Xubuntu 9.04 Jaunty

Actually, the auto-update notification should have told you about the availability of the new kernel and just updated it for you. I see you have done it another way, but if you have notifications for updates enabled, updates should all be automatic and only take a couple of minutes.

M.

Edit: I have just seen all the talk of custom kernels, Linux headers, and other completely unnecessary command line stuff. Ignore all of that and just enable auto-update. The machine will check for updates in the background once per day and pop up a notification saying there are updates available if there are. After that it's a simple case of click, confirm, click, and maybe a restart if it asks, and voilá. All done.

 

That won't work for getting the 2.6.30 kernel into Jaunty. Each Ubuntu release freezes the kernel version, only adding patched versions of the same kernel. I.E. 2.6.28.xx in Jaunty. Karmic will be using the 2.6.30 kernel and the alpha repositories for Karmic have allready updated the kernel abi to .4 as far as I remember.
If you want the 2.6.30 series kernel forr use in Jaunty, you have to follow the previous descrbed procedure to get it from the mainline ppa.

 

Correct, and installing a new kernel from the PPA was not difficult -- no command-line needed unless you want to tweak the grub menu.list to remove references to earlier kernels. I just downloaded the installation file and ran it with GDebi Package Installer.

However, back to one of my other questions, re uninstalling the 2.6.28sickboy-kuki kernel. You wrote:

Since the sickboy kernel didn't work for me, which is the safest way to uninstall the 2.6.28 kernel:

Run Synaptic package manager, search for linux-image-2.6.28sickboy-kuki and then choose "Mark for complete removal"

OR

sudo aptitude remove linux-image-2.6.28sickboy-kuki

OR

sudo dpkg -P linux-image-2.6.28sickboy-kuki

Or, it doesn't matter?

 

If the sickboy kernel was installed from a .deb package by apt-get, synaptic, dpkg or aptitude, then either of your suggestions should work. The easiest and fastest way IMHO is to open a terminal and run aptitude in GUI mode, find the sickboy kernel, and mark it for removal. If you can remember the name, you can also just enter "sudo apt-get autoremove name_of_sickboy_kernel" which will take care of any other packages auto installed as dependents of the sickboy kernel package, i.e. headers, extra module packages etc. It will list any such packages and prompt you for if you really want to do this, so only say yes, if you are sure the listed autoremoved packages won't break your system.

 

Got it. I find the aptitude UI pretty pathetic, so I used the command line approach first: sudo aptitude remove linux-image-2.6.28sickboy-kuki

Then I ran synaptic, and found that there were still traces of sickboy left, so I used the "Mark for complete removal" option. This reported that it couldn't remove a sickboy directory, which I removed manually at the command line.

Rebooted with no issues.

Thanks for listening.

 

Indeed it won't, you're quite right. I'm still a bit lost as to why anyone would want to change to a different kernel though, as the problems being experienced by the OP are not kernel related in that all of the 'missing' functionality is available in the stock kernel.

Still, which kernel someone chooses to use, and why, is a matter of preference, I guess. That's up to them.

 

Wifi leds aren't available in the stock 2.6.28 Jaunty kernel for the Atheros 5007 chipset used in the WiFi card on the AAO. It is only available when using the non-kernel deprecated MadWiFi driver from the restricted-modules package. Further MadWiFi development has stopped, and all efforts are on the Ath5k and Ath9K mac80211 compliant drivers instead, since they are included in the kernel tree.

That alone is enough reason for me to change to the 2.6.30 kernel - especially since I do not need to compile my own kernel from the stock kernel.org tarballs, but can use the mainline PPA kernel package directly and still have all the advantages of .deb based package management over my ubuntu system.

Furthermore there are other fixes and changes in the 2.6.30 kernel which affects the AAO hardware. The graphics performance regression in the Jaunty stock kernel is fixed in the 2.6.30 kernel, even without changing to a newer Xorg driver and version. MTRR's are correctly identified, released and assigned so writecombining is available without having to pass params to the kernel. Another good reason to change to 2.6.30 right there.

 

Well, mebbe I have a strange Jaunty setup or something, or an unusual AAO, as I have the WiFi led working fine on the stock 2.6.28 kernel and it's using the Ath5k drivers. I also, I notice, have the MadWiFi driver on the machine, but not activated.

So, there we are, a mystery.

M.

 

Are you sure that you have
a) A stock 2.6.28 Jaunty kernel ? If so, which abi does it have ? The current 2.6.28.13 jaunty kernel does not have the Ath5k wifi led patch applied.
b) That you aren't using the madwifi ath_pci driver ? Do an iwconfig in a terminal - Do you have a wmaster0 + wlan0 interface, or a wifi0 + ath0 interface listed ?

 

Here you go, this is what I have (incidentally, I'm a long way - and a couple of walls - from the WiFi box, thus the weak'ish signal).

Code:

Linux aspire1 2.6.28-13-generic #44-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jun 2 07:57:31 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

Code:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wmaster0  no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"FAST3102-3C44"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:1D:6A:9D:41:E3   
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm   
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr=2352 B   
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=31/70  Signal level=-79 dBm  Noise level=-101 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

And the connection is 'ath5k wlan0' according to the 'active network connections' box.

With the above, the wifi led is working fine. Though now you have me somewhhat confused as to quite what I have here and what is being used.

Whatever it is, it works and it is a stock install (other than recommended auto-updates, of which there have been a series, and by coincidence another notification has just shown as I type this, I haven't ninstalled those yet but they are indeed Linux headers etc as were mentioned in this thread here yesteday.)

 

I had previously tried the various suggestions to modify the WiFi driver config, without success. Installling the 2.6.30 kernel resolved the LED problem immediately without making any config changes (I had saved off original config files, and when the changes did nothing, reverted to as-installed by JJ 9.04).

In general, the WiFi radio on the D150 seems a little less sensitive than on the original AA1 (this is true for both Windows and Linux), but performance is still acceptable. At home, I found that just reorienting my wireless router made a tremendous difference signal in different parts of the house.

 

So, Xubuntu is fully working? No issues with card readers?

 

Thats a bit wierd, since the 2.6.28.13 Jaunty kernel doesn't have the WiFi led patch for the in-kernel ath5k module.

Can you do the following in a terminal :

Code:

dmesg|grep ath5 > info.txt && modinfo ath5k >> info.txt

and then paste the output here ?

The output from a 2.6.30 kernel looks like this :

Note the registering of the led devices.
The same output when booted on the current stock Jaunty 2.6.28.13 kernel looks like this :

Note the srcversion hash in the 2.6.28.13 output, and that it doesn't bind to any leds.

This is on a AAO A110L model. It might be that things are different LED wise on D models, but the A models definitely doesn't have any working LED's in the 2.6.28.13 Jaunty kernel.