EndeavourOS Linux Drops WiFi Every Reboot

B2WJ · May 3, 2020, 11:55pm

Okay @ricklinux. Found it. This would be the section you’re referring to from the *.conf file:

# vim:set ft=sh
# MODULES
# The following modules are loaded before any boot hooks are
# run.  Advanced users may wish to specify all system modules
# in this array.  For instance:
#     MODULES=(piix ide_disk reiserfs)
MODULES=""

I opened NANO in the terminal but need to study its help feature (read “highly cryptic help”) in order to correctly edit per your instruction. Signing off here shortly so will report back at later time. Thanks!

ricklinux · May 3, 2020, 11:57pm

Yes… it’s just a thought to try. With nano you just use Ctrl o enter to save and Ctrl x to close.

joekamprad · May 4, 2020, 9:03am

ubuntu ?

manuel · May 4, 2020, 9:43am

One thing to try is to make a startup script that restarts the interface. Something like:

  ifconfig "interfacename" down
  ifconfig "interfacename" up

The “interfacename” if the name of the interface, e.g. wlan0. You can see it with command

  ifconfig

Try this and if it helps, then you or we can make it as an autostart command.

B2WJ · May 4, 2020, 8:22pm

Well, Debian/Ubuntu. I was just musing about how one would convert that to Arch Linux language. Didn’t do anything with it. Why, did you see some potential with the firmware angle? Firmware, after all, certainly makes sense here. I’m about to give the @Manuel suggestion a try.

B2WJ · May 4, 2020, 10:37pm

So @Manuel, while WiFi was down:

[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$ ifconfig wlan0 down
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not permitted
[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$ ifconfig wlan0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not permitted
[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
[sudo] password for williamjbj: 
[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Input/output error

While WiFi was up:

[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$ ifconfig wlan0 down
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not permitted
[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$ ifconfig wlan0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not permitted
[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
[sudo] password for williamjbj: 
[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$

HERE IS THE SYSTEM WHEN WIFI IS NOT WORKING:

[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

enp3s0    no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=0 dBm   
          Retry short  long limit:2   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off

AND THIS WHEN WIFI IS WORKING:

[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

enp3s0    no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"wjbmedia"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: F8:8B:37:F5:B6:32   
          Bit Rate=19.5 Mb/s   Tx-Power=30 dBm   
          Retry short  long limit:2   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=70/70  Signal level=-17 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:714   Missed beacon:0

B2WJ · May 4, 2020, 10:58pm

ricklinux wrote:
… With nano you just use Ctrl o enter to save and Ctrl x to close.

               [ Error writing /etc/mkinitcpio.conf: Permission denied ]

ricklinux · May 4, 2020, 11:03pm

I think you have to use sudo.

B2WJ · May 4, 2020, 11:27pm

Thanks. SUDO did the trick (will add to my NANO notes). Unfortunately:

[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$ mkinitcpio -p linux
==> Building image from preset: /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset: 'default'
  -> -k /boot/vmlinuz-linux -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/initramfs-linux.img
==> ERROR: Unable to write to /boot/initramfs-linux.img
==> Building image from preset: /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset: 'fallback'
  -> -k /boot/vmlinuz-linux -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img -S autodetect
==> ERROR: Unable to write to /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img
[williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$

ricklinux · May 4, 2020, 11:37pm

Well hopefully it didn’t mess anything up? Did you end up trying the AUR package?

3 aur/rt5592sta_linux_patched-dkms 2.6.0.0-4 (+3 0.00%) 
    DKMS module which contains linux device driver for the Ralink RT2860 ABGN WLAN Card. It's based on halou89's rt5592sta_linux_patched package.

B2WJ · May 5, 2020, 1:09am

ricklinux wrote:
Well hopefully it didn’t mess anything up?

Nothing apparent; at least not yet. I’ve yet to remove “rt2800pci” from MODULES. Guess I should before I forget.

ricklinux wrote:
Did you end up trying the AUR package?
3 aur/rt5592sta_linux_patched-dkms 2.6.0.0-4 (+3 0.00%)
DKMS module which contains linux device driver for the Ralink RT2860 ABGN WLAN Card. It’s based on halou89’s rt5592sta_linux_patched package.

