DWL-G650 with FC9 - madwifi and ath5k not working

[TonyBryan]

I've just moved from FC7 to FC9 on a machine with only a D-Link DWL-G650 wireless pci card. Under FC7 I was using Madwifi to enable wireless connnectivity, and all was well in the world.

Moving to FC9 I now find:
a) Fedora seems to be finding an ath5k card, but I can't get it to work
b) I can't go back to Madwifi as I can only find an rpm up to 2.6.25-9. I have installed this, but modprobe does not find the ath_pci module.
c) I don't know how to install an earlier kernel version to be in line with Madwifi
d) I don't know how to compile Madwifi into the kernel (forgive my terminology - I'm a newbie) myself, to get around the kernel version problem.

How do I get Madwifi working with FC9 2.6.25-14 (or better still, is there any way to get around using Madwifi at all?)

Why is this so frickin hard?

Can anyone help?

______________________

Update: I've switched to trying to use the ath5k driver that comes out of the box with FC9 2.6.25-14

I have disabled Network Manager, and am trying to get this working using just the network service.

Output of lsmod | grep ath5k

ath5k 105736 0
mac80211 185184 1 ath5k
cfg80211 24712 2 ath5k,mac80211

Output of lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8366/A/7 [Apollo KT266/A/333]
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8366/A/7 [Apollo KT266/A/333 AGP]
00:08.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 07)
00:08.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! Game Port (rev 07)
00:0a.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)
00:0a.1 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)
00:0a.2 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB 2.0 (rev 04)
00:0b.0 Communication controller: Ambient Technologies Inc HaM controllerless modem (rev 02)
00:0c.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212/AR5213 Multiprotocol MAC/baseband processor (rev 01)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233A ISA Bridge
00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:11.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 23)
00:11.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 23)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. Voodoo 3 (rev 01)

Output of cat /etc/modprobe.conf

#alias ath_pci ath0
#options ath_pci autocreate=sta
alias wlan0 ath5k

Output of iwconfig

lo no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:"..."
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B
Encryption key: "..."
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

pan0 no wireless extensions.

Output of ifup wlan0:

Determining IP information for wlan0...SIOCSIFFLAGS: Input/output error
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Input/output error
failed.

Output of dmesg | grep ath5k

ath5k_pci 0000:00:0c.0: registered as 'phy0'
ath5k phy0: Atheros AR5213 chip found (MAC: 0x56, PHY: 0x41)
ath5k phy0: RF5111 5GHz radio found (0x17)
ath5k phy0: RF2111 2GHz radio found (0x23)
ath5k phy0: noise floor calibration failed (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: unable to reset hardware: -5
ath5k phy0: noise floor calibration failed (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: unable to reset hardware: -5
ath5k phy0: noise floor calibration failed (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: unable to reset hardware: -5
ath5k phy0: noise floor calibration failed (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: unable to reset hardware: -5
ath5k phy0: noise floor calibration failed (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: unable to reset hardware: -5
ath5k phy0: noise floor calibration failed (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: unable to reset hardware: -5
ath5k phy0: noise floor calibration failed (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: unable to reset hardware: -5
ath5k phy0: noise floor calibration failed (2412MHz)
ath5k phy0: unable to reset hardware: -5

Output of dmesg | grep wlan0

type=1400 audit(1215253619.810:4): avc: denied { read } for pid=1955 comm="consoletype" path="/var/lib/dhclient/dhclient-wlan0.leases" dev=dm-3 ino=614619 scontext=system_u:system_r:consoletype_t:s0 tcontext=unconfined_u:object_r:dhcpc_state_t:s0 tclass=file
type=1400 audit(1215253619.906:5): avc: denied { read } for pid=1980 comm="ifconfig" path="/var/lib/dhclient/dhclient-wlan0.leases" dev=dm-3 ino=614619 scontext=system_u:system_r:ifconfig_t:s0 tcontext=unconfined_u:object_r:dhcpc_state_t:s0 tclass=file

[bbfuller]

Hello TonyBryan

Usually you would get madwifi from the Livna repositories to avoid problems with updating each time the kernel changes.

However, if you have all of madwifi installed then you will still probably need to blacklist the ath5k module so that it doesn't block madwifi.

Open the file:

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

and add a line:

blacklist ath5k

at the end of it.

Reboot and see what happens then.

Edit:

By the way, those error messages you are seeing usually indicate you are trying to control the card the wrong way.

Gnome System Menu - Administration - Network is not the way to go in Fedora, you should be using NetworkManager from the Gnome notification area by the clock.

The ath5k module is "bleeding edge", fedora's speciality and a lot of people regress to madwifi because of similar problems to those you are having with it.

Second Edit:

I've just checked Livna and there are modules there for FC9 2.6.25-14. Post back if you want any notes on the Livna repositories.

[TonyBryan]

Many thanks bbfuller.... I was working offline (I only have a wireless card in my linux box) so had to download the following RPMs to my Windows laptop:

akmod-madwifi-0.9.4-31.lvn9.i686.rpm
akmods-0.3.1-1.lvn9.noarch.rpm
kmod-madwifi-0.9.4-31.lvn9.i686.rpm
kmod-madwifi-2.6.25-14.fc9.i686-0.9.4-31.lvn9.i686.rpm
madwifi-0.9.4-1.lvn9.i386.rpm
madwifi-devel-0.9.4-1.lvn9.i386.rpm
kmodtool-1-11.lvn9.noarch.rpm

The dependency checker also asked for sharutils-4.6.3-2.fc9.i386.rpm which I got from http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=sharutil.

Blacklisted the ath5k module, and disabled Network in favour of NetworkManager. Reboot, and hey presto its working.

Thanks, for the help!

Of course, this then lead to another weird issue which I will post in a separate thread!