Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems with a freezing machine: All kernels in 12.04 and 13.04

[James Morrissey]

Following up on this with 13.04. Using the instructions from
mindwerks.netto compile the STA driver, does not appear to get my
wireless working on
> 13.04. I have thus had to resort to using bcmwl-kernel-source.
>
> Freezes are back when on battery power. I also get the following error
> message when i boot with bcmwl-kernel-source installed.
>
> INFO @wl_cfg80211_attach : Registered CFG80211 phy
>
> When it is not installed i get no error (and no wireless).
>
>
More frustration with Broadcom: upgrading to kernel 3.8.0-30-generic, this
morning broke my wireless so that neither the build of the broadcom driver
worked nor the bcmwl-kernel-source.

I  have had to revert back to using 3.8.29.

As always, any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Thanks,

j
-- 
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems with a freezing machine: All kernels in 12.04 and 13.04

[James Morrissey]

>
> Hi all,
>
> Good news on this.
>
> I removed bcmwl-kernel-source, and installed firmware-b43-installer.
> However this rendered my wireless useless.
>
> I then started googling on how i would get my broadcom card working
> without bcmwl-kernel-source and came across a post which described building
> the driver from the Broadcom page, with some patches, and getting it to
> work on the 3.5 kernel (
> http://www.mindwerks.net/2012/06/wireless-bcm4312-with-the-3-4-and-3-5-kernel/).
> Comments seemed positive with some people saying it works on 13.04 as well.
>
> So i built the driver following the instructions on the site (feeling
> nervous about sticking a patch on it given the previous conversation on
> this forum about linux trojans...). I have been running without a freeze
> for about 72 hours hours now, having spent as much time on battery as i
> could. The only slight downside of using the driver in this configuration
> is that it takes slightly longer to pick up wireless after suspend.
>
> I'll stick with things as they are for the rest of the week and then think
> about installing 13.04 and trying things there.
>
> Does anyone know why the driver from the restricted drivers package would
> compile a buggy proprietary driver.
>
>
Following up on this with 13.04. Using the instructions from
mindwerks.netto compile the STA driver, does not appear to get my
wireless working on
13.04. I have thus had to resort to using bcmwl-kernel-source.

Freezes are back when on battery power. I also get the following error
message when i boot with bcmwl-kernel-source installed.

INFO @wl_cfg80211_attach : Registered CFG80211 phy

When it is not installed i get no error (and no wireless).

Google tells me that other people have had this message but it has been
benign. I am not sure if its related to the freezes in my case, but i am
sure the issue lies with the wireless driver.

I also tried bu...@wp.pl suggestion to get things working on mint:
http://linuxg.net/how-to-fix-broadcom-bcm4311-wireless
-driver-on-ubuntu-and-linux-mint/ ; but they did not work.

If anyone has any suggestions i'd appreciate them.

Thanks,

j
-- 
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems with a freezing machine: All kernels in 12.04 and 13.04

[James Morrissey]

> 12.04.3 ships with the kernel from 13.04. See
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack for details. If you
> want to use kernel from 12.04 because that worked for you (you still get
> updates), then install 12.04.1 and update from there. Instructions on
> that wiki page. If you have already installed, then you can manually
> install the linux-generic package.
>
> I've seen that you've resolved the problem in a different way already -
> I just thought I'd explain what might have happened to you when you
> tried going back to 12.04.


Thanks for this. That makes sense. It would also explain how other people
commenting on the bug report got things working the same way on 13.04.
-- 
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems with a freezing machine: All kernels in 12.04 and 13.04

[Robie Basak]

On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 02:21:15PM +0200, James Morrissey wrote:
> I thus found myself with a free weekend and so decided to downgrade to
> 12.04 which had worked for me previously. Frustratingly however, i found
> that the problem now manifest there as well (there had been no problem in
> 12.10 previously).

