Changes to sarpi-hacks pkg

Exaga · 01-18-2021, 01:32 AM

Please be aware the sarpi-hacks pkg has been modified and will no longer attempt to detect any installed RTCs or add a command to '/etc/rc.d/rc.local' to set the Slackware ARM system time from a NTP server at boot.

These changes came into effect on 17 January 2021 and the sarpi-hacks.README file has been updated accordingly to show this.

TheTKS · 01-18-2021, 09:12 AM

Noted. It pays to read READMEs, and I overlooked this new one, with at least two points immediately relevant to me.

Thanks, Exaga.

TKS

pchristy · 01-19-2021, 09:26 AM

Whilst investigating my bluetooth issues on the Pi 400, I wondered if this package - with the latest firmware - might help. In the process, I noticed that my WiFi had gone AWOL again ( I normally use a wired connection) - probably as a result of a recent kernel-firmware upgrade.

After installing the latest hack package, I'm now seeing the following error:

Code:

dmesg | grep brcmfmac
[    2.390161] brcmfmac: F1 signature read @0x18000000=0x15294345
[    2.394955] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43456-sdio for chip BCM4345/9
[    2.395758] usbcore: registered new interface driver brcmfmac
[    2.431873] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43456-sdio.raspberrypi,400.txt failed with error -2
[    2.615999] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43456-sdio for chip BCM4345/9
[    2.629393] brcmfmac: brcmf_c_preinit_dcmds: Firmware: BCM4345/9 wl0: May 14 2020 17:26:08 version 7.84.17.1 (r871554) FWID 01-3d9e1d87

Rfkill is reporting that wifi is soft blocked! Unblocking it doesn't help, and it gets blocked again upon restarting Networkmanager or rebooting. /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state has "WirlessEnabled=false", but again, setting this to true doesn't help and isn't persistent. Something is changing this file whenever NetworkManager starts.

I have read somewhere that this will happen if regional settings for wifi are not set. Usually, there is a default setting to US somewhere, but this doesn't seem to be happening on Slarm64. I#ve tried creating a rule in /etc/modprobe.d for brcmfmac to get it to load GB regulations (I do something similar on my laptop), but it doesn't seem to work either! Maybe because the firmware isn't loading correctly, as indicated above?

Code:

cat /etc/modprobe.d/brcmfmac.conf 
softdep brcmfmac pre: cfg80211
options cfg80211 ieee80211_regdom=GB

Any ideas? I'm going to try the old Pi 400 firmware from Raspbian, as that worked last time.

Update: No, that produces the same error message! Something is borked here, but I have no idea what!

Update2: D'oh! My fault! I'd inhibited wifi somewhere else whilst trying to sort out bluetooth, and forgotten! There was a suggestion that bluetooth and wifi were not co-existing happily on the 400, but this should have been fixed by the firmware upgrade. Wifi now functioning again.

Still getting that firmware loading error, though.

--
Pete

Exaga · 01-19-2021, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pchristy

Whilst investigating my bluetooth issues on the Pi 400, I wondered if this package - with the latest firmware - might help. In the process, I noticed that my WiFi had gone AWOL again ( I normally use a wired connection) - probably as a result of a recent kernel-firmware upgrade.

Any ideas? I'm going to try the old Pi 400 firmware from Raspbian, as that worked last time.

Update: No, that produces the same error message! Something is borked here, but I have no idea what!

Update2: D'oh! My fault! I'd inhibited wifi somewhere else whilst trying to sort out bluetooth, and forgotten! There was a suggestion that bluetooth and wifi were not co-existing happily on the 400, but this should have been fixed by the firmware upgrade. Wifi now functioning again.

Still getting that firmware loading error, though.

If it were me I'd copy the Raspberry Pi OS 64bit driver modules and test with them. I don't know if their 32bit counterparts within the sarpi-hacks pkg will work as expected on a 64bit OS.

The only country specific wireless setting that I am aware of is from https://www.raspberrypi.org/document...ireless-cli.md under the heading "Adding the network details to the Raspberry Pi" in the 'wpa_supplicant.conf' section:

Code:

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
country=<Insert 2 letter ISO 3166-1 country code here>

Obviously with unsupported software (on both sides of the fence) some trial and error is required. I'm afraid you'll have to see what works and what doesn't with this one.

pchristy · 01-19-2021, 12:58 PM

Once I managed to re-activate wifi (mea culpa!), then my script in /etc/modprobe.d worked perfectly! I haven't seen any "official" way of doing this, and there are other ways, but this is simple. The only downside is that it only works with a specific module - it is not generic.

I'm using NetworkManager for connectivity, so I'm not sure how wpa_supplicant fits in with this! More googling, I suspect! But it might make the regional variants generic, rather than tied to the module.

I still can't get bluetooth to work reliably, though. It works for a while, and then crashes. Once crashed, the only way to recover it is a reboot. The time bewteen crashes is rarely over a minute, and sometimes just seconds. Still not found a solution! The only "oddity" I've found is that firmware not loading. However, if its not loading, how come its working at all?

--
Pete

Exaga · 01-19-2021, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pchristy

I still can't get bluetooth to work reliably

I thought you had another (USB) BT adapter that did work. Whatever works is usually the best option.

pchristy · 01-19-2021, 02:37 PM

I do! It just irritates me that I can't get the internal one to work reliably. It works fine under Raspbian, so there must be a solution. And with the lockdown, I need some distraction to keep me sane...

--
Pete