Arch Linux

orre64

Member

Registered: 2008-10-23

Posts: 6

Please, help me with my atheros wifi before I go bury myself.

First of all, I would like to apologize. There are other threads on this matter. I have yet to find a working solution, but there is a chance that I haven't fully grasped the explanations and implemented them in the wrong way. I am still quite new to Linux, but I find the concept of Arch very appealing, and would rather get familiar with it sooner than later.

While running on the kernel from the latest live-cd, lspci -vvv states that my wifi card is Atheros AR5006EG. With the latest kernel from the core repo, lspci says AR242x. With the latest madwifi installed using pacman, iwconfig says there are no devices. I've tried ndiswrapper, attempting to follow ralvez's instructions from this thread: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=40818, but iwconfig still does not report a device. I used the .inf file intended for AR5006EG WinXP 32bit. Since I mostly try to blindly follow instructions and pick up as I go, it's not very easy to troubleshoot.

I would be extremely thankful for any advice, and I know I'm probably stupid trying Arch this early in my Linux-career, but please help me help myself.

kjon

Member

From: Temuco, Chile

Registered: 2008-04-16

Posts: 398

Re: Please, help me with my atheros wifi before I go bury myself.

neee.... neee.... neeee
Seems you own an ar5007 based network card.
Connect to the network by wire, get the base-devel group (pacman -S base-devel) and ensure that wireless_tools is correctly installed. Afterward copy the following text to a file named PKGBUILD and execute 'makepkg' on that directory.

#Contributor: KJoN <kurt_andereya@hotmail.com>
pkgname=madwifi-hal
pkgver=0.10.5.6
pkgrel=3
pkgdesc="Multiband Atheros Drivers - hal 0.10.5.6 - snapshot"
arch=('i686' 'x86_64')
url="http://www.madwifi.org"
license=('GPL')
depends=('wireless_tools')
provides=('madwifi' 'madwifi-utils')
source=(http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-current.tar.gz)
md5sums=()

build() {
    cd $startdir/src
    mv $pkgname-$pkgver-*/ $pkgname-$pkgver-current
    cd $pkgname-$pkgver-current
    make
    make DESTDIR=$startdir/pkg install
    cp $startdir/pkg/usr/local/* $startdir/pkg/usr -vR
    cp $startdir/pkg/usr/share/* $startdir/pkg/usr -vR
    rm $startdir/pkg/usr/{local,share} -r
}

install the generated package with pacman -U <packagename> and **run** 'depmod -a' after installation. It might be necesary to blacklist 'ath5k' from loading on rc.conf. Also, for avoiding driver conflicts, uninstall ndiswrapper.

I hope it help.

Last edited by kjon (2008-10-24 01:15:17)

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They say that if you play a Win cd backward you hear satanic messages. That's nothing! 'cause if you play it forwards, it installs windows.

orre64

Member

Registered: 2008-10-23

Posts: 6

Re: Please, help me with my atheros wifi before I go bury myself.

Thanks for the pkgbuild script! I can't wait to try it, but makepkg gives me a strange error.

==> ERROR: Runnning makepkg as root is a BAD idea, blah blah blah, please use the --asroot option.

But when i do makepkg --asroot, it says

==> ERROR: An unknown error has occured. Exiting..

I found a thread where someone someone advised modifying the aur-get and aurbuild scripts (http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=316497), but I cant seem to locate these files using the bash find command. (find -name aur*, in root folder).

Any idea how to fix this..?

Edit: I tried making an ordinary user, but when prefixing with sudo, I get the first error, and without sudo, I get the second error. I also tried building using the live cd, without different results.

Last edited by orre64 (2008-10-24 08:05:07)

kjon

Member

From: Temuco, Chile

Registered: 2008-04-16

Posts: 398

Re: Please, help me with my atheros wifi before I go bury myself.

my recommendation, although is beta, download this iso
http://downloads.archlinux.de/iso/archb … chboot.iso

have a look into its installation notes!

That should fix your issue.

---

They say that if you play a Win cd backward you hear satanic messages. That's nothing! 'cause if you play it forwards, it installs windows.

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: Please, help me with my atheros wifi before I go bury myself.

Read the error message and THINK

ERROR: Runnning makepkg as root is a BAD idea,

Last edited by iphitus (2008-10-24 13:17:05)

kjon

Member

From: Temuco, Chile

Registered: 2008-04-16

Posts: 398

Re: Please, help me with my atheros wifi before I go bury myself.

Read the error message and THINK

ERROR: Runnning makepkg as root is a BAD idea,

I assumed he realized of it, but I was wandering

==> ERROR: An unknown error has occured. Exiting..

what might mean that? what is the cause of that error?

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They say that if you play a Win cd backward you hear satanic messages. That's nothing! 'cause if you play it forwards, it installs windows.

orre64

Member

Registered: 2008-10-23

Posts: 6

Re: Please, help me with my atheros wifi before I go bury myself.

Read the error message and THINK

ERROR: Runnning makepkg as root is a BAD idea,

I'll read my error messages if you actually read my posts. Fair enough aye?

Edit: As for the iso kjon, I'm going to try a clean install from it right now. That's what you meant yeah?

Last edited by orre64 (2008-10-24 15:47:06)

orre64

Member

Registered: 2008-10-23

Posts: 6

Re: Please, help me with my atheros wifi before I go bury myself.

my recommendation, although is beta, download this iso
http://downloads.archlinux.de/iso/archb … chboot.iso

have a look into its installation notes!

That should fix your issue.

I tried that iso, but with no difference from the regular one. Still couldn't use makepkg or get madwifi working.

I feel bad having to resort to Ubuntu, but I found some hopeful solutions on the forum. Perhaps I'd better just come back here when I can fix it myself.

orre64

Member

Registered: 2008-10-23

Posts: 6

Re: Please, help me with my atheros wifi before I go bury myself.

Update: I managed to get Ubuntu to detect my card with iwconfig using this madwifi driver: http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi-ha … 903.tar.gz

I was, however, unable to establish a connection to my router. The driver was installed using make and make install from the Debian build-essential package. Is there a way I can try this driver on Arch Linux?

Cappy

Member

Registered: 2008-10-13

Posts: 20

Re: Please, help me with my atheros wifi before I go bury myself.

I have the same card (5006EG) as you on my Toshiba A135. This may not even be your problem but I'll try anyway.

I installed the madwifi drivers (non-svn) from the disk during installation and I'll assume below you have it.

edit /etc/rc.conf and look at the MODULES line. You should see "ath5k" on that line, change that to "!ath5k" so that it doesn't run.
reboot.

If that worked, like it did for me, you should see an ath0 in iwconfig now.

I then created netcfg profiles: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Netcfg
in the /etc/network.d

I added the line

QUIRKS=(prescan preessid predown)

into my profiles because sometimes the wireless wouldn't associate until I reconnected multiple times.

then connect to your network with

netcfg -a
netcfg file_name_of_your_profile

there's also a nice wifi assistant for X called archassistant that works with netcfg.

Last edited by Cappy (2008-10-27 20:34:29)

orre64

Member

Registered: 2008-10-23

Posts: 6

Re: Please, help me with my atheros wifi before I go bury myself.

Thanks for the advice, but for some reason, even after blacklisting ath5k, iwconfig will still only show eth0 and lo. No difference after doing modprobe ath_pci. (That worked on Ubuntu after installing the svn driver.)

I did however get the latest official madwifi from the repos, should I try using the one from the CD? And how do I go about using the CD as repository?