Atheros AR8161 Ethernet card not working on 12.10 on an ASUS N56VM

Question

I have installed Ubuntu 12.10 (64bits) (3.5.0-18 kernel) on an ASUS N56VM and the ethernet card isn't working. Wireless card works okay. The card is Atheros Communications Inc. AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet [1969:1091] (rev 10).

I have read that there's a workaround for 12.04 but not for 12.10.

Additional Info:

$ lspci -nnk | grep -i ethernet
04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet [1969:1091] (rev 10)

$ ifconfig eth0
eth0: error fetching interface information: Device not found

$ ifconfig -a
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:1138 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1138 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:115837 (115.8 KB)  TX bytes:115837 (115.8 KB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr e0:b9:a5:f9:ba:02  
          inet addr:192.168.0.102  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::e2b9:a5ff:fef9:ba02/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:8911 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:7175 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:7837367 (7.8 MB)  TX bytes:1063488 (1.0 MB)

possible duplicate of How do I install drivers for the Atheros AR8161 Ethernet controller on 64-bit 12.10 using an Internet-connected 32-bit 12.04 PC and a USB flash drive? — hhlp, Jan 09 '13 at 17:50
This question is a duplicate. Everything you need is explained here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/217361/how-do-i-install-drivers-for-the-atheros-ar8161-ethernet-controller-on-64-bit-12 — Borislav Sabev, Jan 09 '13 at 10:05
Hi, not quite a duplicate, my kernel is at 3.5.0.21, not as the solution which is on 3.5.0-18. — Lars, Jan 10 '13 at 00:03
I am also experiencing the same issue on 3.2.0-35 and I was unable to solve it for now. But I've also not been able to find time for this these days. I will look into it for myself and when I have a result I will update the answer. — Borislav Sabev, Jan 10 '13 at 08:50

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 14 '13 at 06:28

So the only way I managed to get this working was by compiling the alx driver.

I. Go and get the tarball from The Linux Foundation: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/networking/alx and save it somewhere (let's say you saved it in Desktop/alx) II. Install some pakages needed for compiling:

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-generic linux-headers-uname -r

III. Unpack the tarball and compile it(This is provided that the file you downloaded is called 'compat-wireless-3.6.8-1-snpc.tar.bz2'):

cd /home/YOU/Desktop/alx

tar -xjf compat-wireless-3.6.8-1-snpc.tar.bz2

sudo su

cd compat-wireless-3.6.8-1-snpc

./scripts/driver-select alx

make

make install

modprobe alx

IV. Hooray you shoul have Ethernet now! :) Try: sudo ifconfig -a - you should see an eth0 inteface

Many thanks Borislav Sabev! Followed your solution, and now 'ifconfig eth0' shows the network card!! — Lars, Jan 15 '13 at 22:56

Atheros AR8161 Ethernet card not working on 12.10 on an ASUS N56VM

Additional Info:

1 Answers1