kernel upgrade broke wireless on eeepc

[Robin Sheat]

Binary package hint: linux-backports-modules-intrepid

With kernel 2.6.27-7, my eeePC 701 had wireless working just fine using the backports modules. Now that I upgraded to 2.6.27-9, the wireless no longer works. Needless to say, this is not a good thing.

01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Device 1a3b:1026
 Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 18
 Memory at fbef0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
 Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
 Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
 Capabilities: [60] Express Legacy Endpoint, MSI 00
 Capabilities: [90] MSI-X: Enable- Mask- TabSize=1
 Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting <?>
 Capabilities: [140] Virtual Channel <?>
 Kernel modules: ath5k, ath_pci

[robin@gulik:~]$ lsmod |grep ath5k (12-04 14:30)
ath5k 106496 0
lbm_cw_mac80211 210728 1 ath5k
lbm_cw_cfg80211 39696 2 ath5k,lbm_cw_mac80211
led_class 12164 1 ath5k
[robin@gulik:~]$ lsmod |grep ath_pci (12-04 14:31)
ath_pci 99096 0
wlan 211952 1 ath_pci
ath_hal 198864 1 ath_pci
[robin@gulik:~]$ iwlist scan (12-04 14:31)
lo Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

tun0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

[Andy Whitcroft (apw)]

This is not a bug in the linux-meta package, moving to the linux package.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Robin,

Sorry for the delay, seems this was just reassigned to the "linux (Ubuntu)" package. Can you comment if this is still an issue? Thanks.

[Robin Sheat (eythian)]

I think I worked around it by blacklisting ath_pci and using ath5k. However, that machine has long since been upgraded to Jaunty, so I'm not sure if the original issue still occurs.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Robin,

Thanks for the feedback. Indeed Jaunty should use the ath5k driver by default rather than the proprietary ath_pci driver. Since it's not clear if this exact issue remains in Jaunty I'm going to close this bug for now. Feel free to open a new bug for any other issues you experience. Thanks.

[Robin Sheat (eythian)]

Oh, for clarification, whatever Jaunty does, works (except the wireless on/off key, but that's another issue.)