Cubietruck: Cannot activate wifi (Operation not permitted)

[KloolK]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to get the wifi on my Cubietruck to work. I followed this thread and get the same error message gcd0318 gets:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'root@cubietruck ~ #ip link set dev wlan0 up
RTNETLINK answers: Operation not permitted
root@cubietruck ~ #ifconfig wlan0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not permitted
')

The device shows up fine as far as I can tell:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'root@cubietruck ~ #ip link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: p2p0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether 00:90:4c:33:22:11 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
4: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether 00:90:4c:11:22:33 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff')

These are my loaded modules:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'root@cubietruck ~ #lsmod
Module Size Used by
ap6210 367480 0
cfg80211 146684 1 ap6210
sunxi_cedar_mod 8352 0
disp_ump 743 0
ump 26059 1 disp_ump
hdmi 21351 0
lcd 3316 0
disp 292961 4 lcd,hdmi,disp_ump
cfbfillrect 2640 1 disp
cfbimgblt 1614 1 disp
cfbcopyarea 2330 1 disp
sunxi_gmac 23526 0
')

I also blacklisted the bcmdhd module:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'root@cubietruck ~ #cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
blacklist bcmdhd')

and checked rfkill:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'root@cubietruck ~ #rfkill list
0: bcm40183: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
2: brcmfmac-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
')

Does anyone have an idea what might be causing this?
Thanks

[KloolK]

I changed the kernel with
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'pacman -Syu linux-armv7')
After doing
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'wget -O /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43362-sdio.txt http://dl.cubieboard.org/public/Cubieboard/benn/firmware/ap6210/nvram_ap6210.txt')
the wifi is finally working

[gcd0318]

wifi could be ready, but if eth0 is not plugged in, wifi will also break, even I really get 2 IPs for eth and wifi.

This also happened to other linux like debian. I think it should be a kernel problem.

[krabat]

Attempts to reproduce the "RTNETLINK" message strongly suggest missing firmware can be a reason.

To make use of the on-board Wifi on a Cubietruck running linux-sunxi kernel from package linux-sun7i files nvram_ap6210.txt (SIP Ampak AP6210 comprising both Wifi and Bluetooth chip) and fw_bcm40181a2.bin (Wifi chip) have to be provided in folder /usr/lib/firmware/ap6210.
A folder like this comprising some additional files as well can e. g. be acquired on dl.cubieboard.org/public/Cubieboard/benn/firmware/ap6210 or github.com/mikkeloscar/packages/bcmdhd-fw. The latter is offering a PKGBUILD that can be used to build an Arch Linux ARM package.
Note I have no knowledge about the legal situation of that firmware. E. g. I don't know why it didn't make it in the usual linux firmware packages so far.

The Ethernet NIC is working flawlessly here both on linux-sunxi and mainline kernel (didn't do any tests regarding heavy load which sometimes is reported to cause issues).
So maybe the problems regarding this are related to faulty configuration of the WLAN NIC.