Looooong Horror story, 10.04.4 LTS on an amd turion 64 bit laptop version

Mon Feb 18 19:00:36 UTC 2013

On Monday 18 February 2013 13:19:17 JD did opine:

> On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 7:38 AM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:
> > Greetings all;
> > 
> > Yesterday, I pulled my laptop out of the case for the first time in
> > several months. So it was not 'uptodate'.
> > 
> > As usual, I had a hell of a time making networking work and finally in
> > my putzing around I made wlan1 work, which is a usb interfaced 802/11
> > linksys thingy.  With a cat5 plugged directly into a hub in the shop
> > (my whole place is wired, plus 2 wireless AP's), I could not get an
> > eth0 connection even when doing 'static'.  I think it was looking for
> > IPv6 and rejecting IPv4, which all of my local 192.168.xx.xx net is. 
> > No IPv6 has made it to my neighborhood anyway.  FWIW I have had to
> > disable ipv6 stuff in 2 of the other 4 machines here in order to make
> > ipv4 usable, using the recipe at
> > 
> > <http://www.webupd8.org/2010/05/how-to-disable-ipv6-in-ubuntu-1004.htm
> > l>
> > 
> > I used a procedure which installed a custom combo of kernel 3.5.7 +
> > xenomai, which appeared to install without any gotchas.  But when I
> > was done, I noted the update-manager had checked & wanted to update
> > some stuff, so before rebooting, I let it, 209 packages total.
> > 
> > One of the packages I saw go by was grub.  Since I have 4 other
> > machines here running this same install cd, and they aren't having
> > any grub problems I didn't think anything of it.
> > 
> > The update-manager finished, I had it recheck, nothing left to do so I
> > rebooted.
> > 
> > No grub menu, and it tried to boot straight into the new 3.5.7+xenomai
> > kernel, doing a kernel panic .6 seconds later when it wasn't able to
> > mount sda1 as boot.  NDI why.  Wash with power button, rinse and
> > repeat for probably 50 stop-starts on the hard drive while looking
> > for the magic keyboard combo to bring up the grub menu.  Go on IRC
> > asking, get told quite a few as it seems few actually knew, and about
> > an hour later finally hit on left shift+ctl, dancing on that at
> > powerup finally gets me the grub menu.
> > 
> > Boot to old kernel, a custom built 2.6.32+RTAI kernel as this install
> > cd is a custom spin from the linuxcnc.org site that we have been
> > running CNC machining tools with since 10.04 LTS came out.  IOW, well
> > tested, rock solid.
> > 
> > No networking at all, usb detection of my plugging in the radio dongle
> > is not recorded in dmesg, not a peep.  This lappy has a built in
> > radio, but its a bcm4318, and not even the windows drivers have ever
> > been able to make it work reliably.  It is disabled in the bios but
> > that didn't stop dmesg from mewling about it.
> > 
> > Its well known that the version of network-manager in 10.04 LTS is
> > broken, no support for wpa_supplicant, and despite my requests over
> > the last 3 years, no update to that has been done, so it usually gets
> > disabled and host file based 'static' is configured in
> > /etc/network/interfaces.  Even that isn't working now.
> > 
> > So, I will probably wind up re-installing from that same cd when I can
> > find a copy.  Several laying around in the midden heap a working
> > machine shop can become but I've not excavated that deep yet.
> > 
> > But what was done to grub that makes it bypass the menu, and what was
> > done to the networking or to udev to totally disable it?
> > 
> > Also, rebooting to test a network config change is a PIMA, so what is
> > the ubuntu equivalent of "sudo service network restart"?
> > 
> > Thanks for any advice here. I'd like to fix it rather than re-install.
> > Heck, I might even learn something!
> > 
> > Cheers, Gene
> > --
> > 
> > "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
> >  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> > 
> > -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
> > My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene> is up!
> > My views
> > <http://www.armchairpatriot.com/What%20Has%20America%20Become.shtml>
> > core error - bus dumped
> > I was taught to respect my elders, but its getting
> > harder and harder to find any...
> > 
> > --
> > ubuntu-users mailing list
> > ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> > Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
> 
> Hi Gene,
> Does this special linux spin have all the drivers? i.e. driver
> for your eth0 or wlan0 ? If it does then  yout should be able
> to run ifconfig eth0
> and it should at least output info about it.

Sure, but eth0 has no IP address, only its mac address when I attempt to 
set it up static style.

> If no info, then no driver!!
> If there is info, then attack the NM.
> Can you see the NM icon on the graphical desktop?
> If yes, right click the icon and select Edit
> and take it from there.

NM is helpless as I stated above, no support for modern WPA/PSK encryption 
or long pass phrases in the version supplied with 10.04.4 LTS.

For that, NM needs to be 1.61 or newer, and its 1.58 IIRC.  I even tried to 
build the later versions, did build wpa_supplicant ok, but some header was 
missing that the current NM needs to build, and which was not locatable in 
a 10.04 compatible version on the internet.  However, when wlan1 connects, 
that driver does support the newer security models internally and the 
connection is bullet proof.  But after installing the newer kernel, then 
doing the update-manager thing to bring its 10.04.4 LTS install up to date, 
then neither interface is noticed enough to be mentioned in dmesg, when 
booted to the old kernel.  Previously I often had to boot, unplug the 
dongle and replug it, at which point it was reported in dmesg, about 15 
lines worth IIRC, and the secure negotiation with the AP was then 
successful and I had a dhcp negotiated connection about 20 seconds later..

Or I could plug in a cable and that worked also.  Now, booted to that same 
older kernel, either networking is fubar, or udev.  So my tendency is to 
point at something the update-manager helpfully updated.

I don't even have it (NM) installed on the other 3 machines because they 
are desk or tower machines and are all setup with static connections that 
Just Work(TM).

So I am going to take printouts of the interfaces and syscnf files from 
this machine out to it and see if I can at least get eth0 to work.  If that 
fails, then I'll do a reinstall and start all over, but not before I hear 
back from you folks in case someone else has hit this.  I'll make the 
dongle work, and then see if the update-manager destroys it again.

Thanks.
Cheers, Gene
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene> is up!
My views 
<http://www.armchairpatriot.com/What%20Has%20America%20Become.shtml>
There are many intelligent species in the universe, and they all own cats.
I was taught to respect my elders, but its getting 
harder and harder to find any...