installing Madwifi Fedora 8

[fdestcroix]

I'm new to Linux. In my last computer I installed fedora 6 and it worked. I was happy.
Then my good old computer died. I was sad.
I bought a new computer, Sony Vaio, Installed Fedora 8 and it worked. I am happy.

But the wireless does not work. I have an Atheros AR5006EG . which does not seem to work.

I did my research and found that madwifi will probably help.

I followed the newbie how-to on the madwifi site. http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/FirstTimeHowTo

Followed the steps until I got to the install madwifi module #modprobe ath_pci (I have saved a copy of what I did if needed) This command did not work for me.

At this point I did more searching and found this thread in FedoraForum: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=126266&highlight=madwifi

Looking back I should have done more research before starting on this project, now I fear the steps that I followed in my first try are screwing up this second howto which seems pretty straight forward.

Now I follow the steps. First problem the files are not available so i downloaded:

kmod-madwifi-2.6.23.9-85.fc8-0.9.3.3-12.lvn8.i686.rpm
kmod-madwifi-PAE-0.9.3.3-12.lvn8.i686.rpm

when I try to install I get a dependency errors:

Missing Dependency: kmod-madwifi >= 0.9.3.3-12.lvn8 is needed by package kmod-madwifi-2.6.23.9-85.fc8
Missing Dependency: madwifi-kmod-common >= 0.9.3.3 is needed by package kmod-madwifi-2.6.23.9-85.fc8

and

Missing Dependency: kmod-madwifi-2.6.23.9-85.fc8PAE = 0.9.3.3-12.lvn8 is needed by package kmod-madwifi-PAE

respectively

Now my next step was to find the dependencies

downloaded:

kmod-madwifi-0.9.3.3-12.lvn8.i686.rpm

Install Attempt, errors:

Missing Dependency: kmod-madwifi-2.6.23.9-85.fc8 = 0.9.3.3-12.lvn8 is needed by package kmod-madwifi

I'm not too knowledgeable with chip architecture i386 vs i686. but the i386 was not there. I know that my computer is i686 platform so I chose the i686 with the highest version. Was this right?

What is going on and how do I proceed from here. I think Linux and Fedora is great. I dual boot my system for now but I will obliterate the Vista from my system as soon as the warranty is up. Apparently Linux will void warranties??

It is not the end of the world if this does not work. I'm a simple person with simple needs and I can lug a wire around the house to plug my computer in. But the convenience of having wireless may come in handy when I'm traveling. And our local transit just installed wireless access in all the buses. I though it would be cool to try that out.

Thank ya'll for the great info here.

[Dangermouse]

Have a look here theres a option to install madwifi for you in f8
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=171660

[fdestcroix]

Thank you Dangermouse.

This looks great and if I found this first I'm sure it would have worked for me.

The installer window does a lot of work and then it gets to a warning about old modules.

I selected the list option and saw a list:

Should I just delete these 13 files localted in /lib/modules/ ?

Thanks for your help!

[scottro]

Be careful. The 5006EG might really be a 5007EG.

There are several threads going on about the card.

Do a search for Acer 4270 and you'll see one that I started, which should lead you to the various links. It seems to be working for some, but not others (no, I'm NOT the only one for whom it's not working.)
Basically, you'll want to check Madwifi's site, and if that doesn't work, you can try ndiswrapper--several people have success with that.

[Dangermouse]

The driver should work with your card (i have the same) i suspect that you have tried already to install madwifi driver and it is asking you to ovewrite previous attempts if this is the case then say yes (y) and let it overwrite them.

[fdestcroix]

Thank you Dangermouse,

but....

I am still unable to get my wireless working.

I reloaded fedora which proved to be a waste of time since everything works exactly the same.

I tried loading the madwifi with your install utility.

Now my card appears in the network manager, I set up the settings for my wireless connecting and it is unable to determine ip address.

also this error

SIOCSIFFLAGS: Invalid argument

Does this automated installer install the madwifi ticket #1679? If not, maybe I should try this version of madwifi?

And now if I wanted to remove this madwifi to install the new one how do i go about doing that?

According to some sources it is possible that my chip is actually the 5007 rather than the 5006.

Thanks for all your help.

