Atheros Wireless Setup – Ubuntu
As I stated earlier, I just bought a new laptop and installed Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) on it. All was working apart from the wireless connection. The Laptop comes with a Atheros wireless card. Ubuntu also comes installed with madwifi drivers for the card. So in theory things should just work, right ? Well no. The version of the wireless card I have (I do not have the version to hand) does not work with the current ubuntu package of madWiFi drivers.
So this is a quick step by step tutorial on how I got things to work nicely :
- Get the g++ compiler : sudo apt-get install build-essential
- Download subversion : sudo apt-get install subversion
- Create directory to store the drivers and navigate to it.
- Download latest madwifi drivers using subversion : subversion svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/trunk madwifi
- Get the current Kernel you are running : uname -r
- Navigate to the correct lib directory : cd /lib/modules/$(uname -r) (use the output from the previous step to get the directory)
- Delete the net lib files : sudo rm -rf net
- Delete the madwifi files : sudo rm -rf madwifi
- Delete this folder if it exists : sudo rm -rf madwifi-ng
- Find the modules currently installed that you need to unload : lsmod | grep ath
- From this output above issue a rmmod command for all the modules : sudo rmmod modulename
- Go back to where you downloaded the new subversion drivers and run : sudo make and then sudo make install answer yes to remove the old module.
- Load all of the modules you have just unloaded using modprobe. These should be:
sudo modprobe ath_pci
sudo modprobe ath_rate_sample
sudo modprobe wlan
sudo modprobe ath_hal - Check to see if modules have been loaded by typing dmesg and looking at the system log.
- Open up network gui in Ubuntu and enable the wifi card and set the sessid
The card should now be configured. However if you want a dock applet that informs you how much strength your wireless card has, I would suggest netapplet.
I hope this has helped someone. This took me about 2-3 hours to get working!
Hamza
Need help … i am very much a noob … and was following your instructions when the system froze… i had unloaded all the mods with smod | grep ath but now don’t know which to load back … and as u may guess I cannot see the adapter in the gui any longer.
Thanks.
Hi, I should have actually put this in the post.
Well here are the modules I loaded back :
sudo modprobe ath_pci
sudo modprobe ath_rate_sample
sudo modprobe wlan
sudo modprobe ath_hal
Hope this helps
Hamza
… thanks .. will try that now.
worked this time …
one thing:
sudo apt-get install build-essentials
— should actually be “build-essential” … (couldn’t get it to work first)
great guide though.
Thanks!
I am glad it has worked 🙂
I will update the post and fix that typo.
Hamza
it worked for me. It took me less than 10mins to get it working. Good post
Worked for me too. Many thanks!
-Phil
Worked for me too. Thanks a lot!
I downloaded the subversion & build-essential package and they downloaded correctly. Now when I try : subversion svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/trunk madwifi
it tells me it doesn’t recognize this command. I can assure you that the two packages are correctly installed. What the heck am I doing wrong?
Try just:
$svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/trunk madwifi
Hi. I have a Atheros AR5008. 300 mps. Type n.
I followed same instruktions, but downloaded
the experimental driver for n cards at:
http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi-hal-0.9.30.10/
Downloading the latest driver from 10-Apr-2007.
I followed the link at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-restricted-modules-2.6.20/+bug/85455
Before i have tried the ndiswrapper.
It didnt work…
Several places have complained problems
with ndiswrapper and AR5008.
I dont know if it is important, but i uninstalled the ndiswrapper to bere sure:
$sudo apt-get remove ndiswrapper-commen
and then i removed the loaded modules:
$lsmod | grep ndis
$rmmod modulename
Thanks!!!
Hi. I have a Atheros AR5008. 300 mps. Version a.
I got it working with the experimental driver:
http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi-hal-0.9.30.10/
Following the link:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-restricted-modules-2.6.20/+bug/85455
And following the rest of guide.
Thanks!
Hi.
I have feisty 7.04 with Atheros AR5008 300 mps.
type n.