Not yet; I want to be careful so I don’t accidentally purge the RT3090 chipset and in effect lose the configuration file. Keep in mind I’m barely a few days in with Arch Linux and in Debian/Ubuntu configuration files remain intact unless you use a “purge” command. Because Arch doesn’t use actual words like “remove” and “purge” is why I’m treading slowly.

Thanks for all your time and effort – and the very same to everyone else trying to be of help. It is a great forum as advertised.

ricklinux · May 5, 2020, 1:41am

Here is some info on wireless and the RT3090.

github.com

tsgates/arch-wiki-markdown/blob/master/wiki/Wireless_Setup.md

Wireless Setup
==============

> Summary

A complete guide to enabling and configuring wireless networking.

> Overview

Arch Linux provides netcfg for network management. netcfg supports wired
connections on desktops and servers, as well as wireless setups and
roaming for mobile users, facilitating easy management of network
profiles. NetworkManager and Wicd are popular third-party alternatives.

  ------------------------ ------------------------ ------------------------
  [Tango-mail-mark-junk.pn This article or section  [Tango-mail-mark-junk.pn
  g]                       is poorly written.       g]
                           Reason: Article too      
                           large, drivers specific  
                           guidelines should be

This file has been truncated. show original

manuel · May 5, 2020, 6:07am

Please note that with most commands that write to system folders you need to use sudo. Otherwise they do nothing.
But some commands, e.g. yay, ask for password, so no sudo with them…

joekamprad · May 5, 2020, 11:20am

needs root rights with sudo too …

B2WJ · May 6, 2020, 1:58am

Thanks Manuel and @joekamprad; SUDO indeed. Why didn’t I think of that!?

williamjbj@william-aspirez1620 ~]$ sudo mkinitcpio -p linux
[sudo] password for williamjbj: 
==> Building image from preset: /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset: 'default'
  -> -k /boot/vmlinuz-linux -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/initramfs-linux.img
==> Starting build: 5.6.10-arch1-1
  -> Running build hook: [base]
  -> Running build hook: [udev]
  -> Running build hook: [autodetect]
  -> Running build hook: [modconf]
  -> Running build hook: [block]
  -> Running build hook: [keyboard]
  -> Running build hook: [keymap]
  -> Running build hook: [filesystems]
  -> Running build hook: [fsck]
==> Generating module dependencies
==> Creating gzip-compressed initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-linux.img
==> Image generation successful
==> Building image from preset: /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset: 'fallback'
  -> -k /boot/vmlinuz-linux -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -g /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img -S autodetect
==> Starting build: 5.6.10-arch1-1
  -> Running build hook: [base]
  -> Running build hook: [udev]
  -> Running build hook: [modconf]
  -> Running build hook: [block]
  -> Running build hook: [keyboard]
  -> Running build hook: [keymap]
  -> Running build hook: [filesystems]
  -> Running build hook: [fsck]
==> Generating module dependencies
==> Creating gzip-compressed initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img
==> Image generation successful

ricklinux · May 6, 2020, 2:02am

I see it say’s generating module dependencies. Did that work adding it in the .conf file?

B2WJ · May 7, 2020, 2:42am

You would have thought; I thought. But no. Sorry for delayed response but I was so disgusted spent the last 24 hours using as needed my Android devices and the Linux Mint 19.3 ACER. I think we’ve all taken this about as far as reasonable. Collectively it’s approaching 40 interactions soon. So between now and the weekend I’m going to consider four options:

