madwifi installed but my atheros wireless card is not seen

[lesander]

Dear all,
I am on fedora core 5, 2.6.17-1.2174_FC5, using kmod-madwifi-0.9.0-1.2.6.17_1.2174_FC5 and madwifi-0.9.0-1.lvn5.
I have a thinkpad t42p.

Till yesterday, I had my wireless working almost properly. I say Almost properly becuase I could only use my wireless connection without security i.e. no wpa or wep.
So in order to fix that I followed the following instructions http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installing_Fedora_Core_5_on_a_ThinkPad_T43_(2686)# Wireless_LAN_Config
which claimed that the livna madwifi drivers have a bug which is why i was not able to use wpa or wep for wireless.
Unfortunately, after doing that my whole wireless is messed up. In fact I can no longer use wireless even without security.
I reinstalled the kernel and the madwifi & kmod-madwifi, but
situation did not improve.
Moreover, the gnome's NetworkManager applet is no longer in the panel; doing dmesg | grep ath
prints out a lot of messages:
ath_hal: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.
ath_hal: 0.9.16.16 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)
ath_rate_sample: disagrees about version of symbol ath_hal_computetxtime
ath_rate_sample: Unknown symbol ath_hal_computetxtime
ath_rate_sample: no version for "ether_sprintf" found: kernel tainted.
ath_rate_sample: 1.2 (0.9.0)
ath_pci: disagrees about version of symbol ath_rate_tx_complete
ath_pci: Unknown symbol ath_rate_tx_complete
ath_pci: disagrees about version of symbol _ath_hal_attach
ath_pci: Unknown symbol _ath_hal_attach
ath_pci: disagrees about version of symbol ath_rate_attach
ath_pci: Unknown symbol ath_rate_attach
ath_pci: disagrees about version of symbol ath_rate_newassoc
ath_pci: Unknown symbol ath_rate_newassoc
ath_pci: disagrees about version of symbol ath_hal_computetxtime
ath_pci: Unknown symbol ath_hal_computetxtime
ath_pci: Unknown symbol ath_rate_dynamic_proc_register
ath_pci: disagrees about version of symbol ath_hal_mhz2ieee
ath_pci: Unknown symbol ath_hal_mhz2ieee
...[cropped]

and the networkmonitor applet says that
"Please contact your system administrator to resolve the following problem:

SIOCGIFFLAGS error: No such device"

can someone please help me get back my wireless card...
I have spent way too much time on this.
Also if I do system-config-network and add a new wireless card, it does not recognize my wireless card. Before I had two options "Atheros " and then "Other wireless card"; now I have the latter only.
finally:

# cat /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices/ifcfg-ath0
IPV6INIT=no
ONBOOT=yes
USERCTL=yes
PEERDNS=yes
TYPE=Wireless
DEVICE=ath0
#HWADDR=00:05:4E:4A:FD:A0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NETMASK=
DHCP_HOSTNAME=
IPADDR=
DOMAIN=
ESSID=linux
CHANNEL=1
MODE=Managed
RATE=Auto


my

[piergi]

I think you have a module mismatch.

You could try this: get the kernel headers for your kernel, install them, get the madwifi source, compile it, and then install it. Then follow the instructions on madwifi's wiki for beginners.

It worked for me and it allowed me to use the network manager...

piero

[lesander]

OK, this is crazy. I thought madwifi was the driver for my wireless card.
Just for the sake of it, i uninstalled madwifi and madwifi-kmod
then I rebooted the computer.
then I did system-config-network and
added a new wireless card.
Interestingly now the atheros card was detected!
Either the madwifi or madwifi-kmod is buggy.

I so I selected it and and activated the card and it worked. I am
now using the wifi--I am too afraid to modify anything to
setup up the wpa; i guess i'll just have to share my wireless connection with the rest of the world.