Atheros wireless card

[permadsen]

Hi all,

I am running Fedora 8 and have a small problem.

I have a PC with a wireless network card (Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5413 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)). When I first installed Fedora it worked out the box. But after a kernel update some time ago it stopped working.

I can still boot an old kernel and here the network card is working fine.

> uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.24.4-64.fc8 #1 SMP Sat Mar 29 09:15:49 EDT 2008 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux


But when I boot one of the more recent kernels from the Fedora repository it is not working.

e.g
> uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.25.9-40.fc8 #1 SMP Fri Jun 27 16:05:49 EDT 2008 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux



lspci -v shows the same under both kernels


01:09.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5413 802.11abg NIC (
rev 01)
Subsystem: Lite-On Communications Inc Unknown device 5001
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 17
Memory at fdee0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ath5k_pci
Kernel modules: ath5k


Anyone got an idea how to fix this?

Best Regards,
Per

[Brian1]

lets see which module it is using under the old kernel. Boot the old kerenl and run command ' /sbin/lsmod '. Looking for ath5k or ath_pci. Then have to check if the same module is built for the new kernel.

Brian

[permadsen]

Thanks for your quick reply!

It seems to be using ath5k under both kernels,

with kernel 2.6.25.9

> lsmod | grep ath
dm_multipath 25425 0
ath5k 127825 0
mac80211 223553 1 ath5k
cfg80211 34897 2 ath5k,mac80211
dm_mod 62201 9 dm_multipath,dm_snapshot,dm_zero,dm_mirror

With kernel 2.6.24.4

> lsmod | grep ath
dm_multipath 24785 0
ath5k 122193 0
mac80211 224961 1 ath5k
cfg80211 34897 2 ath5k,mac80211
dm_mod 60473 9 dm_multipath,dm_snapshot,dm_zero,dm_mirror

[Brian1]

Sorry for the delay. Been working. Never used the ath5k so unsure what to do there.

Brian

[bbfuller]

Hello permadsen

Some people have been reporting problems with the latest Fedora kernels and wireless.

If you can boot from the previous one, it's probably best to set that as default for the present and see if the next update fixes it.

You may also want to alter the Fedora default to retain more than two kernels as if there is an update and it's not fixed there then you risk loosing your working version.

If you want to know how to do any of those post back.

[A.Serbinski]

ath5k is an interesting driver. Not exactly what I would call *finished*, but it is most definitely changing quickly.
Because of the fast development, things do break from time to time. ath5k really hasn't been in the kernel for very long, and my own card has only been supported by ath5k since kernel 2.6.25, and at that has only really become usable in 2.6.25.6. My card is a 2413/AR5005G "5th generation" atheros card. Yours is a (newer) 5413/AR5006X "6th generation". Things are definitely still in flux for the 5005, so no doubt also for the 5006, for that matter, what made the 5005 better on this kernel could be what is causing your headache with your 5006.

One thing that you can definitely try is using the madwifi driver. Madwifi can be regarded as the predecessor to ath5k and shares a lot in common. The difference is that madwifi is somewhat more stable having been around for a lot longer. The downside to the madwifi driver is the binary blob, which is why it has never been included with fedora or in the linux kernel. Nevertheless, it will probably work for you.

Normally, I would suggest installing from some repo, like freshrpms or livna, however in this case I would recommend installing from source. The reason is that from source, the kernel module will NOT automatically rebuild or update along with kernel updates, and this benefits you in that it will revert back to ath5k when your kernel is updated (and hopefully comes with a fixed ath5k).

[permadsen]

Thanks for all your replies.

I will continue to use the old kernel and watch out for improvement in the up-coming kernels.

If I can provide any info to help the progress in the atk5k driver just let me know.

[disjointed]

@permadsen, have you tried using the good old madwifi driver for atheros cards? You can get it packaged from livna repository.