Install the DKMS module that contains Linux device driver for the Ralink RT2860 ABGN WLAN Card. (Based on halou89’s rt5592sta_linux_patched package.)
Work from your shared GitHub directions for fixing the current chipset, RT3090. Obviously it is no longer available from AUR so I’d have to uninstall it and then try to work on the configuration file.
Reinstall Windows 10 (yuck and double yuck) in order to install ACER’s updated driver from end of 2012, Atheros 10.0.0.217.
Replacing EndeavourOS Linux 20.04 XFCE at least temporarily with Linux Mint 19.3 XFCE to see how much better that OS works with the RT3090. WiFi worked perfectly with 19.3 Mate, though in recent months I was getting somewhat frequent cut-offs that were easily fixed with reboots. So it would seem there was a problem slowly developing with the WLAN chip-set, perhaps having something to do with ongoing changes to the kernel. Mint at this very moment uses 5.3.0-51-generic that I believe is fairly behind EndeavourOS/Arch.

ricklinux · May 7, 2020, 3:29am

Well I can only say a few things. I have had to deal with a couple of these Ralink chips and they aren’t really supported much. I think it was taken over by Mediatek and so they weren’t around and in great quantities or for a long time.

The rt2800pci is the correct driver for it but also on Arch it admits it doesn’t work so well. So the options are pretty limited. There are couple others to try.

The github instructions explain how to compile the rt3090 from the AUR and to remove other modules and blacklist so it uses the newly compiled rt3090. I think i would try these and see even though it’s a bit of an effort.

B2WJ · May 8, 2020, 6:47pm

ricklinux wrote:
The github instructions explain how to compile the rt3090 from the AUR and to remove other modules and blacklist so it uses the newly compiled rt3090. I think i would try these and see even though it’s a bit of an effort.

Thanks as always, @ricklinux, for so much help regarding my annoying, deal-breaker Ralink problem. You appear to favor altering the RT3090 per GitHub before trying the card/driver on halou89’s rt5592sta_linux_patched package. I read about others’ experience with the same or similar GitHub work-around and results were spotty at best. Also the GitHub instructions are from 2012 and the RT3090 is no longer available in the AUR. Not to say I’m ruling out either option – given the RT3090 configuration is inside my ACER – but will first overwrite EndeavourOS with MS Windows 10 for installing some or all of the following:

Wireless LAN_Ralink_3.2.1.0_W7x86W7x64_A – Upgrade for Windows7 Z1620s October 2011.
Wireless LAN_Acer_10.0.0.34_W7x86W7x64_A – Upgrade for Windows7 Z1620s July 2012.
Wireless LAN_Atheros_10.0.0.217_W8x64U_A – Upgrade for Windows8 Z1620s December 2012.
BIOS_Acer_P01.B0L_Linux – For Linux converted Z1620s executable with DosTool, ROM, or WinTool.

I will dual-boot Windows 10 with Mint 19.3 XFCE for which – in addition to the Linux-focused BIOS – I will install/uninstall the above WLAN drivers as necessary while obviously retaining the RT3090 configuration as a precaution. Meanwhile, I ran a USB Live Session of System 76’s Pop OS Linux (Ubuntu) and it is impressively scalable. Certainly no where near as scalable as Arch, but a good trade-off if my problems with EndeavourOS/Arch remain following re-installation – assuming I ever get to that point. As a worst cast scenario I may need to check out Intel’s Clear Linux, given both my systems are Intel. (Yes, I know; curiosity aside “Clear” is a fairly vulgarized version of Linux I prefer to avoid.)

In closing, I wasn’t aware ACER was offering the Linux-focused BIOS upgrade until I had happily albeit naively obliterated “Win10” installation disks. I don’t know what difference, if any, P01.B0L can make over the current P01.B0, but I want to find out. Thanks again for everything, with an apology for it having apparently been a waste of your and others’ time.

ricklinux · May 8, 2020, 7:49pm

Not a waste of time and I’m not suggesting trying the rt3090 github instructions over the other one. It’s just information that ultimately you’re going to have to decide where you go with it. There aren’t too many options with that particular chip on Arch at least. I don’t know about other Linux versions. As far as PopOS goes it’s a solid distro. I like what System76 is doing. My only complaint is that it’s just Gnome and also Ubuntu based. But that’s okay it’s Linux. Hope you get it working to your satisfaction.