[PaulSipot]

This is how I usually do to compile it from the latest source version:

su root

Install needed software:
yum install kernel-headers gcc gcc-c++ subversion

Get madwifi source:
svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk madwifi-ng
cd madwifi-ng

Compile it:
make clean && make && make install

Load the driver:
modprobe ath_hal wlan ath_pci
depmod -a

See if you got the wireless interface:
iwconfig

Then see which networks are available:
ifconfig <yourNetworkInterface> up
iwlist <yourNetworkInterface> scan

And you get a list of wireless access points, now you can just make it use the correct essid ("name of that access point"):
iwconfig <yourWirelessInterface> essid <itsName>
If it is using DHCP (to get an IP automatically):
dhclient <yourWirelessInterface>

And it should get an IP automatically and just work, now if you look at the Network Manager then you can further configure your wireless network card and make it so that it gets used every time you start then computer.

[PaulSipot]

Also, you need to remove the previous driver if you are to compile it from source as mentioned above. There are scripts amongst the source files, one of which unloads the driver, which you might need to do too before installing a new one. It also needs to be recompiled after each kernel upgrade.

### To install the binary one:

This should work.
First install the 'livna' repository, if you haven't done that already.
rpm -Uvh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm
Then:
yum install madwifi

Then it's a matter of configuring it.

[aprilian bandit]

Take a look at this... worked for me, scroll down the page to find the guide http://home.nyc.rr.com/computertaijutsu/rhwireless.html

[fdestcroix]

I tried that and it didn't help. I think that it might be due to my lack of know-how. I will keep at it until I find a solution.

I had the network manager recognizing the card at one point and I was able to set up the connection but then got an error when trying to connect.

[scottro]

Which did you try? The link given above your post? Of course, that page was written by a moron (me) so, who knows? :)

Let's take this from the top. Did you check the bottom of the computer to look and see if the sticker said AR whatever I have on that page, indicating that it's really the 5007EG, cleverly disguising itself as a 5006 to lspci?

If the answer is yes, then a combo of the posts above should work, but by now, you've probably mixed them all up--I know when I was first angrily trying to get that card to work I tried this that and the other till I didn't know what I had. :)

So, first, if you have any madwifi rpms, uninstall them.
yum remove madwifi.

Now, if you have tried using the source madwifi, cd into the directory you were in when you typed make and type
make uninstall.

Now, I'm assuming that you do have the 5007EG card and that you downloaded the patched snapshot, the one with the +5007 something at the end of its name. (You have to give details like that, it helps us figure it out. For example, right now, I'm going by the premise that you have the 5007 and are aware of it, but, from your posts, I don't know that.)

If you have a different madwifi directory than that one, go back to my page and get the one that I link to on the page, the
madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007.tar.gz.

If the directory you have says all that except for the tar.gz on the end, we're in good shape, again, assuming that you actually have the 5007EG card. If you still have Windows on the machine, you can look at device manager too, and that will tell you what card you have.

Now, in the directory, type

make clean
make
make install

Assuming all this completes without error, then do
modprobe ath_pci

You will have to be root to do all this. You have to either log in as root or if you use su, do su - (that's su, space and a hyphen) otherwise, you'll be getting some command not found errors--see http://home.nyc.rr.com/computertaijutsu/rhpath.html for explanation.)

Now, try
lsmod |grep ath

See what you have, hopefully, you have ath_hal and ath_pci.

You can now try removing ath5k and doing the depmod -a but I don't know if it will work. However, try it.
rmmod ath5k
depmod -a
Now you can try--if it's Fedora 8

iwlist wlan0 scan

See if you get back some wireless networks.

If so, you're good to go.
If not, before giving up, do
echo 'blacklist ath5k' >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

MAKE SURE YOU DO >> and not just >. :) (Otherwise, you will wipe out the whole file. You can also just open the file in your favorite text editor and add that line at the end.)

Reboot.

Try doing dmesg|grep HAL

If you get nothing back, that's a very good thing. If you get back some sort of HAL error then it's not. :-(

Now, try the iwlist again.

Lastly, don't worry about your lack of knowledge. We'll beat it into ya. :)
Seriously, we all start out with a lack of knowledge and experience. Soon, you might be the one telling others how to do this. I always remember what one of my first mentors, actually, an MS guy, told me. You can ask and suffer a few minutes of embarrassment or not ask and suffer a lifetime of ignorance.

You'll find we're quite friendly and as we've all been there, done that, and gotten the tshirt, we do our best to help people, ESPECIALLY when we see that they, (as you are) try to help themselves.

For what it's worth, while I was still trying to get that card to work, I wound up mixing various madwifi installations, ndiswrappers and all that stuff.

