[arch-general] Last couple of updates Knocked my Wireless -- OUT (atheros/madwifi/ath_pci)

[David C. Rankin]

Listmates,

	I'm not sure where to start troubleshooting this problem. For months and 
months, ever since I installed Arch, my Atheros wifi (through ath0) has always 
just worked right out of the box. No biggie. You setup your 
/etc/network.d/mywpa.conf and add your config to the NETWORKS entry and then 
each time I would turn on my box, up came the network.

	That is, until the updates this past week or so. My config is still the same. 
The mywpa.conf file is:

CONNECTION="wireless"
INTERFACE=wlan0
SCAN="yes"
SECURITY="wpa"
ESSID="skyline"
KEY="notmyrealkey"
IP="dhcp"
TIMEOUT=20

	My rc.conf setting hasn't changed:

eth0="dhcp"
INTERFACES=(!eth0)
gateway="default gw 192.168.6.13"
ROUTES=(!gateway)
NETWORKS=(!main mywpa.conf)
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network net-profiles hal @ntpd @sshd @crond @netfs @avahi-
daemon @mysqld !postfix !dovecot !httpd !samba @cups kdm3)

	Now I boot my box and I get nothing but the "lo" interface brought up. What 
gives? To comply with the new warning about modprobe "blacklist", etc. all of 
the specified and empty files were moved from /etc/modprobe.d to /root/tmp.

    My wireless needs the ath_pci module and the ath5k module has always 
caused problems, so I added the "!ath5k" entry to the modules line before the 
ath_pci declaration and ath_pci is correctly loaded on boot, but still no 
wlan0 or ath0 devices are created.

	As a work-around while this is being sorted, I have been brining the device 
up with ifconfig ath0 up, then starting wpa_supplicant manually and then 
finally calling dhcpcd manually to get an IP.

	What in the world could have changed in the past week or so that is 
presenting my wireless from being brought up at boot??

	Any help or pointers in the right direction would be much appreciated. 
Thanks.

-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: (936) 715-9333
Facsimile: (936) 715-9339
www.rankinlawfirm.com