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I have installed Ubuntu 12.04-64 bit on my Lenovo IdeaPad laptop, and the wired Ethernet (LAN) connection doesn't work.

Running the lspci -vv | grep Atheros command from the terminal shows me I have the AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet controller:

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 08)

This looks like a new product whose drivers are not built into Ubuntu.

How do I install drivers to get the AR8161 working?

ish
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Jessica Burnett
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2 Answers2

36

The AR8161 is a very new combined Ethernet/Bluetooth controller and its driver alx is in the testing/QA process, so it's not in the kernel yet.

To build and install the driver:

We will download a recent compat-wireless-pc driver package, install build dependencies, select the AR8161 module alx, build and install it.

Type/paste the following, line-by-line, in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-generic linux-headers-`uname -r`
wget -O- http://linuxwireless.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/compat-wireless-2012-07-03-pc.tar.bz2 | tar -xj
cd compat-wireless-2012-07-03-pc
./scripts/driver-select alx
make
sudo make install

You can then reboot, or manually load the driver with:

sudo modprobe alx
Community
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ish
  • 141,990
24

Ubuntu now provides a package for this driver.

To install the driver:

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-cw-3.4-precise-generic
sudo modprobe alx
taisph
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