Atheros AR5212 wifi shows up only as wlan0 - madwifi/kernel problem?

[icantux]

Hi all,

I'm about at my wits end on this one. Hope you folks can help me out with this. First my specs so we're all on the same page:

ThinkPad T61 - T9300
NVS 140m
"Thinkpad" a/b/g wireless (shows as AR5212 ins lspci - thus Atheros chipset)

- Fedora 8 respin (from HERE (http://fedoraunity.org/news-archives/fedora-8-re-spin-20080204-released) ) used for install
- Updated kernel to 2.6.24.3-34.fc8.i686
- installed the kmod-nvidia for the said kernel from livna
- Using livna repo, installed madwifi (which installs kmod-madwifi-0.9.4 and the appropriate kmod for the above kernel)

Here's the problem:

- #ifconfig -a shows lo, eth0, wifi0 and wlan0 (it should be ath0 )
- made sure that ath_pci is installed (modprobe ath_pci) - installs ok shows in lsmod.
- blacklisted ath5k
- checked lsmod and ath_pci is there as is wlan and all dependencies
- #iwlist wlan0 scan gives info on AP's in the area but can't connect to any AP
- started Network Manager to check out the situation, Atheros Wireless shows as WLAN0
- still can't connect to any AP at all.... just sits there and keeps asking for key (I tried with my router disabling all security, regular WEP - still asks for key). Obviously it's not working.

I've tried different distros over the last couple of days to see if others behave the same way. Tried Suse, Gentoo, Ubuntu, and Mint -- all show "ath0" for my wifi card after installing madwifi and the wireless works perfectly in all the those distros (WPA, WEP, WPA2).

Fedora is the ONLY distro that keeps showing "wlan0" for my Atheros card which refuses to hook up to any AP (access point).

What gives? Is this a kernel/madwifi/kmod issue here?

As mentioned, I used the "respin" of Fedora - could this be the culprit? I found that the installation (using re-spin) for some reason installed all the Intel wifi hardware stuff (which I obviously don't need) so I uninstalled all the Intel 2200, 3945, 4965 harwdare packages (I don't know WHY those are installed by default - people DO use other wireless cards) and still that wouldn't fix the problem.

I'm about to install the original release of Fedora 8 and go through the whole process again .. believing that the respin could have something to do with all this (just a hunch).

Any suggestions????

[Nokia]

Update your kernel first su -
yum update kernel --enablerepo=updates-testing

[scottro]

I know that with my Atheros 5007EG card, (which only works with a patched MadWifi version) it showed as wlan0 in Fedora, though not in anything else. (However it does work.)
Fedora 9 seems to have fixed this though.

[icantux]

I'll have to search far and wide for a solution and hopefully I find something relatively quickly, otherwise off to another distro for me until this gets resolved... a real PITA. Too bad. I prefer fedora over the others, but there's always something in fedora that gets seriously fubared with an update or two.

At this point I'd even be happy to get the darn wifi working using this wlan0 ... Unfortunately, it sees APs but will not connect no matter what I do.

I'll re-install Fedora again - this time from the stock distribution DVD and control the installation straight up from scratch, see if that helps any.

[icantux]

Well, I re-installed Fedora 8 from stock DVD, selective install (unchecked everything Intel wireless related during installation), then once everything was set, I installed madwifi from Livna using the kernel that came with the DVD... Now finally the Atheros 5212 shows up as ath0 (like it's supposed to). Something in the re-spin that wasn't right? :confused:

Next, updated the kernel to 2.6.24.3-34.fc8.i686 and the wifi still shows up as ath0!

Nice!

Next, tried to install the kmod-nvidia driver (for my NVS 140M) and now I'm stuck with a dependency issue - livna wants to install the driver for the newer kernel (which isn't available in the fedora mirrors) and refuses to install the drivers for the kernel I'm running now. :rolleyes:

I suppose I'll have to wait now until the "newer" kernel (2.6.24.3-50.fc8.i686) makes it to the mirrors.

So now I have a working wifi card but vesa graphics. Before all this, I had full nvidia drivers but no wifi.

Ahhhh ... the joy of linux. :D

Something's always borked.

[Nokia]

su -

yum install kmod-nvidia --enablerepo=updates-testing That should be enough.

[icantux]

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll give that a shot. Hopefully madwifi will install properly with that kernel and I'll then be able to install the nvidia kmod from livna as well and finally have all three happily working in tandem. :p

[icantux]

Just a quick update for the benefit of others ...

The wifi card (Atheros 5212 chipset) is now fully recognized as "ath0" running well and hooking up to WEP/WPA/WPA2 without any problems.

In the end, I did re-install Fedora 8 from stock DVD but made certain to remove all (uncheck all) references to Intel wifi hardware (in the "hardware" section). Just as a test, and out of curiosity, I reinstalled Fedora 8 again (!) on a different drive but left the Intel wifi hardware options as selected by anaconda (selected by default). Guess what? I ran into problems again.... the Atheros card was only recognized as "wlan0" even though I installed the appropriate madwifi and kmod-madwifi from Livna repo. Bizarre. Will have to keep an eye out on this with Fedora 9.


I've not updated the kernel from updates-testing repo (now running 2.6.24.3-50.fc8.i686), also installed kernel headers and kernel devel (like to compile stuff from source as well), installed madwifi from Livna (includes some dependencies) and all's well.

I'll update this post later to include exact version numbers of madwifi, etc.

Cheers and thanks for the help!


PS: Note to developers... Is it possible to include some quick questionnaire at the beginning of the installation process regarding option for selecting Intel or Atheros wifi cards? Or have the option to select/deselect either in more plain sight? Or perhaps (something for the future) have a piece of code determine the chipset and suggest the installation of such modules from the start?

