Beagle ubuntu wireless LAN support suggestion

GoogleGroups
1

Hello folks,

I don’t know who is involed to or even responsible for the ARM EABI ubuntu distribution. (But, guess Robert Nelson is the closest one.)

With current rootfs image, the USB WLAN support is not mandatory and using USB to Ethernet is strongly encouraged. However, the U2E is not much popular in these days (at least here in Korea) and lots of USB WLAN devices are easily available. So, I believe helping people use WLAN easier would be quite useful.

What I figured out is that the device drivers are alread in the rootfs and the kernel recognizes those devices attached. There are three works need to be done

  1. WLAN device firmware
    There are firmware binaries in the ‘/lib/firmware’ directory in the desktop ubuntu distribution(I am using 8.10 now.). Same directory is in our beagle board ubuntu (I use lxde desktop version) rootfs image but empty. What I did was copying all the files and subdirectories in my desktop PC to my beagle board and boom, it works perfect. :slight_smile:

  2. Installing wireless-tools package
    To configure the WLAN devices, we need iwconfig and it is in the package.

  3. Configuring the WLAN device (Here, I assume no encryption for the wireless LAN AP and dhcp server running on the network)
    a. ‘iwconfig’ at the prompt to figure out which device is present
    Ex) I can see ‘wlan0’ appear on the screen
    b. Configure the device with the following commands
    sudo iwconfig YOUR_DEVICE(wlan0 for me) essid “MY_AP_ESSID”
    sudo dhclient YOUR_DEVICE(wlan0 for me, again)

If it is not possible or practical to do the number 1 and 2 with respect to the distribution, we probably can update the wiki page.

What do you think?

ILKYOUNG

2

Hi ILKYOUNG

I think i finally found it...

In jaunty/karmic on your beagleboard do: sudo apt-get install linux-firmware

or add it to the seed:

sudo ./build-arm-rootfs --fqdn beagleboard --login ubuntu --password
temppwd --imagesize 2G --seed lxde,gdm,linux-firmware

Let me know if that works, for these devices that need firmware.

Regards,

3

From: beagleboard@googlegroups.com
[mailto:beagleboard@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Robert Nelson
Sent: Monday, June 01, 2009 5:59 PM
To: beagleboard@googlegroups.com
Subject: [beagleboard] Re: Beagle ubuntu wireless LAN support suggestion

> Hello folks,
>
> I don't know who is involed to or even responsible for the ARM EABI

ubuntu

> distribution. (But, guess Robert Nelson is the closest one.)
>
> With current rootfs image, the USB WLAN support is not mandatory and

using

> USB to Ethernet is strongly encouraged. However, the U2E is not much

popular

> in these days (at least here in Korea) and lots of USB WLAN devices are
> easily available. So, I believe helping people use WLAN easier would be
> quite useful.
>
> What I figured out is that the device drivers are alread in the rootfs

and

> the kernel recognizes those devices attached. There are three works need

to

> be done
>
> 1. WLAN device firmware
> There are firmware binaries in the '/lib/firmware' directory in the

desktop

> ubuntu distribution(I am using 8.10 now.). Same directory is in our

beagle

> board ubuntu (I use lxde desktop version) rootfs image but empty. What I

did

> was copying all the files and subdirectories in my desktop PC to my

beagle

> board and boom, it works perfect. :slight_smile:
>
> 2. Installing wireless-tools package
> To configure the WLAN devices, we need iwconfig and it is in the

package.

>
> 3. Configuring the WLAN device (Here, I assume no encryption for the
> wireless LAN AP and dhcp server running on the network)
> a. 'iwconfig' at the prompt to figure out which device is present
> Ex) I can see 'wlan0' appear on the screen
> b. Configure the device with the following commands
> sudo iwconfig YOUR_DEVICE(wlan0 for me) essid "MY_AP_ESSID"
> sudo dhclient YOUR_DEVICE(wlan0 for me, again)
>
> If it is not possible or practical to do the number 1 and 2 with respect

to

> the distribution, we probably can update the wiki page.
>
> What do you think?
>

Hi ILKYOUNG

I think i finally found it...

In jaunty/karmic on your beagleboard do: sudo apt-get install

linux-firmware

or add it to the seed:

sudo ./build-arm-rootfs --fqdn beagleboard --login ubuntu --password
temppwd --imagesize 2G --seed lxde,gdm,linux-firmware

Let me know if that works, for these devices that need firmware.

Doesn't the firmware get installed when you install the kernel modules?

Kind Regards,
John

4

Let me know if that works, for these devices that need firmware.

Doesn't the firmware get installed when you install the kernel modules?

Kind Regards,
John

It use too pre 2.6.26??? There is a big push now days to remove all
firmware from the kernel, anything new gets put directly in
linux-firmware where as anything old gets ripped out from mainline...

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/dwmw2/linux-firmware.git;a=summary

Ubuntu's: Ubuntu – Error

Regards,

5

Robert,

Wow, there is a more graceful way to get it. :slight_smile:

I will try it and let you know the result. It would take some time for me to try because I have less than an hour during week days to play with my beagle board. :frowning:

BTW, I believe you can amend the wiki page with the new instruction and tag it as ‘unproven yet’. I am sure there would be some confirming replies from the world.

Regards,

ILKYOUNG.