Oh yeah, if you've tried ndiswrapper first uninstall that driver--I think it's ndiswrapper -e net5211. (You'd have to try looking at the help for it, I've already uninstalled it so don't remember--but I think doing ndiswrapper -h will give you the possibilities. So first do a list of whatever driver it's installed, and then uninstall that. Do that before trying the madwifi stuff--sigh, I keep mistyping it as madwife. There's a moral there somewhere. :)

[fdestcroix]

Thanks for your enthusiasm! It is enlightening.

I need to rebuild my energy to tackle this project.

Tomorrow night I will create a great big post trying to answer all your questions.

But I am not sure if it is the 5006 or the 5007. no sticker on the bottom.

I will boot into the vista and see if I can find the drivers but I know less about post win 95 MS than I do about Linux.

[scottro]

Actually, MS' help files are one thing they do right, you can probably type device manager in the help dialog and they'll open it. (Untested, but MS got documentation right around Windows 2000.)

I figured it out when laptop hunting and trying to figure out which laptop had a Linux supported card. It's a nuisance, but it's something like (hopefully, these vague instructions will enough--at my age, short term memory is the first to go--I forget the second thing as I only heard it recently---) Welcome to Windows, then there's something about the computer, then something like more about the computer, probably one of those are you sure dialogs, and from there, somewhere on the left, there should be the option to open device manager.

Yeah, I know, it seems overwhelming and you might feel obligated to keep trying because we're trying to help when what you really want to do is say the heck with it. :)

[fdestcroix]

Here is more info of where I am at.

I'm working on a Fedora 8 installation dual with vista.
sony viao vgn-nr120e

from vista device manager i found only this concerning the wireless card:

device: LAN-Express AS IEEE 802.11g PCI-E Adapter
driver: athr.sys

I could not find anything mentioned about model # or company name

output from lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8039 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 14)
06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5006EG 802.11 b/g Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
08:03.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
08:03.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
08:03.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)

Since reinstalling fedora My attemts to get wireless working was:

use the install tool made by dangermouse. I regret doing this because it didn't work and I didn't know what happened. I felt out of control and didn't know how to undo things. There is now two different versions of linux at the grub boot menu. Why did this happen and which should I be using? No offence to dangermouse your install tool was great for touchpad and flash plugin :)

here is some contents of menu.lst in grub:

title Fedora (2.6.23.1-42.fc8)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.23.1-42.fc8 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.23.1-42.fc8.img
title Fedora (2.6.23.14-107.fc8)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.23.14-107.fc8.img
title Vista (Eck!)
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

At this point I discovered that the 1-42 version seemed to work better than the 14-107. I changed the menu.lst to boot the former by default. but still could not get the wireless to work. If my memory serves me correctly the card was detected and was in the network manager list but there were errors connecting. (I must improve my recording of all this stuff instead of attacking it with abandon)

Then I found scrotto's page ( http://home.nyc.rr.com/computertaijutsu/rhwireless.html ) and followed the instructions.

I removed the ath5k and blacklisted by

rmmod ath5k

and then edited the blacklist file

Since I didn't know what dangermouse did i downloaded the standard madwifi, unzipped and went into the folder and followed the instructions.

make uninstall
make clean

This step seemed to work fine and I presumed that it undid whatever dangermouse's system did.

I followed all the following steps on this page but was unable to get things going.

At which point I did more reading and discovered that there was an rpm for madwifi.

So I:

make uninstall
make clean

to the latest installation I did

and then tried:

yum install kmod-madwifi

I never tried the ndiswrapper. Maybe I should have started there but madwifi sounds so much cooler.

And that is where I am.

My next plan of attack will be to follow some of PaulSipot's advice. but I am concerned about the ath5k module. As I understand I need this if my card is anything but the 5007.

If any one can help in identifying this card for sure that would be great.

Now I have to get back to work :(

[scottro]

Yeah me too (get back to work, but...)
That's weird with Device Manager, on all the laptops I looked at, they'd give the model.
I still think it's probably the 5007 card because.. well, I *want* it to be.

If so, here's where you went wrong. The rpm doesn't have the 5007EG driver. You have to get the patched snapshot that I link to on my page.
Actually, before doing that, remove any rpm madwifis and if you have any madwifi directories where you typed make and make install, do a cd (change directory) into them and type make uninstall.

This gives us a virgin playing field.
Then, follow my page's instructions. It gives you a few tests.

The Windows thing sounds weird--mwhahah, I found a Vista test machine we have here.