[icantux]

Well, since writing that, my wifi went bonkers again. After a couple of reboots (shutdown laptop for the night) and some other updates (using regular fedora, livna repos) the wifi card reverted back to being "wlan0" and I lost wifi. Arrrrgh!

In a different post I wrote about trying Fedora9 beta thinking that whatever it is (was) with Fedora8 would be solved - to my dismay, Fedora 9 (with livna-devel madwifi) still only recognizes the card as wlan0 and refuses to connect (NM or command-line).

Don't know what the problem is and I'm not really in a position to fiddle with settings to check out what the real problem is. Installed gentoo over the past couple of days and things are running smooth as a beach pebble on my T61 now. I'll try to figure out what the problem is with Fedora another day when I have more time on a dedicated drive. Right now I need linux with full networking ...

Bewildering this... :confused:

[koolbuddy4u]

Hello icantux,

I am also facing a similar kind of problem, and i am new to linux i installed fedora 8 in T61 using the text mode, and then i changed nvidia to vesa, so that i could see my GUI.
Now when i see my GUI, i am with the problem of Wireless, i tried wat all i could with the help of this forum but i couldn solve the problem. I have Athreos AR5212 ABG chipset and iwconfig shows lo, etho, wmaster 0, wlan 0 but not ath0.

its been many days i have been stuck with no improvement. Kindly suggest me how do i make my wireless work.

Best Regards

[Nokia]

Post here your uname -a

[koolbuddy4u]

uname -a

Linux wireless 2.6.24.3-50.fc8 #1 smp thu Mar 20 14:4:10 EDT 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux


Wireless is my user name, So dont get confused by that.

[Nokia]

Update the kernel. su -l
yum update --enablerepo=updates-testing

[koolbuddy4u]

Now i have updated my Kernel , so watz the next step?

[root@wireless ~]# uname -a
Linux wireless 2.6.24.4-64.fc8 #1 SMP Sat Mar 29 09:54:46 EDT 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
[root@wireless ~]#

[Nokia]

Post yum repolist

[koolbuddy4u]

[root@wireless ~]# yum repolist
repo id repo name status
InstallMedia Fedora 8 enabled
fedora Fedora 8 - i386 enabled
livna Livna for Fedora Core 8 - i386 - Base enabled
updates Fedora 8 - i386 - Updates enabled
[root@wireless ~]#

Here is my yum repolist

[Nokia]

su -l

yum install kmod-nvidia livna-config-display

As far as the wireless is concerned, try the steps in the tutorial you found, again. It should work on the new kernel.

[koolbuddy4u]

As far as the wireless is concerned, try the steps in the tutorial you found, again. It should work on the new kernel.

Hi,

when i use command iwlist scan, i get different networks that are in range, but how do i connect to them directly without using the Terminal(I mean with network manager). Where can i see the networks directly?

[Nokia]

You're starting to doublepost, which is not allowed on a forum ;)

[koolbuddy4u]

Yes ofcourse i am sorry for that but if i get the wireless networks in iwlist scan, does it not mean that my atheros 5212 ABG is working, i just want to know when can i see them manually.
If this is solved all the issues will be solved and i have been in this forum since last 2 weeks for the same issue

[koolbuddy4u]

I think i have solved the issue totally, i Would like to Thank you all guys for the help and particularly the Forum, which helped and got a chance to learn new things

[Nokia]

You're welcome. :)

[icantux]

I'll have to try all this out again on a dedicated HDD - last I tried wlan0 kept popping up instead of ath0 and there was no way I could get a connection going... Not abandoning this enigma - those just make it that much more intriguing and gives me more impetus to solve. Alas, at this busy juncture I cannot attack the issue head on.

[johnnymack]

FWIW, the problem that folks are having with Fedora 8 [without recent patches] and Atheros wifi chipsets in general, is the new driver <ath5k>. It wasn't ready for primetime use, IMHO. I personally think that Fedora/RedHat should not have included it in F-8 as the default driver for Atheros chipsets until it was tested and worked. It barely worked with older chipsets, much less with new ones [ ie: AR5006]. Thats why many folks bypassed it [blacklist ath5k] and either installed the "madwifi" version or possibly, went with ndiswrapper.

I understand a recent kernel <ath5k> driver patch datedMarch 3, 2008 has solved the scan issues and quite possibly other outstanding ones. I don't know if this is true as I still use the "madwifi" drivers for my Atheros-based D-Link adapters. YMMV.

jm

[icantux]

Unfortunately, having tested with Fedora 9 with all updates, the issue seems to persist. :(

Incidentally, for what it's worth, I blacklisted ath5k in both Fedora 8 and 9, installed madwifi and the problem doesn't go away.

I've got to figure out a way to recompile the kernel and get rid of all mention of support for Intel cards and remove the ath5k module from there as well. Alas, I don't have the time to do that right now (doing the proper research and then performing the recompile).

[lambretta]

OK. I got my AR5212 to work with Fedora9 on my T41p. :) Here is what I did.

My issue was that the wifi card would connect to the ap for about 5 mins then drop out, it would do this continually. I am using WPA (PSK)

First I installed Wifi-Radar, it didn't help, infact I couldn't see any AP's even after changing the conf file to use wlan0.

Then, I installed madwifi (akmod-madwifi) from the Livna repository. This appeared to blacklist the AR5k driver automatically (created a Blacklist - ath5k file in the modprob.d folder).

Added the following to modprob.conf file
alias wlan0 ath_pci

Stopped NM in Services.

Restarted - but nothing. :(

Re-enabled NM and then rebooted, it worked! And it is stable. Been going now for 2 hours and all is fine. :D