Hi all,
I'm trying to set up a wifi driver on an Acer Aspire 3500 running Debian
Lenny 2.6.25 with a 802.11b/g wlan. I did some heavy-duty googling and
found the madwifi website which then said that Atheros had taken over the
drivers and released the code. It seems I need an ath9k driver and that I
get it from atheros. This led me to the Linux Wireless website. I found a
link to the ath9k driver here:
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k#Getthecode
The link on the above page is:
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download
and of course that link is broken. Aaarggghhh.
I then followed this link
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download
and found the compat-wireless-2.6.tar.bz2 tarball. I got the latest version
which (I think) was 6 August 2008. I followed the instructions and built
the drivers but no ath9k! aaarrggghhhh.
I loaded the drivers per the instructions and there is mac80211 and ath5k
but no ath9k.
At this link
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k
I found the following instructions:
Enabling ath9k
To enable ath9k, you must first enable mac80211:
I'm not sure what "enable" means in this context but I modprobed mac80211
and it shows up in the lsmod list. Next came the very cryptic instructions:
Networking --->
Wireless --->
<M> Improved wireless configuration API
<M> Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack (mac80211)
This seems to involve some sort of software but I haven't a clue what it
wants me to do. I am in a hopeless muddle now.

Can anyone give me some hints here.
Thanks,
Jonathan
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Jonathan Kaye wrote:

Hi all,
I'm trying to set up a wifi driver on an Acer Aspire 3500 running Debian
Lenny 2.6.25 with a 802.11b/g wlan. I did some heavy-duty googling and
found the madwifi website which then said that Atheros had taken over the
drivers and released the code. It seems I need an ath9k driver and that I
get it from atheros. This led me to the Linux Wireless website. I found a
link to the ath9k driver here:
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k#Getthecode
The link on the above page is:
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download
and of course that link is broken. Aaarggghhh.
I then followed this link
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download
and found the compat-wireless-2.6.tar.bz2 tarball. I got the latest version
which (I think) was 6 August 2008. I followed the instructions and built
the drivers but no ath9k! aaarrggghhhh.
I loaded the drivers per the instructions and there is mac80211 and ath5k
but no ath9k.
At this link
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k
I found the following instructions:
Enabling ath9k
To enable ath9k, you must first enable mac80211:
I'm not sure what "enable" means in this context but I modprobed mac80211
and it shows up in the lsmod list. Next came the very cryptic instructions:
Networking --->
Wireless --->
<M> Improved wireless configuration API
<M> Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack (mac80211)
This seems to involve some sort of software but I haven't a clue what it
wants me to do. I am in a hopeless muddle now.

Can anyone give me some hints here.


ath9K?

I think you may have been misled. In the kernel config for kernel
2.6.25-{2-3), there is a module called ath5k for the latest version of
of madwifi.


From what I've read it does bring the interface us but people have not
been able to associate with an AP yet.


I have not tried it yet myself due to other more pressing problems.

Wayne


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On Monday 18 August 2008, Wayne Topa wrote:
> Jonathan Kaye wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > I'm trying to set up a wifi driver on an Acer Aspire 3500 running Debian
> > Lenny 2.6.25 with a 802.11b/g wlan. I did some heavy-duty googling and
> > found the madwifi website which then said that Atheros had taken over the
> > drivers and released the code. It seems I need an ath9k driver and that I
> > get it from atheros. This led me to the Linux Wireless website. I found a
> > link to the ath9k driver here:
> > http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k#Getthecode
> > The link on the above page is:
> > http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download
> > and of course that link is broken. Aaarggghhh.
> > I then followed this link
> > http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download
> > and found the compat-wireless-2.6.tar.bz2 tarball. I got the latest
> > version which (I think) was 6 August 2008. I followed the instructions
> > and built the drivers but no ath9k! aaarrggghhhh.
> > I loaded the drivers per the instructions and there is mac80211 and ath5k
> > but no ath9k.
> > At this link
> > http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k
> > I found the following instructions:
> > Enabling ath9k
> > To enable ath9k, you must first enable mac80211:
> > I'm not sure what "enable" means in this context but I modprobed mac80211
> > and it shows up in the lsmod list. Next came the very cryptic
> > instructions: Networking --->
> > Wireless --->
> > <M> Improved wireless configuration API
> > <M> Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack (mac80211)
> > This seems to involve some sort of software but I haven't a clue what it
> > wants me to do. I am in a hopeless muddle now.
> >
> > Can anyone give me some hints here.
>
> ath9K?
>
> I think you may have been misled. In the kernel config for kernel
> 2.6.25-{2-3), there is a module called ath5k for the latest version of
> of madwifi.
>
> From what I've read it does bring the interface us but people have not
> been able to associate with an AP yet.
>
> I have not tried it yet myself due to other more pressing problems.
>
> Wayne

ath9k is for the 802.11n chips, ath5k for the a/b/g chips. ath9k is newer
than ath5k. Both are now lead by people from Atheros (they employed
the people who were leading the ath5k team) and both are incomplete and
are under heavy development. I would suggest that you wait a couple of
kernel iterations before trying either of them for production use, and if you
can (i.e. you do not have an 11n chip) use madwifi for now.

Obviously in the long term as both ath?k drivers are entirely open source
rather than relying on a closed HAL they are preferable to madwifi.

David


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David Goodenough wrote:

On Monday 18 August 2008, Wayne Topa wrote:

Jonathan Kaye wrote:

Hi all,

<<-- SNIP -->


At this link
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k
I found the following instructions:
Enabling ath9k
To enable ath9k, you must first enable mac80211:
I'm not sure what "enable" means in this context but I modprobed mac80211
and it shows up in the lsmod list. Next came the very cryptic
instructions: Networking --->
Wireless --->
<M> Improved wireless configuration API
<M> Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack (mac80211)
This seems to involve some sort of software but I haven't a clue what it
wants me to do. I am in a hopeless muddle now.