2009/6/2 Robert Nelson <robertcnelson@gmail.com>

6

Hi ILKYOUNG,

It looks good: http://pastebin.com/m6e012ee7

BTW, Some people have reported issues with the zd1211. When built
into the kernel as a module, it doesn't correctly load without the
firmware present. (it doesn't wait for the root file system to come
up, but it does works if you plug in the usb wifi after the system is
fully loaded..) If you have one of these zd1211 usb wifi adapters, we
are testing a kernel with the module built external (1)... Other
devices may show this same behavior, if they work by waiting till the
system is booted before plugging in the usb, let me know and i'll
switch the module to being built as external to test and new
linux-image*.deb

1: http://www.rcn-ee.com/deb/kernel/beagle/jaunty/v2.6.29-58cf2f1-oer35.1/linux-image-2.6.29-oer35.1_1.0jaunty_armel.deb

Regards,

7

I can confirm that a number of wireless adapters work - the only one I had issues with was the zd1211rw which wasn’t especially difficult to resolve. I am working happily with WPA2PSK encryption…

I’m happy to test the next Angstrom kernel and once its working without needing a kernel compile I’m also happy to provide instructions on the Wiki.

8

@ Michael Evans,
Can you please let me know the working wireless adapters and the
driver you used for them.
Also I was looking for Ad-hoc connectivity between multiple
beagleboards --- I don't know
if anyone tried this before. Let us know if you have and details on
this.

Thanks,
Amit

9

Hi Michael,

I was looking for wireless connectivity on BB, can u tell me some
wireless adapters which you got working.
Actually I was looking for Ad-hoc type of connection between multiple
BB's. I am not sure if anyone has
tries this before. Do let me know if you have suggestions for this.

Thank,
Amit

10

I am using a D-Link DWA 110 wireless USB adapter. I use Debian on Beagle board so I guess this will work fine with Ubuntu as well. However, I haven’t been able to get it working with Angstrom.

Do let me know if you need more information.

11

Thanks Radha for your suggestion. I checked D-Link website and DWA-110
is no longer available.
Through customer service I found that DWA-140 is the one which works
with Linux.

And I am working with Angstrom and Ubuntu. I will contact you once I
get the adapter and if
there are any issues.

Thanks again
Amit.

12

Hi Amitshah,

I’ve got Prism and ZD1211 based cards working under Angstrom and Debian. Debian seems to be easier to get working at the moment - but I’m working on some fixes for Angstrom. You shouldn’t have any big problems doing ad-hoc connections - although I’ve completely failed to get wpa_supplicant to work with adhoc connections… :frowning:

If you need wireless security then I would look to get a wifi card that can be put into “master” mode which makes it act as an access point… then wpa_supplicant seems to behave properly. Otherwise, just do what I did which is wrap the data in an SSL/TLS session.

Mike

13

The two adapters I’ve used got working are a Belkin Wireless-G (zd1211rw) and an old Linksys 802.11b adapter (prism). I’ve been downloading and bitbaking Angstrom/OE so that I can see what changes have already been made and contribute fixes rather than waiting for official kernels as that route could be pretty slow.

Sadly I started out on a FAT32 partition as it had lots of space - but thats a bad idea because FAT doesn’t support symbolic links. My second bad idea was to try and move the files from FAT32 to EXT3 which caused no end of hassles - but at least has taught me quite a bit about BitBake…

Factoid-of-the-day / lesson from all this is that copying from FAT32 to EXT3 converts any filenames which are all uppercase to all lowercase… well I never…

14

Hi,

I'm not sure whether my query is righ here, but i have a good exposure
here. I tried Ubuntu Desktop in Beagle board i have (Rev B6). When i
try starting it it will ask for user name and password. After me
entering those, the control is hanging with mouse pointer displaying
in LCD screen. It is not going normally. But i tried with Lxde Desktop
edition, It works fine without any problem. I would like to make it
work for normal ubuntu Desktop. Can some body here light up my room to
go further.

Thanks,
Suresh Kalidasan.

15

Hi Suresh,

The Ubuntu Desktop will eventually load it's just much more memory
demanding than lxde (or xfce4 which i recommend) so make sure you've
set some swap space/file available or mmc or usb device.

Regards,

16

Hi Nelson,

Really thanks for your reply. I browsed some link regarding swap and more as shown below, but i’m not getting any information. So can you guide me on how to set swap space as you told in your previous transaction.

http://groups.google.com/group/beagleboard/browse_thread/thread/5804dbfc9c5b08d1

http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu

Regards,
Suresh Kalidasan.

17

Hello,

Ubuntu has some pretty good tutorials on this so i never added it to
the elinux wiki.

Adding Swap File:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq#How%20do%20I%20add%20more%20swap?

Regards,

18

Hi Nelson,

Thanks for your update, i did the same i.e., increased swap space and logged in through serial port too. But now i have this error. It was there with be even before too.

ubuntu@beagleboard:~$ mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953874
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953882
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953890
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953898
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953906
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953914
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953922
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953930
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953938
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953946
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953954
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953962
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953970
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953978
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953986
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 953994

I think Radha ( Radhahttp://sradhakrishna.blogspot.com) too faced the same problem, i believe he can also comment here. I saw in some threads he was showing these kind of issues.

Can you give some update to solve this :slight_smile:

Regards,
Suresh Kalidasan.

19

Suresh,

I have a debian distro running on my beagle system. I had to create a swap partition on the SD card. I had followed the instructions on http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardDebian to set up Debian. The steps also involve setting up a swap partition on the SD card. I believe the same process will work for Ubuntu as well.

Please do let me know if you are still facing any problems after trying these…