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Wireless-MadWifi

This records the successful task of getting an Atheros AR242x Working in Mint Linux (Ubuntu). The last time this was verified was Mint Felicia (Ubuntu 8.10).

What you need to do.

Blacklist other drivers

There are drivers that may be installed that your linux system that conflict. We blacklist them, i.e. prevent them from attempting to be loaded. Please keep checking the project at http://madwifi-project.org/ to see if one of these becomes more reliable. To note, the ath5k is supposedly the next generation madwifi and will eventually be better than the information listed here.

Edit the following blacklist file like so

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

And add the following lines to the end:

blacklist ath5k
blacklist ath_hal

Update your code base

sudo apt-get -y update && sudo aptitude install build-essential

Build the New Drivers!

This downloads the current (as of 02/2009) madwifi project snapshot.

wget -c http://snapshots.madwifi-project.org/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-current.tar.gz
tar xvf madwifi*.tar.gz
cd madwifi*-r*

make 
sudo make install

Edit the Power Management Options

This is necessary to shut the wireless card down during suspend... I think. This is shamelessly stolen from someone else and I haven't tested it thoroughly myself.

Edit the PM config:

sudo gedit /etc/pm/config.d/config

Add the following line:

SUSPEND_MODULES="ath_pci"

Reboot

Assuming it doesn't come up right away, search for the modules and manually bring the interface up. If you note the iwconfig and ifconfig statements. When you run iwconfig, it should list an interface, either wlan0, ath0, eth1, or something like that, that says IEEE 802.11 or something like that. That is good! Whatever interface that is, use that for ifconfig. I list ath0 because that is what it was for us.

sudo modprobe ath_pci
sudo modprobe wlan_scan_sta
iwconfig
ifconfig ath0 up

Wireless should work.

It should if there were no errors. Make sure that it is enabled by right clicking the little network icon in the notification area and making sure that enable wireless is checked. Give it a minute or two. Left click the icon. If you are set, wireless networks will be apparent.

Check that it works on reboot.

Reboot the computer again and make sure that the wireless card starts working from the get-go. It should.