12.04.3 ships with the kernel from 13.04. See
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack for details. If you
want to use kernel from 12.04 because that worked for you (you still get
updates), then install 12.04.1 and update from there. Instructions on
that wiki page. If you have already installed, then you can manually
install the linux-generic package. 

I've seen that you've resolved the problem in a different way already -
I just thought I'd explain what might have happened to you when you
tried going back to 12.04.

-- 
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems with a freezing machine: All kernels in 12.04 and 13.04

[bumaw]

 



On 22 August 2013 15:58, J Fernyhough  wrote:

On 22 August 2013 14:30, James Morrissey  wrote: > If i uninstall bcmwl-kernel-source, which of the following packages > do i need to install in order to get my wireless working: > firmware-b43-installer, firmware-b43-lppy-installer, b43-fwcutter, and/or > firmware-b43legacy-installer. I ask because i have had other problems > installing the wrong 
packages in 13.04 after trying to the the upstream > kernel to work (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2140655) - > ironically part of a vain attempt to resolve the freezing issue. > 
This depends on the card. I'd start with firmware-b43-installer. IIRC it will complain if it's the wrong one for the card (but according to the saucy package it lists the BCM4322 as compatible; not sure if this is the same family as the BCM43228).
 
Hi all, Good news on this. I removed bcmwl-kernel-source, and installed firmware-b43-installer. However this rendered my wireless useless.
I then started googling on how i would get my broadcom card working without bcmwl-kernel-source and came across a post which described building the driver from the Broadcom page, with some patches, and getting it to work on the 3.5 kernel (http://www.mindwerks.net/2012/06/wireless-bcm4312-with-the-3-4-and-3-5-kernel/). Comments seemed positive with some people saying it works on 
13.04 as well. 
So i built the driver following the instructions on the site (feeling nervous about sticking a patch on it given the previous conversation on this forum about linux trojans...). I have been running without a freeze for about 72 hours hours now, having spent as much time on battery as i could. The only slight downside of using the driver in this configuration is that it takes slightly longer to pick up wireless after suspend.  
I'll stick with things as they are for the rest of the week and then think about installing 13.04 and trying things there. 
Does anyone know why the driver from the restricted drivers package would compile a buggy proprietary driver. 
 
j




Try this http://linuxg.net/how-to-fix-broadcom-bcm4311-wireless-driver-on-ubuntu-and-linux-mint/
 
 
 



-- 
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems with a freezing machine: All kernels in 12.04 and 13.04

[James Morrissey]

On 22 August 2013 15:58, J Fernyhough  wrote:

> On 22 August 2013 14:30, James Morrissey 
> wrote:
> > If i uninstall bcmwl-kernel-source, which of the following packages
> > do i need to install in order to get my wireless working:
> > firmware-b43-installer, firmware-b43-lppy-installer, b43-fwcutter, and/or
> > firmware-b43legacy-installer. I ask because i have had other problems
> > installing the wrong packages in 13.04 after trying to the the upstream
> > kernel to work (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2140655) -
> > ironically part of a vain attempt to resolve the freezing issue.
> >
>
> This depends on the card. I'd start with firmware-b43-installer. IIRC
> it will complain if it's the wrong one for the card (but according to
> the saucy package it lists the BCM4322 as compatible; not sure if this
> is the same family as the BCM43228).
>

Hi all,

Good news on this.

I removed bcmwl-kernel-source, and installed firmware-b43-installer.
However this rendered my wireless useless.

I then started googling on how i would get my broadcom card working without
bcmwl-kernel-source and came across a post which described building the
driver from the Broadcom page, with some patches, and getting it to work on
the 3.5 kernel (
http://www.mindwerks.net/2012/06/wireless-bcm4312-with-the-3-4-and-3-5-kernel/).
Comments seemed positive with some people saying it works on 13.04 as well.

