[solved] Wireless not working - Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174

[doktor5000]

placed the board.bin and firmware-5.bin files in /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6X74/hw2.0/ folder and in a hw3.0 folder that I created - it wasn't there but that's where these drivers came from, was 3.0. The QCA6X74 folder all around was not there. I'm debating trying the /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA988X/hw2.0/ folder, but there is already a firmware-4.bin in there, along with notes for it. There is no board.bin for it, or any other file in that folder.

<snip>

There is no opt.bin listed to download at kvalo. The latest firmware is firmware-5.bin, which is what I'm using, with its associated board.bin found here. Maybe I should make the 2.1 folder as well? Or something?

These are not the patches in the post you alluded to? Yes they are.

These are firmware files, not kernel patches. But as you seem to know this a lot better then me suddenly, feel free to figure it out yourself. Good luck doing so.

[dedanna1029]

1. install windows driver via ndiswrapper -i
   optional - check if driver was installed and if ndiswrapper sees the actual wireless device via ndiswrapper -l
2. add the modprobe alias via ndiswrapper -m
3. actually load the wrapped driver via modprobe ndiswrapper

Then you can use drakconnect to configure the interface.

OK, let's back up here a minute. I think we are misunderstanding each other here. This process that I've just quoted here did not work with ndiswrapper. First I had to install ndiswrapper, as it had not installed on the installation of Mageia 5.
Step 1: I installed the Windows driver via ndiswrapper -i. I do not remember what it was, but there was an error on it. I tried it again, and the output was that the driver was already installed (surprisingly). The name of the file I used for the Windows driver was netathrx.inf.
So, since it said that the device was already "present", I moved on to step 2: I used modprobe -m. The output was that there was already an alias in place, because (I'm assuming) that I had already run it earlier in the thread, too early, before I could get the driver installed (my mistake).
I moved on to step 3, since the alias was there:
I ran modprobe ndiswrapper, and there were no results. This confused me because I had just used it?
I moved on to drakconnect anyway, and what was in the OP happened all over again.

So, since that didn't work, I moved on to try:

For ath10k, your questions about the firmware should all be answered by the link posted above: https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/use ... k/firmware

I looked in the directories in Mageia where these files should be, and there was only two files in /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA988X/hw2.0/, those being the firmware-4.bin and a readme. So, I updated the firmware from https://github.com/kvalo/ath10k-firmware/tree/master/ as it said on that page to do, and still got no joy. Now, what confused me was you said it was the QCA988x ones I'd need, at least firmware-2.bin IIRC, because on this computer it's QCA6x74. So, what I did was grabbed for both, and placed them in the directories that they stated on the ath10k information page (the first link here). I created an /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6X74/hw2.0/ folder for those (however, I need to know if it is the QCA988X firmware or the QCA6X74 because this is a QCA6X74 I have here). I then rebooted, still no joy.

Also the driver will tell you where it expects the firmware via e.g. dmesg.

dmesg gave me absolutely no information on any of this.

So, here it sits again.
I'm at a loss as to what else to do.

[doktor5000]

I did not misunderstood you, for ndiswrapper a dozen posts back I've asked for some more outputs. In the previous one viewtopic.php?p=59692#p59692 where you posted those, ndiswrapper kernel module was not loaded (lsmod | grep ndis) and hence no wifi interface to configure - should be obvious from the output.


And for the firmware, from what I read you need the firmware files for your QCA6X74 chipset, but they are only searched in the directory ath10k/QCA988X/hw2.0

The firmware is searched from directory ath10k/QCA988X/hw2.0 under the system firmware directory, usually /lib/firmware

Also the driver will tell you where it expects the firmware via e.g. dmesg.

dmesg gave me absolutely no information on any of this.

Look at your journalctl -ab output before in viewtopic.php?p=59586#p59586 sure it did tell you where it expects the firmware.


But the firmware is only one part, if the kernel driver is not recent enough it won't recognise your chipset properly.
So either you add the necessary patch to the kernel or try the wireless backports linked to earlier.

I don't like to repeat myself unnecessarily, so my pointer goes again to viewtopic.php?p=59505#p59505 where I summarised all that.
Either you use it or you don't.

[dedanna1029]

I'm going to mark this one solved. I went ahead on over to the Mageia bugzilla and filed a bug report there, as the Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 is not supported (out of the box anyway) without going through some hoops. It seemed more straightforward there. We are getting closer to a resolution; I have been able to get kernel 4.1.8 installed, was told at the bugzilla what exactly to download from where and where exactly to place it on the system. I got the kernel update installed by going to a Mageia updates mirror and downloading all of the Sept. 17 through Sept. 23 updates, and then the usb flash stick I downloaded the files to as an update source. This updated the kernel, and some other things.

https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16915

Thank you for the help. I do apologise; it's been way too long since I used Linux due to not having a computer for three years, and had a lot of relearning to do before I could even get up the guts to get here and post about it (and even then came to realise that I hadn't relearned enough). I really just needed to know if there was something super simple I could do to get it going.

[dedanna1029]

I would like to express a huge thank you to Thomas Backlund, who was such a huge help on Bug #16915. Because of him and Mageia, I'm able to run my beloved Linux again. No other distro at this time is supporting the hardware on this machine. The bug wasn't Mageia's to own but they owned it. It was upstream's to fix. Many kudos and thanks.