Unable to get Atheros based drivers working

[Gerry Tool]

Robert Locke wrote:
> On Sat, 2006-04-01 at 22:13 -0500, Matthew Saltzman wrote:
>> On Sat, 1 Apr 2006, Robert Locke wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, 2006-04-01 at 14:29 -0500, David Cary Hart wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 01 Apr 2006 14:19:31 -0500
>>>> "Jeffrey D. Yuille" <jeffy5 at optonline.net> opined:
>>>>> I have a Linksys Wireless card, model wpc55ag.  I am using a Dell
>>>>> Inspiron 4000 laptop and have FC5 installed with the Gnome desktop.
>>>>> This card worked perfectly under FC4, using the madwifi drivers but
>>>>> I cannot get it recognized in FC5.  I would click on Desktop-System
>>>>> Settings-Network, I would come upon the Networking Configuration
>>>>> tool. When I click on New-Wireless Connection, I would only see
>>>>> "other wireless cards".  The system does not even see my card,
>>>>> despite already having installed the kmod-madwifi drivers.  How can
>>>>> I corrct this problem?  Is this a problem for others (or is this a
>>>>> bug?) ?
>>>>>
>>>> Do you have the alias (eg alias ath0 ath_pci) in modprobe.conf?
>>>>
>>> Actually, with the packaging from livna, it is found
>>> in /etc/modprobe.d/madwifi rather than directly in /etc/modprobe.conf...
>>>
>>> alias wifi0 ath_pci
>>> alias ath0 ath_pci
>>> options ath_pci autocreate=sta
>>>
>>> Though I am experiencing the same problem.  system-config-network is
>>> insisting that the wireless is an Ethernet card.  So I gave up and just
>> I had this problem with FC4 and a Cisco card, when I first installed it. 
>> I deleted everything (interfaces and hardware) from system-config-network 
>> and let the system redetect the hardware after rebooting, and then 
>> recreated the interfaces by hand.
>>
>> In FC5 with an ipw2200, it got the hardware correct, but it only created 
>> the wired interface.  I created the wireless interface by hand, and it's 
>> been fine (modulo a problem with the order in which modules are loaded 
>> that I discussed in another thread).
>>
>>> wrote a script that I run by hand when not wired....
>>>
>>> iwconfig ath0 essid "yourssidhere" key "yourwepkeyhere"
>>> iwpriv ath0 authmode 2
>>> iwpriv ath0 mode 2
>>> ifconfig ath0 up
>>> dhclient -1 ath0
>>>
>>> I believe this may be related to the madwifi-ng code not being properly
>>> recognized by system-config-network given the pair of layers here with
>>> both wifi0 and ath0 being established....
>>>
>>> --Rob
> 
> You know, on a whim, I thought I would try something.  Ran across the
> following wiki this evening:
> 
> http://fedoramobile.org/fc-wireless/installing-madwifi-using-yum-and-livna/
> 
> Thought it strange that this person had no problems with
> system-config-network under FC5 like I was having....
> 
> So I copied the lines from /etc/modprobe.d/madwifi
> into /etc/modprobe.conf, like he had.  I rebooted.  Ran
> system-config-network and there were now three hardware elements.  One
> for my Ethernet card that had been there all along, one for the Atheros
> card incorrectly delineated as Ethernet and aliased to wifi0 which had
> also been there all along (and had previously been
> in /etc/modprobe.conf), but finally a new hardware element called
> ath_pci and aliased to ath0.  I then created a new device, choosing
> Wireless and configuring ath0.  Worked perfectly.
> 
> So I guess the bug/problem is with system-config-network not working
> with the /etc/modprobe.d/ files.  I am also thinking that people may be
> having the same problem with NetworkManager though I haven't started
> playing with that yet....
> 
> HTH,
> 
> --Rob
> 
> 
Thanks, Rob, for posting this.  I now have my ath0 interface working the 
way I want it.  However, to have it persistent on startup I have to 
disable NetworkManager in services.  If NM starts, it kills the already 
started ath0.  I have found that Wireless Assistant (wlassistant) works 
fine with my madwifi setup.  I'll look at the bug report you made.

Gerry