid and fast, and just downright irritating when things like thunderbird have a completely messed up interface thats almost unuseable. So arch to me is like bsd, but linux. You get the simple, sensible configuration, that makes hacking my around the system just so easy, the awesome speed and it's absolutley rock solid. I love it. However, I'm just in the middle of school and a new project for work so I dont really get much time to spend playing with arch at the moment and I suppose I just got a bit dissapointed.

Anyway. Firstly thanks heaps for the effort you have gone to to help me out. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
Secondly, I perhaps should have said that I have a core2duo so im not sure if the driver you built will run for me; i'm presuming of course that you didn't build it with a 64 bit processor and that it will somehow matter.

Anyway I'll give it a go and report back.

thanks again

tim

tim

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-10-29

Posts: 98

Re: no network cards at all

OK I added your package with pacman but it doesnt do anything by itself. Still no NIC. lsmod shows that it has not been loaded so I tried to load it manually and I get an error message something like:

error: -1 cannot insert et131x.ko invalid format

or something to that effect (from memory of course)

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: no network cards at all

Are you using the latest ISO, as mentioned above?

And yes, that package is built for i686. Your c2d can run 32-bit Arch, but if you're going for Arch64, it obviously won't help you.

tim

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-10-29

Posts: 98

Re: no network cards at all

OK games over. I win.

:-)

Although the game was completely unfair. You couldn't possibly have known that the real problem was OS error. Thats O.S. error. Operator Stupidity error. My god I can't belive I'm going to admit this but the only reason the ipw3945 drivers I downloaded from current didnt work the first time I tried to install them is because they weren't arch packages. I download the source files and was trying to get pacman to install the source files. LOL my god. No wonder pacman was complaining about missing files. LOL. It didnt even occur to me to look at what I was doing.

What a tool!

Anyway, I downloaded the actual packages from one of the mirrors and they worked perfectly. I have wireless. So all is right with the world and I can get back to a normal life with arch at my fingertips. All I need now is a shower after having been using suse for the last few weeks.

So thanks for all your help tomk. Can't tell you how sorry I am to have wasted your time.

p.s. I want to download the latest iso for 0.8 but I can't find it anywhere except ftp://ftp.archlinux.org/other/0.8/x86_64 and it's painfully slow. Do you know if any of the mirrors have it yet. I've checked about half a dozen of them but none of them have it.

thanks again tomk

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: no network cards at all

Good story, happy ending - what more could you ask for?

Glad to help, and welcome to Arch.

Try here for the iso: http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/ftp.archli … .8/x86_64/

tim

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-10-29

Posts: 98

Re: no network cards at all

The happy ending was shortlived unfortunately.

I got up and running and then updated my system i.e.  pacman -Syu,  and now the ipw3945 driver doesnt work. GRRRRR!!!!

All I get is a message that says something saying the intel pro wireless ipw3945ABG controller does not exist.

this is getting irritating!

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: no network cards at all

What versions of the kernel26 and ipw3945 packages have you got now?

tim

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-10-29

Posts: 98

Re: no network cards at all

Well I'm writing to from my new archlinux x86_64 speed machine :-)

The problem was in the new ramdisk created after the upgrade. I just blew it away and used fallback and everything was fine.

Now I just have to figure out how to get 32 bit apps; like my student version of matlab, to run on a 64 bit machine.

Anyway, thanks again for your time tomk

tim

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-10-29

Posts: 98

Re: no network cards at all

What versions of the kernel26 and ipw3945 packages have you got now?

To answer your question:

kernel26 2.6.20.4-1
ipw3945 1.2.0-2