ar9170 makes machine hang when shut down

ar9170 makes machine hang when shut down

[Malte Gell]

Hello,

I use the compat 2.6.30 and the ar9170 driver for my Netgear WN111 USB stick. 
I use the packages from
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/driver:/wireless/11.1-update/i586/
for openSUSE 11.1.

When I shutdown my machine, it hangs after the last messages "system now 
rebooting" or similar.

Does it make sense to use "rmmod --force ar9170" to force removing that module 
before shutting down?

Thanx
Malte

Re: ar9170 makes machine hang when shut down

[Joerg Albert]

On 09/24/2009 09:55 PM, Malte Gell wrote:

> I use the compat 2.6.30 and the ar9170 driver for my Netgear WN111 USB stick. 
> I use the packages from
> http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/driver:/wireless/11.1-update/i586/
> for openSUSE 11.1.
> 
> When I shutdown my machine, it hangs after the last messages "system now 
> rebooting" or similar.
> 
> Does it make sense to use "rmmod --force ar9170" to force removing that module 
> before shutting down?

Why are you sure that the hang is caused by the ar9170 driver? 

The vendor driver is called arusb_lnx, the new one ar9170usb

If you only use the packages from the above URL and haven't compile compat-wireless yourself,
chances are that you use the vendor driver. You may check the loaded module list:
	lsmod
and try to remove the module:
	rmmod arusb_lnx
before shutting down.
If this fails, try to close the corresponding netdev first:
	 ifconfig X down
with X = ath0 or wlan0 (see the output of "iwconfig").

Needing "--force" for rmmod is IMHO a bug in the driver.

Regards,
Jörg.

Re: ar9170 makes machine hang when shut down

[Malte Gell]

Joerg Albert <jal2@gmx.de> wrote

> > Does it make sense to use "rmmod --force ar9170" to force removing that
> > module before shutting down?
> 
> Why are you sure that the hang is caused by the ar9170 driver?

You are right.... I thought this way, because my machine never hung and after 
installing the USB stick it hang... But, I noticed when i disable ISDN 
subsystem, it did not hang, so maybe it is the ISDN subsystem, I will try 
further.
 
> The vendor driver is called arusb_lnx, the new one ar9170usb

Vendor driver? Does this mean, Atheros made a driver on its own? Are there 
several drivers for the same chip now?

My system loads ar9170:

lsmod | grep ar91*

ar9170                 32632  0
mac80211              237208  1 ar9170
led_class               4028  1 ar9170
usbcore               183280  15 
usbserial,ar9170,usbhid,uvcvideo,snd_usb_audio,snd_usb_lib,usblp,ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd,ohci_hcd,usb_storage

Regards
Malte

Re: ar9170 makes machine hang when shut down

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 2:32 AM, Malte Gell <malte.gell@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> Joerg Albert <jal2@gmx.de> wrote
>
>> > Does it make sense to use "rmmod --force ar9170" to force removing that
>> > module before shutting down?
>>
>> Why are you sure that the hang is caused by the ar9170 driver?
>
> You are right.... I thought this way, because my machine never hung and after
> installing the USB stick it hang... But, I noticed when i disable ISDN
> subsystem, it did not hang, so maybe it is the ISDN subsystem, I will try
> further.
>
>> The vendor driver is called arusb_lnx, the new one ar9170usb
>
> Vendor driver? Does this mean, Atheros made a driver on its own? Are there
> several drivers for the same chip now?

Atheros wrote a vendor driver called otus for ar9170 devices, this was
prior to the change of focus on working upstream. Atheros then
released code and gave specs, etc to a community developer who wrote a
proper mac80211 driver for ar9170. The main focus for development
today is ar9170. I believe ar9170 does not yet have AMPDU aggregation
enabled by default so otus is still available including the stock
kernel under drivers/staging area until ar9170 matches all features
provided by otus, Read each drivers's wiki page, the section regarding
ar9170 and 11n support is very outdated, I know Chris has worked hard
on this area.

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/otus
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ar9170

I have a feeling not enough people know about the wireless wiki...

  Luis

Re: ar9170 makes machine hang when shut down

[Joerg Albert]

On 09/25/2009 11:32 AM, Malte Gell wrote:
> My system loads ar9170:
> 
> lsmod | grep ar91*
> 
> ar9170                 32632  0
> mac80211              237208  1 ar9170
> led_class               4028  1 ar9170
> usbcore               183280  15 
> usbserial,ar9170,usbhid,uvcvideo,snd_usb_audio,snd_usb_lib,usblp,ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd,ohci_hcd,usb_storage

You are right. I had a look into the source rpm for the packets your url pointed to. The ar9170 driver inside
compat-wireless dates back to end of February 2009, at that time the driver was called ar9170, it got the "usb" prefix later.