So i built the driver following the instructions on the site (feeling
nervous about sticking a patch on it given the previous conversation on
this forum about linux trojans...). I have been running without a freeze
for about 72 hours hours now, having spent as much time on battery as i
could. The only slight downside of using the driver in this configuration
is that it takes slightly longer to pick up wireless after suspend.

I'll stick with things as they are for the rest of the week and then think
about installing 13.04 and trying things there.

Does anyone know why the driver from the restricted drivers package would
compile a buggy proprietary driver.

j
-- 
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems with a freezing machine: All kernels in 12.04 and 13.04

[J Fernyhough]

On 22 August 2013 14:30, James Morrissey  wrote:
> If i uninstall bcmwl-kernel-source, which of the following packages
> do i need to install in order to get my wireless working:
> firmware-b43-installer, firmware-b43-lppy-installer, b43-fwcutter, and/or
> firmware-b43legacy-installer. I ask because i have had other problems
> installing the wrong packages in 13.04 after trying to the the upstream
> kernel to work (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2140655) -
> ironically part of a vain attempt to resolve the freezing issue.
>

This depends on the card. I'd start with firmware-b43-installer. IIRC
it will complain if it's the wrong one for the card (but according to
the saucy package it lists the BCM4322 as compatible; not sure if this
is the same family as the BCM43228).

>
> I have thought of this and would be happy to be rid of this broadcom issue
> altogether - the only reason i have this card is because Lenovo replaced my
> previous faulty machine (which had an intel card) with a newer model, which
> only had a broadcom option. That said, forums tell me that with a laptop i
> need to make sure the wireless card is compatible with the rest of the
> machine's components. How do i check this to determine which intel card to
> buy? Lenovo support is so useless as to make me loath to try contact them
> about it.
>

It appears from a quick search that the only Intel-based card that is
included in the whitelist is "60Y3253 - Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205
802.11a/b/g/n card (Intel 6205 chipset)" [1]. There's a possibility
that there's a hacked BIOS out there which removes the whitelisting,
though (there certainly are for the X61 [2]); I'm not recommending
this but there are threads out there [3].

J

[1] 
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/X131e-WLAN-BIOS-Whitelist/td-p/1103623
[2] 
http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo/459591-t61-x61-sata-ii-1-5-gb-s-cap-willing-pay-solution-8.html#post6501443
[3] 
http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/5866-LENOVO-%28IBM%29-Bioses-especially-Thinkpad

-- 
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems with a freezing machine: All kernels in 12.04 and 13.04

[Liam Proven]

On 22 August 2013 14:36, James Morrissey  wrote:
> I have a windows partition on my HDD, but only really keep it there so that
> i can run the BIOS update utility from Lenovo. The partition is only really
> big enough to do that - i am not sure i could fit a LibreOffice or even
> anti-virus install on the space that is there. Thus i can't do much that is
> productive in windows - which is fine as i don't use it for anything -
> meaning that testing this is a time waster. Thus while i could test this i
> would happily first see if the driver fix resolves it first.
>
> Will hold out on this and if nothing else works, sit on windows for a day
> this weekend...

GParted will allow you to resize it a little.

Also, you could give Windows a data partition on the end of the drive
and move your Documents folder there. Also give it a general clear-out
- empty the bin, empty the Temp folders in \Windows and your home
folder; disable hibernation; disable the swap file (or move it to the
data drive). That should buy you a few free gig.

(I wrote an article with a few tips here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1004689/how-to-give-a-tired-old-pc-a-spring-clean
)

Ninite.com is very useful for quickly, cleanly installing a whole
selection of freeware/FOSS Windows apps to get you up and running.


