Archlinux - missing firmware for wifi adapter

[RudderDuck]

I have successfully installed Arch Linux on my Pinebook Pro using the following wiki article:

https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Installing_...nebook_Pro

However, I had to use the Pinephone dock to enable networking because the wifi adapter does not work out of the box.

dmesh output shows:

brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43456-sdio for chip BCM4345/9
brcmfmac mmc0:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43456-sdio.pine64,pinebook-pro.bin failed with error -2
brcmfmac mmc0:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43456-sdio.bin failed with error -2


I tried some suggestions from the friendly people on the Pine64 Telegram channel but until now I cannot get it to work.

Here is what I tried:

https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic...7&t=291688

This is a thread on the Raspberry Pi 4 which seemingly uses the same hardware? I tried copying the suggested file but that did not solve the problem. Note that the file was not there in the first place so renaming failed.

Copied the files found here:

https://gitlab.manjaro.org/manjaro-arm/p...6-firmware

Also this did not solve the problem.

Another suggestion is to see whether the alarm repos have a firmware package for this but I'm a bit at a loss as to how to do this.

A usb wifi dongle works without any problem so I have a workaround but I would be happy if the on board wifi would work.

Any help/pointers are appreciated.

I know that some people have it working so it is just me not having found the solution yet.

[cypresstwist]

See this post I put up yesterday or the day before. I see all the links you refered to mention the 43456 version of the drivers. The problem seems to be that the WiFi chipset version in SOME of the new Pinebook Pros is 43455 and not 43456. The system tries to load drivers for brcmfmac43456 and that's why you get that error. You need the brcmfmac43456 drivers (attached in that post). Copy the three files in /lib/firmware/brcm/ then reboot. Should work after that.
I had the same error as you in dmesg and my 5GHz networks didn't show up (although 2.4GHz worked fine). The 43455 drivers fixed this.

[RudderDuck]

Thanks for your reply.

I copied the files over and removed the old 43456 files but it did not solve the problem, the ouput of

dmesg | grep brcmfmac

[    5.629799] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43456-sdio for chip BCM4345/9
[    5.631627] brcmfmac mmc0:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43456-sdio.pine64,pinebook-pro.bin failed with error -2
[    5.632861] brcmfmac mmc0:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43456-sdio.bin failed with error -2


It's still looking for the 43456 files seemingly.

[steeb]

Are you copying over the .txt file as well? On the newer PBP, I often have to copy these and it always works, as long as you do copy all files.

[cypresstwist]

I copied the files over and removed the old 43456 files but it did not solve the problem

Don't remove any files. Let the 43456 files as they were. Just copy the 3 new ones in /lib/firmware/bcrm and it should work.
Let me know how it goes.

[RudderDuck]

I copied the files over and removed the old 43456 files but it did not solve the problem

Don't remove any files. Let the 43456 files as they were. Just copy the 3 new ones in /lib/firmware/bcrm and it should work.
Let me know how it goes.

If I remember correctly, at first the old files were still there and it didn't work after a reboot. I then removed the 43456 files. My pinebook pro is not a very new one. Just for reference, is your pinebook pro a recent batch?

Anyway, I have dwm working quite nicely and will reinstall soon to give the wifi adapter another go.

[cypresstwist]

Just for reference, is your pinebook pro a recent batch?

Yes - my PBP is from the latest batch.

[RudderDuck]

Just for reference, is your pinebook pro a recent batch?

Yes - my PBP is from the latest batch.

I'm just thinking, if I install Manjaro (the default os image) and it works, can I then check which wifi drivers it uses? It may be that my batch of pinebooks uses other hardware than the later batches. This will at least give me an indication which drivers do work in Manjaro.

[RudderDuck]

Following my previous post this approach works for my pbp:

Create an sd card following the below instructions (only step 1-5):


https://github.com/SvenKiljan/archlinuxa...mmc-module


You then have a /lib/firmware/brcm folder containing the required drivers.

Copy the contents over to your installation and it should be working (at least for me it did). I think a more solid approach is to follow all steps in the instructions, then insert the sd in your pbp, boot and check if you can indeed connect to your wifi router (step 12 of the instructions).

For posterity I would have liked to attach the compressed directory and its contents to this post but it seems uploading does not work.

[wgahnagl]

Hey! I'm having the same issue!
I've made some progress by copying the brcmfmac43456 firmware from here that was linked in the troubleshooting guide, but the brcmfmac-sdio.pine64,pinebook-pro.bin is still failing with error -2
I'm thinking that things would be resolved if i just switch to using the 43455 driver, and I have both installed, but I don't know how to manually go back a version to work with my BCM4345/9 chip

also, I think this thread would be useful to link on the wiki, since it seems like it's a well-known issue that people have been having!