My first obstacle I ever faced in Linux was, like many people, a hamstrung wireless connection. And so even now, when my wireless connections falter — like they did this morning, after an update on my Thinkpad running Arch Linux — I get this stomach-dropping sensation, kind of like riding in the last car on a rollercoaster, as it makes the crest into a downhill sweep.

This time the culprit may or not have been dhcpcd, which jumped from 3-point-something to 4-point-something, and seems to be triggering errors when I ask for an address. What’s also curious though, is that I also have some module errors that appear on boot — firmware_class is kicked back with a fatal error message. Boot continues, but that’s not something that was happening a few days ago, and there was a kernel update too.

For now my troubleshooting sequence will be to install a clean and pure Arch system across FTP and see if those packages are just plain not happy, or if it was something I mismanaged in my old installation. From there I’ll try to track down similar cases on the forums, and maybe file a bug report. If experience is any indicator though, the problem is something I’ve done to my own system.

Edit: A clean installation with all-around default values erases the module error, but doesn’t help me get an IP address with dhcpcd. I’ve taken a look at this thread and some others like it, but so far, no luck.

Edit No. 2: Downgrading to 3-point-something doesn’t seem to solve it either. Perhaps this is something in the kernel, instead of in dhcpcd … ?