-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884

-- 
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems with a freezing machine: All kernels in 12.04 and 13.04

[James Morrissey]

On 22 August 2013 15:04, Liam Proven  wrote:

>
>
> * does the problem only occur under Linux?
>
> If you have any other OS on the machine, use that for a while and see
> if it suffers the problem as well. Windows is the obvious candidate,
> but there are other potential ones as well - Mac OS X, PC-BSD etc.
>

I have a windows partition on my HDD, but only really keep it there so that
i can run the BIOS update utility from Lenovo. The partition is only really
big enough to do that - i am not sure i could fit a LibreOffice or even
anti-virus install on the space that is there. Thus i can't do much that is
productive in windows - which is fine as i don't use it for anything -
meaning that testing this is a time waster. Thus while i could test this i
would happily first see if the driver fix resolves it first.

Will hold out on this and if nothing else works, sit on windows for a day
this weekend...

Thanks,

j
-- 
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems with a freezing machine: All kernels in 12.04 and 13.04

[James Morrissey]

On 22 August 2013 15:00, J Fernyhough  wrote:

> > On 22/08/13 13:21, James Morrissey wrote:
> >
> --snip--
> >
> > The fact that there was a wireless problem on Broadcom BCM43228 and that
> the
> > freeze appears to correlate with having the machine on battery power (i
> am
> >
>
> This sounds like a problem with the Broadcom drivers - this was a
> known problem with early versions of bcmwl-kernel-source 6.* (5.* was
> fine), but I'm not sure if it has been addressed. The easiest
> workaround I found for my Mini311c was to use the b43 driver
> (firmware-b43-installer)


Yes, that sounds right. Through trawling many forums i was vaguely
convinced that this was a wireless-broadcom problem. This also ties in with
the fact that i have had numerous problems getting my wireless to work on
different releases, on this machine.

With this in mind could someone tell me which packages i need to have
installed in order to get wireless working. At the moment i have Broadcom
STA wireless driver installed, which happened when i enabled additional
drivers. If i uninstall bcmwl-kernel-source, which of the following
packages do i need to install in order to get my wireless working:
firmware-b43-installer, firmware-b43-lppy-installer, b43-fwcutter, and/or
firmware-b43legacy-installer. I ask because i have had other problems
installing the wrong packages in 13.04 after trying to the the upstream
kernel to work (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2140655) -
ironically part of a vain attempt to resolve the freezing issue.

- other people gave up and put in an Intel
> wireless card instead (not an ideal solution but it works).
>

I have thought of this and would be happy to be rid of this broadcom issue
altogether - the only reason i have this card is because Lenovo replaced my
previous faulty machine (which had an intel card) with a newer model, which
only had a broadcom option. That said, forums tell me that with a laptop i
need to make sure the wireless card is compatible with the rest of the
machine's components. How do i check this to determine which intel card to
buy? Lenovo support is so useless as to make me loath to try contact them
about it.

Thanks for the help,

j
-- 
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems with a freezing machine: All kernels in 12.04 and 13.04

[James Morrissey]

On 22 August 2013 14:46, Martin Dixon  wrote:

>  Hi James.
>
> For what it is worth I had a similar problem with 12.04 and 12.10 and
> found the only solution was to reinstall 12.10 and refrain from doing any
> updates.
> 13.04 works OK with all updates loaded, but I used both with a Ubuntu One
> link as security until I was sure.
>
>
Hi Martin,

Thanks for getting back to me. I appreciate the sense of solidarity and
take hope from the fact that this worked itself out for you. That said, ss
it not dangerous to run a machine without any of the updates?
-- 
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems with a freezing machine: All kernels in 12.04 and 13.04

[Liam Proven]

On 22 August 2013 13:21, James Morrissey  wrote:
> I am wondering if someone can help me with a major problem that i have been
> having in Ubuntu, pertaining to a notoriously hard to diagnose issue of
> random freezing.


That's nasty. :¬(

Unfortunately, intermittent problems are always very hard to troubleshoot.

One significant question is this:

* does the problem only occur under Linux?

If you have any other OS on the machine, use that for a while and see
if it suffers the problem as well. Windows is the obvious candidate,
but there are other potential ones as well - Mac OS X, PC-BSD etc.




