28 replies to this topic

[jricher]

Does anyone have a copy of the Madwifi patch for the eeepc's card? It was pulled because they weren't immediately able to verify the source of the HAL, but I'd like to test it anyway. It's known to work....

[kiddyfurby]

i've uploaded it to my site...
http://www.kisslog.com/tmp/patch

[Elusid]

Ok so then how would we do this? Would we do everything the same in this code except change the location of the patch to the url above? So would it look like this?

sudo apt-get install build-essential
wget 'http://www.kisslog.com/tmp/patch'
wget http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi-ng/madwifi-ng-r2756-20071018.tar.gz
tar zxvf madwifi-ng-r2756-20071018.tar.gz
cd madwifi-ng-r2756-20071018
patch -p0 < ../patch
make clean
make
sudo make install
reboot

right? If not will someone tell us how to get it working. I need to get the WiFi on Ubuntu up and running too.

[quagga]

Yes Elusid, I believe that should be an accurate way of rebuilding this driver.

Since I can't be sure if the sources will become available at madwifi.org again, I too have created a backup tarball. The tarball has the snapshot, the eee patch, and the optional injection patch in it.

http://quaggaspace.o...ifi-eee.tar.bz2

It is what I am presently using on the eee. YMMV.

[jricher]

Much thanks.

[joners]

Anybody else wonder why the pulled it?

[benob]

in short: they don't trust (yet) the person who has submitted the (partially binary) patch.

from http://madwifi.org/ticket/1679

<quote>
Hi,

Sorry to be the party pooper, but I am removing the patch from this ticket until we know the origin of it, and the patch submitter has contacted the developers of this project to co-ordinate the availability of this new code for public consumption.

Scott Raynel has attempted to contact the two mail addresses from Atheros on this ticket in order to receive more information about the situation.

It is, in our opinion, not very responsible to allow an unknown blob to be made available like this. We have no way of knowing what this blob does, and we never will, because its not transparent. But we do _need_ to be informed by the blob vendor what changes it brings.

Hope for understanding.
</qote>

[rBoLt]

has anyone make this work? performance?

[jricher]

Search the forums. A whole lot of people are using this. It works very, very well. They even found out that the patch was actually from Atheros (the people who wrote the original HAL blob) so all's well with the world.

[bostonvaulter]

If it works well and it is actually from Atheros then are they going to repost it?

[jricher]

They're working with Atheros to integrate the patches into madwifi -current. In the meantime, they continue to be available from the usual suspects.

[Fudance]

Quote

Ok so then how would we do this? Would we do everything the same in this code except change the location of the patch to the url above? So would it look like this?

sudo apt-get install build-essential
wget 'http://www.kisslog.com/tmp/patch'
wget http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi-ng/madwifi-ng-r2756-20071018.tar.gz
tar zxvf madwifi-ng-r2756-20071018.tar.gz
cd madwifi-ng-r2756-20071018
patch -p0 < ../patch
make clean
make
sudo make install
reboot

right? If not will someone tell us how to get it working. I need to get the WiFi on Ubuntu up and running too.

Hi,

I'm new to forum, and thought I'd introduce myself with a problem after lurking for ages ;)

I have a nice fresh Debian install that I'm trying to get the wireless drivers working on. I've followed the above process and all looks well during the make, I can see the modules are loaded, but unfortunately when I type "iwconfig" I am unable to see the wifi0 device that is needed to configure the rest of it.

Here are the modules I have loaded:

Module                  Size  Used by
i915                   17600  1
drm                    61332  2 i915
ipv6                  226272  10
ppdev                   8676  0
parport_pc             32132  0
lp                     11012  0
parport                33256  3 ppdev,parport_pc,lp
button                  6672  0
ac                      5188  0
battery                 9636  0
dm_snapshot            15552  0
dm_mirror              19152  0
dm_mod                 50232  2 dm_snapshot,dm_mirror
loop                   15048  0
joydev                  9088  0
tsdev                   7520  0
psmouse                35016  0
serio_raw               6660  0
rtc                    12372  0
snd_hda_intel          17332  0
snd_hda_codec         137856  1 snd_hda_intel
snd_pcm_oss            38368  0
snd_mixer_oss          15200  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                68676  3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              20996  1 snd_pcm
snd                    47012  6 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore               9248  1 snd
snd_page_alloc          9640  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
atl2                   32856  0
pcspkr                  3072  0
i2c_i801                7468  0
i2c_core               19680  1 i2c_i801
ath_pci                98600  0
wlan                  182256  1 ath_pci
ath_hal               279328  1 ath_pci
intel_agp              22140  1
agpgart                29896  3 drm,intel_agp
evdev                   9088  2
ext2                   59048  2
mbcache                 8356  1 ext2
usb_storage            71840  0
sd_mod                 19040  3
ata_piix               13576  2
ahci                   17636  0
libata                 89396  2 ata_piix,ahci
scsi_mod              124168  4 usb_storage,sd_mod,ahci,libata
generic                 4868  0 [permanent]
ide_core              110504  2 usb_storage,generic
ehci_hcd               28136  0
uhci_hcd               21164  0
usbcore               112644  4 usb_storage,ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd
thermal                13608  0
processor              28840  1 thermal
fan                     4804  0

