Killer E2200 Lan, mount issue

G

grzeda

Hi, this is my first post. I am using an MSI GE70 laptop. Generally my problem is that FreeBSD doesn't support either of my NICs (Ethernet, Wi-Fi). More important for me is WLAN (my chipset is rtl8723ae). The Handbook says that if there is no driver, FreeBSD can support my card natively (converting an XP driver). Sounds easy - put .nfo and .sys files into a BSD partition, and proceed. The problem is, that I can't mount any device. Every time I use mount (CD-ROM, USB flash drive, NTFS partition) I receive an error
Code: 
mount: operation not supported by device
I tried FAT32 and NTFS - same result. I found that the solution for mount's problem is ntfs-3g but...it has to be installed from the ports collection, which requires an Internet connection. I have a Windows system on the same computer but Google doesn't have a solution how to access a BSD partition in write mode (if there is one, I could put drivers there from Windows). Any ideas how to solve this problem?
 
Re: lan, mount issue

Please show the output of pciconf -lv | grep -B3 network. That looks to be an Atheros card, and one of the existing drivers may support it, or only need trivial changes.

Without seeing the commands you used, it's hard to say exactly what the error was. Drivers can be downloaded onto a USB stick, most of which are still FAT32. When mounting those, the -t msdosfs option is needed. A CD can be used with -t cd9660.

I don't know how well the NDIS stuff works at present.
 
Re: lan, mount issue

Try /dev/da0s1 or /dev/da0p1 to mount your usb/pendrive. (Possibly -t ntfs-3g to mount an ntfs filesystem.)
 
Re: lan, mount issue

da0s1, da0p1 doesn't work. As I wrote in my first post, can't use ntfs-3g cause it needs to be installed from ports collection (internet connection needed).
 
Re: lan, mount issue

Sorry, I forgot your lack of internet connection. External CDRW drive would likely work, download & write in 'Windows', reboot into BSD & install. Another possible way would be to format a pendrive with a Linux ext2 filesystem, there are programs for 'Windows' that write to ext2, & BSD should be able to read from a ext2 filesystem, (but not ext3/4).
 
Re: lan, mount issue

For reference, that's the "Killer E2200" Atheros network card. I'm not sure whether it is similar to the existing FreeBSD Atheros drivers alc(4), ale(4), or age(4).

A standard USB memory stick is MBR and has one FAT32 partition. Normally, those are mounted with mount -t msdosfs /dev/da0s1 /mnt. Some exFAT formatting has appeared, which probably requires FUSE also.

If you have a memory stick that can be formatted, format it to FAT32 on FreeBSD. I'll show how, but first let's make sure of the device. It is not always da0. Please show the output of gpart show.
 
Re: lan, mount issue

I don't see the point of making an ext2 filesystem, Windows is as hobbled on that as anything else. Let's make a compatible system on that USB drive, which is da0:

Create an MBR:
Code: 
# gpart destroy -F da0
da0 destroyed
# gpart create -s mbr da0
da0 created

Add a partition. Limit it to 1G because that's probably large enough and FAT filesystems have trouble with 2G or 4G, and the memory stick is probably at least that large.
Code: 
# gpart add -t \!12 -s1g da0
da0s1 added

Format the partition with FAT32:
Code: 
# newfs_msdos -F32 /dev/da0s1
/dev/da0s1: 2096064 sectors in 65502 FAT32 clusters (16384 bytes/cluster)
BytesPerSec=512 SecPerClust=32 ResSectors=32 FATs=2 Media=0xf0 SecPerTrack=63 Heads=255 HiddenSecs=0 HugeSectors=2097144 FATsecs=512 RootCluster=2 FSInfo=1 Backup=2

Mount it to make sure it works:
Code: 
# mount -t msdosfs /dev/da0s1 /mnt
# ls /mnt
# umount /mnt
 
Huh. One step ahead, few more to go, I think. Mounting stick worked however Windows 7 on computer where is also my FreeBSD didn't recognized stick gparted in FreeBSD. Tried another computer with W7 and it went fine. I downloaded alx-freebsd driver sources, copied them to /home/grzeda, compiled (make), and then issued kldload /home/grzeda/if_alx.ko as handbook says. After this ifconfig, but there is only one device - system loopback (lo0). I missed some steps or maybe this driver is not compatible with the NIC? Later I'll try ndis.
 
At a minimum, the alx driver will probably need the E2200 PCI ID added. I saw a Windows article forcing the Atheros 8161 driver to be used for an E2200 card, and they certainly didn't change that driver in any way. I'd guess it just overrode the device ID, but who can tell what Windows does internally?
 
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