Can anyone give me some hints here.

ath9K?

I think you may have been misled. In the kernel config for kernel
2.6.25-{2-3), there is a module called ath5k for the latest version of
of madwifi.

From what I've read it does bring the interface us but people have not
been able to associate with an AP yet.

I have not tried it yet myself due to other more pressing problems.

Wayne


ath9k is for the 802.11n chips, ath5k for the a/b/g chips. ath9k is newer
than ath5k. Both are now lead by people from Atheros (they employed
the people who were leading the ath5k team) and both are incomplete and
are under heavy development. I would suggest that you wait a couple of
kernel iterations before trying either of them for production use, and if you
can (i.e. you do not have an 11n chip) use madwifi for now.

Obviously in the long term as both ath?k drivers are entirely open source
rather than relying on a closed HAL they are preferable to madwifi.



Thanks for that information David. I have not been able to keep up with
the progress

on the madwifi site but am glad that they are 'really' looking ahead.

My apologies to Jonathan for 'my' mis-information.

Wayne




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Wayne Topa wrote:


>
> My apologies to Jonathan for 'my' mis-information.
>
> Wayne
None required, Wayne. I appreciate all the help I can get. Thanks to David
also. I tried the madwifi package ath_pci, ath_hal and wlan but still
couldn't get the wifi to work. Is there anyway of knowing (without being
near a wifi hotpoitn) if the installed driver is the correct one?
Thanks again for all the help.
Jonathan

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On Monday 18 August 2008, Jonathan Kaye wrote:
> Wayne Topa wrote:
> > My apologies to Jonathan for 'my' mis-information.
> >
> > Wayne
>
> None required, Wayne. I appreciate all the help I can get. Thanks to David
> also. I tried the madwifi package ath_pci, ath_hal and wlan but still
> couldn't get the wifi to work. Is there anyway of knowing (without being
> near a wifi hotpoitn) if the installed driver is the correct one?
> Thanks again for all the help.
> Jonathan
>
> --
> Registerd Linux user #445917 at http://counter.li.org/

Without a nearby AP it is kind of difficult, but you can get clues by looking
at /var/log/syslog for madwifi related messages, and looking to see if there
is an interface included in the list you get from ip addr or ifconfig.

David


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David Goodenough wrote:

<snip>
>
> Without a nearby AP it is kind of difficult, but you can get clues by
> looking at /var/log/syslog for madwifi related messages, and looking to
> see if there is an interface included in the list you get from ip addr or
> ifconfig.
>
> David
Thanks for that David. I checked the syslog and there are a bunch of
messages relating to ath_pci and ath_hal. They don't seem very revealing;
nothing like "bad driver" or "broken" or "missing". I'm not really sure
what I should be looking for.
The output of ifconfig is easier. Here it is (I've omitted the eth0 and lo
stuff)
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0e:9b:cf:bc:0c
inet addr:172.26.0.4 Bcast:172.26.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr
00-0E-9B-CF-BC-0C-65-74-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

Does this look like it's happy with the driver?
Cheers,
Jonathan

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On Monday 18 August 2008, Jonathan Kaye wrote:
> David Goodenough wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > Without a nearby AP it is kind of difficult, but you can get clues by
> > looking at /var/log/syslog for madwifi related messages, and looking to
> > see if there is an interface included in the list you get from ip addr or
> > ifconfig.
> >
> > David
>
> Thanks for that David. I checked the syslog and there are a bunch of
> messages relating to ath_pci and ath_hal. They don't seem very revealing;
> nothing like "bad driver" or "broken" or "missing". I'm not really sure
> what I should be looking for.
> The output of ifconfig is easier. Here it is (I've omitted the eth0 and lo
> stuff)
> wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0e:9b:cf:bc:0c
> inet addr:172.26.0.4 Bcast:172.26.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
> UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
> RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
> TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
> collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
> RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
>
> wmaster0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr
> 00-0E-9B-CF-BC-0C-65-74-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
> UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
> RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
> TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
> collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
> RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
>
> Does this look like it's happy with the driver?
> Cheers,
> Jonathan
>
> --
> Registerd Linux user #445917 at http://counter.li.org/

Its a good start. Now you need to try connecting to the great outside.

David


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David Goodenough wrote:
<snip>
>> Does this look like it's happy with the driver?
>> Cheers,
>> Jonathan
>>
>> --
>> Registerd Linux user #445917 at http://counter.li.org/
>
> Its a good start. Now you need to try connecting to the great outside.
>
> David
OK, thanks David. We'll look for an AP and give it a try.
Cheers,
Jonathan
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Jonathan Kaye wrote:

Wayne Topa wrote:



My apologies to Jonathan for 'my' mis-information.

Wayne

None required, Wayne. I appreciate all the help I can get. Thanks to David
also. I tried the madwifi package ath_pci, ath_hal and wlan but still
couldn't get the wifi to work. Is there anyway of knowing (without being
near a wifi hotpoitn) if the installed driver is the correct one?
Thanks again for all the help.
Jonathan



Have you checked if your adapter works with madwifi? Check out the
Compatibility page on the madwifi site <http://madwifi.org>. I have
used, and am using, Netgear and D-Links cards. Be sure to watch for the
version of your card. Many manufactures use different chips in the
their cards without changing the Card part #, they just change the
version. That's from someone who got bit by getting the wrong version
number.


Wayne


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