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

[JD]

On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 12:00 PM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:

> 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
>

Hi Gene,
Since you have decided to copy the sysconf files from the other working
machine to the non-working one, how about simply connecting the drive
of the non-working machine to one of the working machines,
mount he drive as a secondary drive on the working machine,
and back up the non-working drive first,
then unmount  it, and mkfs it, remount it, and the cd to root of working
drive and run
tar cf - . | (tar -C /{non-working-drive's-mount-point} -xpf -

When that is finished, cd back into the non-working drive
and at lease change things like the host name and any static
ip addresses in the sysconf../network..../ifcfg....   etc.
Be sure to also change the wpa_supplcant.conf file, if any.

Hope this helps.
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