Welcome Center=>Computer Details=>Show More Details (on the upper right) and Device Manager from the menu on the left. (On the machine at work, it opens Device Manager hidden behind the screen where you click Show More Details.

[fdestcroix]

Well I'm sick as a dog and decided to try again.

Reloaded fedora (maybe not necessary but did)

Installed madwifi with the patch for the atheros 5007

Now I get an error when connecting:

Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.

[scottro]

I'm sorry you're sick.
Did you, after installing the patch...

Blacklist ath5k
modprobe ath_hal
Try iwlist wlan0 scan

I would, as you've been having so much trouble, add the ath5k to the module blacklist and reboot.

After rebooting

dmesg |grep HAL

Anything?
If not, that's good.
Then,
dmesg |grep ath0

If you get aliased to wlan0 or something similar, that's good.

[fdestcroix]

The ath5k module does not show when I lsmod . I added it to the black list file.

then I did this:


[Fred@localhost ~]$ xbacklight -set 30
[Fred@localhost ~]$ su -
Password:
[root@localhost ~]# iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

[root@localhost ~]# man dmesg
Formatting page, please wait...
[root@localhost ~]# dmesg |grep HAL
[root@localhost ~]# iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

[root@localhost ~]# dmesg |grep ath0
[root@localhost ~]# iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

[root@localhost ~]#

I presume this is bad.

The card showed in the network manager before doing these steps above. Now there is only "other" driver showing in the network manager.

Maybe I should try ndiswrapper or continue lugging cable around.

[scottro]

The fact that there was no HAL in dmesg is good--I'm assuming you rebooted after this, right?

(If not the dmesg stuff is irrelevant.)
Did you
modprobe ath_pci
lsmod |grep ath

after installation?

I know you're sick which is why I'm going through this in such baby steps--I know when I'm sick my mind doesn't work right.
Let's go throught this again.
You did make and make install.

Then, you do modprobe ath_pci
Then you reboot. (Easiest and surest way to figure out what's going on.)
Then, you do the dmesg stuff.

Of course, lugging long cables around will build you up to look more manly, so every thorn has its rose.

[fdestcroix]

yes i did make, make install
yes i did the modprobe ath_pci

this is what i get for the lsmod:

[root@localhost ~]# lsmod |grep ath
dm_multipath 18249 0
dm_mod 46209 9 dm_multipath,dm_snapshot,dm_zero,dm_mirror
[root@localhost ~]#

[scottro]

Ok, this isn't good. At that point, even without a reboot, it should have shown the ath_pci.

Did you get any error messages that you noticed when you were doing make and make install? Any when you ran modprobe ath_pci?

[fdestcroix]

There were no errors.

Is it possible that the card is actually the 5006 ?

[scottro]

It's certainly possible. Unfortunately, it's very difficult, sometimes, to get the specifications for a card--as I've said somewhere in this thread, you often have to rely upon Windows, but that didn't do you any good.

Here is one that sort of worked, from Ubuntu forums.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=3868406

[fdestcroix]

it has been a long time. I tried fedora 9 and found it to be too buggy. I went back to 8 and am once again trying to get wireless working. Things are all going well. I followed scottro's instructions located: http://home.nyc.rr.com/computertaijutsu/rhwireless.html#5007

got all the way down to step 9 and found a network with in range with the command:

iwlist ath0 scan (but I use wlan0)

. I am unable to connect and I receive an error:

Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.

anyone know what this means??

[scottro]

This is on a 32 bit system, correct?
The various steps that might possibly help.
As root
/sbin/ifconfig wlan0 up
Also, make sure that the wireless is turned on--as mentioned on the page, there is often a switch or button to turn wireless on and off. After blacklisting ath5k in /etc/modprobe.d, you might also try a reboot and see if you're getting HAL errors, (explained on the page.)

[PaulSipot]

it has been a long time. I tried fedora 9 and found it to be too buggy. I went back to 8 and am once again trying to get wireless working. Things are all going well. I followed scottro's instructions located: http://home.nyc.rr.com/computertaijutsu/rhwireless.html#5007

got all the way down to step 9 and found a network with in range with the command:

iwlist ath0 scan (but I use wlan0)

. I am unable to connect and I receive an error:

Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
SET failed on device wlan0 ; Invalid argument.

anyone know what this means??

You are getting that message from a line in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 where it is trying to set a mode that is not supported. Probably because of the 'MODE="Managed"' line which can not be set on the ndiswrapper driver.

The error does not prevent the driver from working correctly, unless it is not set-up right.