I followed the guide, but with another driver:
Quote:
FYI there now is a driver for the Atheros AR5008. You can get the driver at:
http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi-hal-0.9.30.10/
It’s still exeprimental and I don’t know how well it works.
And it worked!!!
Thanks
Hi,
I have followed all the steps listed but I still get an error message during the loading of the modules…
I type sudo modprobe ath_pci (in the folder madwifi, don’t know if it matters where but ok) and it tells me:
FATAL: Error inserting ath_pci (/lib/modules/2.6.17-11-generic/net/ath_pci.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
I don’t know if it has anything to do with when it tells me “ERROR: Module wlan is in use by wlan_scan_sta” when I try to unlod it with sudo rmmod…
PS: I just installed ubuntu a few days ago so I’m not good at all with commands and understanding yet. 😦
thanks worked for me
I am getting a similar error when doing the sudo modprobe command
How to fix?
I should have included tat when running make install, I got the following error:
install ath_pci.ko //lib/modules/2.6.15-28-686/net
install: cannot stat `ath_pci.ko’: No such file or directory
make[1]: *** [install] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/lib/modules/2.6.15-28-686/madwifi_drivers/madwifi/ath’
make: *** [install-modules] Error 1
BUMP
great writeup took no time at all.
the site is no longer hxxp://svn.madwifi.org/trunk its http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk
so far ur setup has not worked for me
svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org madwifi
Looks like the trunk directory doesn’t exists
The svn repo has been restructured, try:
svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk
Great “How To …”
After adding the modules, I get:
wifi%d: unable to attach hardware: ‘Hardware didn’t respond as expected’ (HAL status 3)
I’m using 2.6.23.9-85.fc8
i do all that and nothing changes
fernando@fernando-laptop:~$ lsmod | grep ath
ath_rate_sample 16256 0
ath_pci 161080 0
wlan 252448 2 ath_rate_sample,ath_pci
ath_hal 261248 2 ath_rate_sample,ath_pci
fernando@fernando-laptop:~$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1B:38:17:16:91
inet addr:192.168.1.139 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::21b:38ff:fe17:1691/64 Scope:Link
UP DIFUSIÓN CORRIENDO MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:789 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:572 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
colisiones:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:238623 (233.0 KB) TX bytes:85875 (83.8 KB)
Interrupt:18
lo Link encap:Bucle local
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK CORRIENDO MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
colisiones:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
fernando@fernando-laptop:~$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
i dont know how can i start the wireless, dont appears in ifconfig or iwconfig
please help
toshiba satelite a215-s4967 atheros wireless card
I have to type modprobe ath_pci each time I reboot or the driver doesn’t load. Is there a way to do that automatically?
I added the modules to:
/etc/modules
I think that’ll work and load them on each reboot…
Hey, If I wanted to use my laptop to get Wireless at public places, do I have to ask the coffee shop/library/whatever for their Network info? Or does it find them automatically, like Windows?
Thanks,
Worked. Now if I can just get my signal strength as strong as it was when I was running the same system on Windoz Xpee
Kurtis
Thanks this did the trick for me. I found you from here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=839061
As I stated there, my card was not resuming from hibernation, the fix I found was adding:
SUSPEND_MODULES=”ath_pci”
to the file:
/etc/pm/config.d
this is all very new to me and do not know all of the command line stuff please help call me @940-765-8955 or email me @ shaun.forcier@yahoo.com
hi i am fucking new to ubuntu and linux its been days i have been trying to fix the wireless problems but i know nothing about command line anD all.i have atheros ar5007 which works fine with windows and detects the surrounding networks but ubuntu is a diff story.pls help to make my wireless working step by step.what should i do.
computer name:acer aspire 2920
ubuntu installed:8.10
I know this tutorial was created in 2006, and it’s ’10 now, but does anyone know where madwifi.org moved to? svn.madwifi.org does not exist anymore, neither does snapshots.madwifi.org.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Try http://madwifi-project.org
Thanks Hugh.