HP Mini 1001 Setup - netcard silent, stock TC failure

[dentonlt]

So I've picked up an HP Mini 1001 netbook, and I'm trying to get TC running. I'm keeping my notes at my site (dentonlt.com/node/225). Of course stock Xubuntu works, but it's quite big for me. I'd like to have TC going.

First issue: TC 2.0+ works, but any edition pre-2.0 causes kernel panic on boot. I get an IRQ error, but I can't get much in the way of more details - no keyboard support at that point! =( Perhaps this occurs on other netbook hardware? Any ideas on how to 'scroll back up' the terminal window on panic? shift+arrows do nothing ...

Second issue: network card is silent unless the cable is plugged in on reboot.
Fails: on cold boot, on any boot w/o cable plugged in. No PCI device detected, no module installed, manual depmod/modprobe do no good.
Succeeds: on reboot, w/ the cable plugged in - kernel detects the PCI device, installs the sky module, and runs happy.

Hardware: Marvell Yukon 88E8040 PCI

Any idea how I can 'wake up' this hardware on a cold boot? dmesg/lspci say nothing about the card unless the cable is plugged in, before reboot ... odd much?
 
I've downloaded the current Marvell drivers, but their installation script crashes out on stock TC. I'll have to do some reading to figure out what the syntax error is.

Any suggestions appreciated =)

[curaga]

TC 2.0 is a stable release, so it running where 1.x failed should be a pro

Shift + PageUp is used to scroll in the console; it might not work if there's a hard lockup.

Network card - really weird. Maybe this behavior can be toggled in the bios? What happens if you manually modprobe sky?

[dentonlt]

Kernel panic: nope, no keyboard response at all. I do wish shift+pgup would work. I'll try and read fast!

bios: tried that - no network card details there except for 'boot from lan'. I'll twiddle this and see what happens.

modprobe sky: modprobe works fine, but the Marvell PCI card still isn't detected :\

More [forgot to mention] info:

This netbook has two network cards, neither of which work with stock TC. I'm trying to setup both:
* Marvell PCI (as above)
* Broadcom Wifi 802.11b/g (requires wl.tcem. Works, but gets mis-labeled as eth0 instead of ath0)

The Marvell PCI card only shows up when it's actually working (on reboot, cable plugged in).

That's the 'proper' Broadcom model name ... vague, but that's the best info I have. The Broadcom card always shows up with lspci -a, cold boot or restart. TC says:

Code: [Select]

01:00.0 Class 0280: Device 14e4:4315 (rev 01)
Subsystem: Device 103c:1508
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 10
Memory at feafc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>

Xubuntu gives a bit more info on the same card with lspci -a. Maybe b/c of the wl module being loaded:

Code: [Select]

01:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1508
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
Memory at feafc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: wl
Kernel modules: wl

I finally got the Broadcom card working thanks to the wl extension - I had a copy sitting around. I'll keep at the Marvell 'cold boot' challenge.

[dentonlt]

In short, for my HP Mini 1001:

• wireless works on cold boot - use the wl extension
• physical net cable doesn't work on cold boot. Plug in after boot, then reboot. Works. No known workaround.

For now, I'm happy with that. I call this issue closed.

[roberts]

re: physical net cable doesn't work on cold boot. Plug in after boot, then reboot. Works. No known workaround.

With TC fast boot, perhaps the card is not ready, when dhcp is requested.

What happens when boot with option nodhcp and then start the card from control panel netcardconfig ?

-or -

Possibly adding a wait command to allow time for the cards, we have for example waitusb=5 normally used for slow usb devices to register, perhaps this would allow time for your netcard to be detected at boot.

[dentonlt]

Roberts - Thanks for your advice. New/good info:

I previously tried adding a waitusb argument. I've tried again with longer times (up to 10), but to no avail. I had not tested nodhcp, but it doesn't seem to help either. But ...

Re-testing now shows that TC 2.0 and 2.1 base norestore detects the net card just fine if the network cable is plugged in before power on (!). Cold boot or reboot, this works fine. I must have been pulling the cable before booting.

I'm still happy as is, but have no clue as to why I can't detect/twiddle the card after bootup ... ?

Overall, I'm not too concerned.