-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884

-- 
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems with a freezing machine: All kernels in 12.04 and 13.04

[J Fernyhough]

> On 22/08/13 13:21, James Morrissey wrote:
>
--snip--
>
> The fact that there was a wireless problem on Broadcom BCM43228 and that the
> freeze appears to correlate with having the machine on battery power (i am
>

This sounds like a problem with the Broadcom drivers - this was a
known problem with early versions of bcmwl-kernel-source 6.* (5.* was
fine), but I'm not sure if it has been addressed. The easiest
workaround I found for my Mini311c was to use the b43 driver
(firmware-b43-installer) - other people gave up and put in an Intel
wireless card instead (not an ideal solution but it works).

I haven't used my 311c for a while (since I got a refurb X61) but the
bug report [1] has a link to an updated package from saucy [2] that's
been reported to fix the issue. Of course, if you don't have internet
access that doesn't help much...

Jonathon

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bcmwl/+bug/1134389
[2] 
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bcmwl/6.30.223.30+bdcom-0ubuntu2/+build/4724924/+files/bcmwl-kernel-source_6.30.223.30%2Bbdcom-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb

-- 
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems with a freezing machine: All kernels in 12.04 and 13.04

[Martin Dixon]

Hi James.

For what it is worth I had a similar problem with 12.04 and 12.10 and
found the only solution was to reinstall 12.10 and refrain from doing
any updates. 
13.04 works OK with all updates loaded, but I used both with a Ubuntu
One link as security until I was sure.

Regards, Martin Dixon

On 22/08/13 13:21, James Morrissey wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I am wondering if someone can help me with a major problem that i have
> been having in Ubuntu, pertaining to a notoriously hard to diagnose
> issue of random freezing.
>
> The problem started in 13.04, which would freeze randomly, from the
> day i installed it. I persisted with the issue for a while, hoping
> that it would work itself out with subsequent kernel updates and as
> 13.04 was patched. Unfortunately 2 months in i was still losing work
> to random freezes.
>
> I thus found myself with a free weekend and so decided to downgrade to
> 12.04 which had worked for me previously. Frustratingly however, i
> found that the problem now manifest there as well (there had been no
> problem in 12.10 previously).
>
> A system freeze appears to happen at random, although it is possibly
> related to having the machine on battery power. When it happens I
> can't input anything, and if there is a song playing it skips. Only
> way out is a hard reboot.
>
> I remain on 12.04, 64 bit. I have updated my bios, and run memtest86.
> The latter found no errors and the former has not improved things. The
> machine is a Lenovo x131e, Intel, with integrated graphics and
> broadcom wireless.
>
> I have tried filling a bug
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1174275, but got
> stuck as i could not properly test the upstream kernel as wireless
> would not work.
>
> The fact that there was a wireless problem on Broadcom BCM43228 and
> that the freeze appears to correlate with having the machine on
> battery power (i am still testing this) means that i thought it might
> be a problem with powersave on the wireless card. There were a number
> of posts about this but the general solution seemed to be to turn off
> the powersave option on the card
> (http://robertbeal.com/1248/ubuntu-10101104-freezing-battery-power). I
> did this to no avail as i still got a freeze when the machine was on
> battery power.
>
> I have also tried posting this problem on the forums
> (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2166195), providing a list
> or kernel errors that i get after a freeze. Understanding this list is
> beyond my ability, so i don't know where to start. I haven't had much
> luck with anyone there.
>
> At this point i am not sure what else to do. I don't know how to
> diagnose the problem any further as many forums simply say that
> analysing a system freeze is difficult. This is a bit of a massive bug
> for me as random system freezes really interrupt with my daily work.
>
> I'd love to get this resolved, or at least work out what the problem
> is so that i can get it reported. Ideally i'd have 13.04 working, but
> will settle for 12.04.
>
> If anyone can give me any advice on what steps to take to work out
> what the problem is, i would really appreciate it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> James. 
>
>
>
>

-- 
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/