but when i use iwconfig i get:

~# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.

In the dmesg output i can see the following error:

MadWifi: HAL ABI mismatch; driver expects 0x7013100, HAL reports 0x7090300

Does anyone know how i can fix this?

[quagga]

I'd gather from that error that the ath_hal module or the ath_pci module isn't getting installed properly. The driver is looking for a ath_hal that matches it and instead finds one which doesn't.

I believe there is an unload/uninstall script in the madwifi release. You might want to run that to "purge" any old madwifi cruft which is hanging around. Then recompile/reinstall the module and run a depmod -ae and then load the module.

[Fudance]

Thanks Quagga, I've given that a try and it has got rid of the error from dmesg, but still no wifi0 device is created. All I see in dmesg now is:-

ath_hal: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.
ath_hal: 0.10.2.2-ATHEROS (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, AR5416, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413, RF2133, RF2425)
wlan: 0.8.4.2 (svn r2756)
ath_pci: 0.9.4.5 (svn r2756)

It looks as if everything is OK, I certainly don't see any errors, so I'm a little bemused :S

Once I have this set up I will pretty much have a fully configured Debian install!

[quagga]

Hmm, at this point I'm guessing maybe its something with udev not creating the device? What happens if you ifconfig wlan0 up?

You might need someone running Debian proper (I'm an Ubuntu user) to comment. I'm not sure what that isn't taking.

[darrylmg]

You may need to use the madwifi tools to create the device.

Try:

sudo wlanconfig wlan create wlandev wifi0

NOTE: if you don't have wlanconfig, then you don't have madwifi tools installed.

I am running Xubuntu so just a guess.

Incidently, I am having some serious issues with trying to create an Ad-hoc connection to a windows PC using the madwifi drivers.
It worked perfectly well with NDiswrapper and NetworkManager (apart from the CPU usage issue).

I have tried the following link (which contains some very very useful info on wifi config commands) : https://help.ubuntu..../WifiDocs/Adhoc
But it still doesn't fix the issue.
I can "see" that wlan0 is up and working and the signal is being received but on the windows PC it doesn't recognise that anything is connected and therefor won't connect itself.

Has anyone tried Ad-Hoc with the madwifi drivers?

[quagga]

I gave up on NetworkManger. The lovely software was just dropping the connection on the eee for no reason. Just poof and offline. I went the old fashioned way and run pre-up scripts in /etc/network/interfaces that pull wpa_supplicant up. Rock solid.

I've never done ad-hoc I'm afraid (and don't have a Windows box either). However, if all else fails I suppose you could set the eee up as an access point. Madwifi should support that as well.

[Shades]

darrylmg: I managed to do it adhoc with the modprobe ath_pci autocreate=adhoc and wifiradar.

[NZLamb]

Thanks for the tips, quagga. I've downloaded the patch you posted and it runs great. I haven't encountered any issues with the Gnome network manager yet either (touch wood)! :)

I wonder if anyone can be bothered making this into a Deb package?

[darrylmg]

Quote

darrylmg: I managed to do it adhoc with the modprobe ath_pci autocreate=adhoc and wifiradar.

Darn it!!! I've just returned back to ndiswrapper today!

Don't suppose you would mind pm'ing me the extact instructions you used?
Are you connecting to a Windows PC with it?

I did try the method you seem to have used, and I could seem to connect (iwconfig showed a signal strength greater than 0 and a cell number.) but the Windows PC didn't think so and I couldn't ping the Windows PC from the eee, or t'other way round.

Thanks ever so much.