Slackware on Acer Aspire 5749-6850 (all working except wifi)

Mig21 · 12-03-2011, 07:29 PM

In case someone is looking for info about this machine: http://littlesvr.ca/linux-stuff/arti...are-as5749.php

Does anyone have an Atheros AR9485 card working in Slackware? Can you point to a solution? It does work in Fedora.

Cheers

vulcan59 · 12-04-2011, 03:34 AM

According to http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k the AR9485 is only supported from kernel 2.6.39.

Mig21 · 12-04-2011, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vulcan59

According to http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k the AR9485 is only supported from kernel 2.6.39.

Yeah, which is why I was hoping that upgrading to the latest kernel would fix it. I compiled my own (3.1.4) and the device started to show up but it still doesn't work:

Code:

# ifconfig -a
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr E8:9A:8F:C3:CA:73  
          inet addr:10.0.0.102  Bcast:10.0.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::ea9a:8fff:fec3:ca73/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1463 errors:0 dropped:122 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1287 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:883183 (862.4 Kb)  TX bytes:196124 (191.5 Kb)
          Interrupt:43 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:560 (560.0 b)  TX bytes:560 (560.0 b)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 74:DE:2B:59:98:8B  
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

Code:

# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=0 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:on

Code:

# iwlist scan
lo        Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0      Interface doesn't support scanning.

wlan0     Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down

I guess I could try to use exactly the same kernel as Fedora uses, and see what happens.

bonixavier · 12-04-2011, 09:45 AM

You could try using the SlackBuild for the kernel-firmware in -current. It pulls the latest git. I have a wifi stick that only started to work after I did that.

Mig21 · 12-04-2011, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bonixavier

You could try using the SlackBuild for the kernel-firmware in -current. It pulls the latest git. I have a wifi stick that only started to work after I did that.

Thanks for the suggestion. It built and installed successfully but didn't seem to have any effect.

I also looked in dmesg, and it seems (though I'm not sure) that the driver is loading successfully. Maybe the problem is userspace configuration?

Code:

[    8.010406] ath9k 0000:07:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[    8.010511] ath9k 0000:07:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[    8.018566] ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x65
[    8.018567] ath: EEPROM indicates we should expect a direct regpair map
[    8.018570] ath: Country alpha2 being used: 00
[    8.018571] ath: Regpair used: 0x65
[    8.019328] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'ath9k_rate_control'
[    8.019498] Registered led device: ath9k-phy0
[    8.019506] ieee80211 phy0: Atheros AR9485 Rev:1 mem=0xf8f00000, irq=17

vharishankar · 12-04-2011, 10:27 AM

Are you sure wpa_supplicant is running? If you're using WPA (most people would be) then make sure wpa_supplicant is configured correctly and running.

Did you try to configure the wireless using WICD? WICD is easy to use and is packaged in extra/ in Slackware.

Not sure if networkmanager is available on Slackware yet.

Mig21 · 12-04-2011, 10:46 AM

Hi vharishankar

wpa_supplicant is installed, I don't know what you mean by "running".

I've had wicd installed all along, it's my ultimate test to see whether wireless works

It says no wireless networks found.

There is no network manager in Slackware 13.37

I'll try to download an iso of Slackware-current and install that on an external drive, see if it will work.

colorpurple21859 · 12-04-2011, 11:59 AM

you can download wicd, is in the extra folder on slackware mirrors. or with a good connection

Quote:

slackpkg install wicd

should do the trick

hitest · 12-04-2011, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mig21

There is no network manager in Slackware 13.37

Network manager is available for Slackware 13.37 at slackbuilds.org, but, that does not help you if you can not get wireless working. I suppose you could build networkmanager on a slackware box that has a wired connection and move the packages over via thumb drive.

Mig21 · 12-05-2011, 02:19 AM

Ok, I will officially admit I've been an idiot. I forgot to configure wicd to use wlan0 as the wireless interface

I probably didn't need to recompile my kernel

Thanks for the help everyone.

This is a great laptop for linux by the way. Right now everything works.

BTW: I installed networkmanager from slackbuilds but the gui for it (also from slackbuilds) seems to require gnome. I'm not feeling like going down that rat hole

vharishankar · 12-05-2011, 03:08 AM

There is a plasma widget and KDE GUI for network manager. I am not sure if there is a slackbuild for it though.

mlangdn · 12-05-2011, 05:11 AM

Network Manager from AlienBob:

http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/inte...the-gnome-out/