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Linux - Laptop and Netbook Having a problem installing or configuring Linux on your laptop? Need help running Linux on your netbook? This forum is for you. This forum is for any topics relating to Linux and either traditional laptops or netbooks (such as the Asus EEE PC, Everex CloudBook or MSI Wind).

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Old 06-02-2008, 12:14 PM   #1
tac90
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wireless wont work -Atheros AR242x 802.11abg


Hi forum,

I just installed fedora 9 and I'm trying to get wireless to work.

I've tried installing madwifi because I have a live CD that wireless works on and uses madwifi-ng.

lspci tells me my card is:

Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

iwconfig:
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

pan0 no wireless extensions.
 
Old 06-03-2008, 07:36 AM   #2
lylemwood
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Hi Tac90,

What version of MadWifi do you have? According to their wiki your card should be supported, but...

If you're using a Notebook (such as an Acer Aspire) there is a link on the compatibility field: http://madwifi.org/ticket/1679

That ticket relates to support-patches that were created to enable this card.

As I have an Acer notebook myself and am running Slack on it, I intend to use MadWifi to enable my system. When I implement, I'll post back any learnings from my experience if I think they could help you with yours.

Thanks,

Lyle
 
Old 06-03-2008, 10:26 PM   #3
tac90
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I tried that patch and some other things such as blacklisting ath5k and it still didn't work. I ended up just using the live cd that I know works for now. Maybe when I get more knowledgeable in linux I'll figure out why the live cd works.
 
Old 06-04-2008, 06:56 AM   #4
lylemwood
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Not that it's going to do you any AMAZING amount of good, but when you're booted up in your Live CD, since they usually throw just about every module at the problem until something works, try lsmod and see which modules are loaded pertaining to wifi.

It's possible you're missing a few items from your running kernel under your HDD-based OS... Did you compile your own kernel?
 
Old 06-09-2008, 03:47 AM   #5
storkus
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You need to check compatibility with the MadWiFi drivers: not all chips
work right now.

In particular, many current Wistron laptops (Acer, Fujitsu, HP, some
others) have the Atheros 2425 AKA AR5007EG AKA AR5BXB63. This chipset has
just now finally been supported in the proprietary HAL courtesy of a new
release by Sam Leffler.

This HAL is now in the latest snapshots and subversion but NOT in stable.
To use it, you'll need to download and compile one of those. If you
don't compile your own kernel, you'll need to blacklist "ath5k" as well.

Obviously this won't help you if you're using a live-CD/DVD, though.

Mike
 
Old 04-12-2009, 12:50 AM   #6
enyawix
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tac90 View Post
Hi forum,

I just installed fedora 9 and I'm trying to get wireless to work.

I've tried installing madwifi because I have a live CD that wireless works on and uses madwifi-ng.

lspci tells me my card is:

Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

iwconfig:
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

pan0 no wireless extensions.

# lspci -v
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
Subsystem: Askey Computer Corp. Device 7128
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
Memory at 94600000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ath5k_pci
Kernel modules: ath5k




# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thrff Fragment thr=2352 B
Encryption keyff
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0



I am also having no luck with this hardware.
 
Old 04-12-2009, 02:31 PM   #7
enyawix
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someone posted a fix

http://www.drewwithers.com/content/d...ite-a215-s4747
 
Old 04-13-2009, 07:53 AM   #8
farslayer
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And just in case you want to go all the way back to the madwifi-project ticket this originated in...
http://madwifi-project.org/ticket/1192

but that is the driver I use in my Acer Aspire one Netbook running Debian Lenny. and it works perfectly.
 
Old 04-13-2009, 09:29 AM   #9
enyawix
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Quote:
Originally Posted by farslayer View Post
And just in case you want to go all the way back to the madwifi-project ticket this originated in...
http://madwifi-project.org/ticket/1192

but that is the driver I use in my Acer Aspire one Netbook running Debian Lenny. and it works perfectly.
I am also running Debian Lenny. I just bought a Toshiba Satellite L305-S5919. I started to sell the laptop because I thought it was incompatible. It was VERY difficult to get Linux to run on my laptop. Did you run into issues other than getting your wireless to work?
 
Old 04-13-2009, 02:01 PM   #10
farslayer
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Funny enough it appears your laptop has the exact same network interfaces as the Acer Aspire One..
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianAcerOne

No I did not have any other specific issues, all my difficulties were addressed in that Debian Acer One Wiki article.
Unfortuntely i don't see a similar article for your model laptop..

http://swinky-linuxblog.blogspot.com...lite-l305.html

Ubuntu 8.10 is reported to have everything functional out of the box on your laptop/
 
Old 04-13-2009, 04:07 PM   #11
enyawix
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Quote:
Originally Posted by farslayer View Post
Funny enough it appears your laptop has the exact same network interfaces as the Acer Aspire One..
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianAcerOne

No I did not have any other specific issues, all my difficulties were addressed in that Debian Acer One Wiki article.
Unfortuntely i don't see a similar article for your model laptop..

http://swinky-linuxblog.blogspot.com...lite-l305.html

Ubuntu 8.10 is reported to have everything functional out of the box on your laptop/

Ubuntu 8.10 would not work for me. I have Debian Lenny on the laptop now. It was difficult to get everything working correctly, but every thing works correctly now.
 
Old 08-13-2009, 08:29 PM   #12
gahammar
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Registered: Aug 2009
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I have done everything in the post referencing Drew Withers, but wireless still doesn't work. I think I'm still having trouble with the config in /etc/network/interfaces. I'm running WPA with a pre-shared key. This is what I have in the config:

auto ath0
iface ath0 inet dhcp
#wpa-ap-scan 2
#ipa-scan-ssid 1
wpa-driver wext
wpa-ssid my-ssid
wpa-psk my-psk
#wpa-auth-alg SHARED
#wpa-proto WPA
#wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK

I don't know if the driver is correct or I need something else to use madWifi. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

FWIW this is a Compaq CQ-60 215 with the AR242x chipset.

lspci:
07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

dmesg:
Linux version 2.6.26-2-amd64 (Debian 2.6.26-17lenny1) (dannf@debian.org) (gcc version 4.1.3 20080704 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.2-25)) #1 SMP Sun Jul 26 20:35:48 UTC 2009

Giff
 
Old 08-13-2009, 09:00 PM   #13
enyawix
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to gahammar

Did you install madwifi from the madwifi site? The debian driver would not work for me. I can post mt lspci -v if you want it.
 
Old 08-14-2009, 09:47 AM   #14
gahammar
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When I rebooted this morning, my WiFi was working. I believe it was the final change I made to /etc/network/interfaces. Anyway, here's what I did:

1. Followed the instructions at http://www.drewwithers.com/content/d...ite-a215-s4747. I also verified that the modules were installed as required.

2. Used the config as shown in my last post. The only major change was using a hex key that I generated from http://www.xs4all.nl/~rjoris/wpapsk.html instead of a quoted plain text PSK.

Thanks for your help!
 
Old 09-10-2009, 05:59 PM   #15
studpenguin
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tac90 View Post
I tried that patch and some other things such as blacklisting ath5k and it still didn't work. I ended up just using the live cd that I know works for now. Maybe when I get more knowledgeable in linux I'll figure out why the live cd works.
WTF?

There's the solution to my probleM: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...te=1&p=3677618



wELLL I guess Ime gonna get me a Fedora 9 Live cd if they make em' for 64 bit pC 'S CAUSE ubuntu 9.04 is sh!t! for wireless
 
  


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