Are WiFi, audio, video modules included in the kernel?

Question

I have an old netbook based on WM8880 SoC (https://laptop.fossee.in/) which used to run lubuntu 16.04 (customised heavily by the fossee team) via Uboot bootloader fairly well, one fine day it said I could upgrade to 18.04 so without even thinking I did sudo apt-get dist-upgrade.

The problem starts just after that,

the wifi hardware doesn't show up

The backlight keys stopped working

sudo apt-get update or install doesn't work I end up getting

sudo apt-get update  --fix-missing
Err:1 http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu xenial InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'archive.canonical.com'
Err:2 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports xenial InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'ports.ubuntu.com'
Err:3 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports xenial-updates InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'ports.ubuntu.com'
Err:4 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports xenial-backports InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'ports.ubuntu.com'
Err:5 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports xenial-security InRelease
  Temporary failure resolving 'ports.ubuntu.com'
Reading package lists... Done
W: Failed to fetch http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/dists/xenial/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'ports.ubuntu.com'
W: Failed to fetch http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/dists/xenial-updates/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'ports.ubuntu.com'
W: Failed to fetch http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/dists/xenial-backports/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'ports.ubuntu.com'
W: Failed to fetch http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/dists/xenial-security/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'ports.ubuntu.com'
W: Failed to fetch http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial/InRelease  Temporary failure resolving 'archive.canonical.com'
W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Sound no longer works etc..

Here's the hardware details, from lsusb

Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:8152 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1017:1006 Speedy Industrial Supplies, Pte., Ltd 
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05e3:0608 Genesys Logic, Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

and lspci

00:01.0 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. Device 1359
00:02.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6105/VT6106S [Rhine-III] (rev 84)
00:04.0 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 90)
00:05.0 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xx/62xx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 90)
00:06.0 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xx/62xx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 90)

And the output of dmesg | grep wifi

[    3.735124] wifi_power_ctrl 1, delay:0
[    3.735158] use default wifi gpio: susgpio1
[    3.735179] request gpio:156 for wifi success!!!
[    3.735189] power on wifi
[    3.735282] wifi_power_ctrl 0, delay:0
[    3.735310] use default wifi gpio: susgpio1
[    3.735328] power down wifi

The WiFi card I have is a Realtek 8152 as noticed from the board image here. I tried to roll back by requesting the original firmware from the team but they don't have one and the online copy seems to be deleted.

The team has released kernel sources and some other tools here

Is there any way to get the lost functionality working again?

I was thinking of compiling the kernel from the source and try to install it?

What could have gone wrong?

Does the WM8880 drive your WiFi too? If not, what card is the WiFi and what does the kernel report it is? (`lsusb` or `lspci`, and maybe the relevant part from `dmesg` too). Please put this information [into your question](https://unix.stackexchange.com/posts/507154/edit) so that it's easy for us to help you. — roaima, Mar 19 '19 at 11:09
First of all, that's why you do backups before doing an upgrade. Second, you need to provide more information about your hardware to get help as said by @roaima — , Mar 19 '19 at 11:48
@roaima the output of `lsusb` and `lspci` are here https://pastebin.com/zvbsQhCV I am trying to get to the hardware to know if there is a separate wifi card, I will report my findings as soon as possible — Ashwin Kumar k, Mar 20 '19 at 04:26
Unfortunately the extract from `dmesg` is no use whatsoever. You need to look for the part that shows the kernel finding the wifi card, and how it is initialising it (assuming it does so). — roaima, Mar 20 '19 at 08:38
@roaima thanks for the edit, I'll keep that in mind, also I managed to get a pic of the hardware, [https://ibb.co/Gsbyxgq] , It turns out that like your guess, the card indeed is Realtek 8152 — Ashwin Kumar k, Mar 20 '19 at 09:08
Actually, not a guess. It was the line from `lsusb` - `Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:8152 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.`. If you then search for `0bda:8152 Realtek` you'll find confirmation in the matches (the `0bda:8152` is a vendor and product code; it's different for every type of USB device out there - products branded the same on the outside may have different hardware implementations - so it's an good way to determine what hardware you have). — roaima, Mar 20 '19 at 10:01

Are WiFi, audio, video modules included in the kernel?

0 Answers0