You might try arusb_lnx (the vendor driver) from the other package (no idea how OpenSuSE handles two drivers
for the same hardware), but the best way to get support from this list would be to compile a decent
compat-wireless by your own and report bugs etc. to the list. A lot of stuff changed since February.

Regards,
Jörg.

Re: ar9170 makes machine hang when shut down

[Malte Gell]

Joerg Albert <jal2@gmx.de> wrote

Thanks to you and Luis for explanation.

> You are right. I had a look into the source rpm for the packets your url
>  pointed to. The ar9170 driver inside compat-wireless dates back to end of
>  February 2009, at that time the driver was called ar9170, it got the "usb"
>  prefix later.

Prefix? I guess it is more a suffix at the end, isn't it...?
 
> You might try arusb_lnx (the vendor driver) from the other package (no idea
>  how OpenSuSE handles two drivers for the same hardware), 

It seems it does not handle it at all... i was able to 1st load arusb_lnx but 
it did not work, maybe they reduced it just to a dummy thing? Ok, I'm surely 
wrong about that, at least arubs_lnx just did nothing. ar9170 only works.


>  but the best way
>  to get support from this list would be to compile a decent compat-wireless
>  by your own and report bugs etc. to the list. A lot of stuff changed since
>  February.

Yep, I tried before, but when i try to compile the latest compat-wireless I 
get this:

./scripts/driver-select ar9170

./scripts/gen-compat-autoconf.sh config.mk > include/linux/compat_autoconf.h
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.27.29-0.1-k7/build 
M=/home/malte_gell/download/src/wifi/compat-wireless-2009-09-25 modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.27.29-0.1'
  LD      /home/malte_gell/download/src/wifi/compat-
wireless-2009-09-25/drivers/net/wireless/ath/built-in.o
  CC [M]  /home/malte_gell/download/src/wifi/compat-
wireless-2009-09-25/drivers/net/wireless/ath/main.o
In file included from /home/malte_gell/download/src/wifi/compat-
wireless-2009-09-25/include/net/compat.h:19,
                 from <command-line>:0:
/home/malte_gell/download/src/wifi/compat-
wireless-2009-09-25/include/net/compat-2.6.28.h:152: error: redefinition of 
‘struct tracepoint’
In file included from /home/malte_gell/download/src/wifi/compat-
wireless-2009-09-25/include/net/compat.h:19,
                 from <command-line>:0:
/home/malte_gell/download/src/wifi/compat-
wireless-2009-09-25/include/net/compat-2.6.28.h:182:1: warning: "DEFINE_TRACE" 
redefined
In file included from include/linux/module.h:19,
                 from include/linux/textsearch.h:7,
                 from include/linux/skbuff.h:26,
                 from /home/malte_gell/download/src/wifi/compat-
wireless-2009-09-25/include/net/compat-2.6.28.h:10,
                 from /home/malte_gell/download/src/wifi/compat-
wireless-2009-09-25/include/net/compat.h:19,
                 from <command-line>:0:
include/linux/tracepoint.h:86:1: warning: this is the location of the previous 
definition
/home/malte_gell/download/src/wifi/compat-
wireless-2009-09-25/include/net/compat-2.6.28.h:186: error: redefinition of 
‘tracepoint_update_probe_range’
include/linux/tracepoint.h:100: error: previous definition of 
‘tracepoint_update_probe_range’ was here
make[4]: *** [/home/malte_gell/download/src/wifi/compat-
wireless-2009-09-25/drivers/net/wireless/ath/main.o] Fehler 1
make[3]: *** [/home/malte_gell/download/src/wifi/compat-
wireless-2009-09-25/drivers/net/wireless/ath] Fehler 2
make[2]: *** [/home/malte_gell/download/src/wifi/compat-
wireless-2009-09-25/drivers/net/wireless] Fehler 2
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/malte_gell/download/src/wifi/compat-
wireless-2009-09-25] Fehler 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.27.29-0.1'
make: *** [modules] Fehler 2


openSUSE 11.1 runs a 2.6.27 kernel, doesn't ar9170 need a 2.6.29 kernel? 
Somehow SUSE manages it in their packages, so I used the SUSE source rpm, but 
of course compat-wirless is more recent, but I can't compile it...

Thanx
Malte

Re: ar9170 makes machine hang when shut down

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 6:50 PM, Malte Gell <malte.gell@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> openSUSE 11.1 runs a 2.6.27 kernel, doesn't ar9170 need a 2.6.29 kernel?
> Somehow SUSE manages it in their packages, so I used the SUSE source rpm, but
> of course compat-wirless is more recent, but I can't compile it...

Then upgrade your kernel, send patches to add compat-wireless support
for the needed stuff on 2.6.27, or wait.

  Luis