Getting the Wi-fi drivers for my Acer Aspire 4520 running FC9

logic3 · #1 30th August 2008, 07:12 PM

Hi All,

I recently installed Fedora core 9 X86_64 on my system. Which is an Acer Aspire 4520. I have been trying to get my wi-fi card working. But have been unable to do it so far. I have googled for the same but could not get any definite answers.

My Wi-fi card is an Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter however linux displays it as Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter . I do not if that is correct or fedora is not able to detect it.

I previously installed FC9 i686. But could not get my card to work on that either. I do not have a wired connection around me so cant get to connect to internet when using fedora.

Any help will be highly appreciated.

The output of lspci, iwconfig and iwlist on the system are as follows:

The output of "lspci"-

00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP67 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP67 ISA Bridge (rev a2)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP67 SMBus (rev a2)
00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP67 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:01.3 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation MCP67 Co-processor (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP67 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a2)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP67 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2)
00:04.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP67 OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a2)
00:04.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP67 EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a2)
00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP67 IDE Controller (rev a1)
00:07.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP67 High Definition Audio (rev a1)
00:08.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP67 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:09.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP67 AHCI Controller (rev a2)
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation MCP67 Ethernet (rev a2)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2)
00:0e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP67 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2)
00:12.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 7000M (rev a2) (rev a2)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:09.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
01:09.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
01:09.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 12)
01:09.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
01:09.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev ff)
07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

The output of "iwconfig"-
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

pan0 no wireless extensions.

"iwlist wlan0 scan"
wlan0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

iwlist pan0 scan
pan0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

scottro · #2 31st August 2008, 12:03 AM

http://home.nyc.rr.com/computertaiju...less.html#5007

logic3 · #3 31st August 2008, 09:27 AM

Thanks scottro i will try that and see if i can do that...

scottro · #4 31st August 2008, 02:54 PM

Please post back if it works for you or not.

The good part is that moderately soon, when the 2.6.27 kernel comes out, it won't be necessary anymore. (Although the sysctl LED light options won't work. I don't know if it's simply an oversight with the kernel folks or a deliberate change.)

logic3 · #5 31st August 2008, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottro

Please post back if it works for you or not.

The good part is that moderately soon, when the 2.6.27 kernel comes out, it won't be necessary anymore. (Although the sysctl LED light options won't work. I don't know if it's simply an oversight with the kernel folks or a deliberate change.)

I will post back for sure as soon as i have tried out the solution.... But since i do not have a wired connection around me it may take a lil time for me to try that out..

scottro · #6 31st August 2008, 06:32 PM

Heh, that can certainly be a limiting factor.

zeroelixis · #7 6th September 2008, 02:51 AM

Well today I got the LED working for this wireless card by adding these two lines:

Code:

sysctl -w dev.wifi0.ledpin=3
sysctl -w dev.wifi0.softled=1

to the file:

Code:

/etc/rc.local

Not a perfect solution but works well for my aspire 4315 and tested on the aspire one with madwifi-hal drivers

http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6/

scottro · #8 6th September 2008, 03:10 AM

Yes, that works for now.

Now, let's see you do it in the 2.6.27 kernel.

I'm guessing that the two values have been replaced rather than completely removed, but so far, I haven't figured out where.

zeroelixis · #9 6th September 2008, 03:23 AM

Hmmm I'm going on a whim but does changing the device from wlan0 to ath0 make a difference? Maybe the new .27 driver does not associate the alias?

Does

Code:

sysctl -a | grep wifi0 | less

list anything similar?

I don't have a rawhide box to poke around on yet..

scottro · #10 6th September 2008, 04:14 AM

It's a reasonable question--I'm not terribly knowledgeable about how it works, but what I have found is this. In F8, with the MadWifi drivers, it was recognized as wlan0 and looking for ath0 would get device not found. In F9, again with Madwifi drivers, it was back to ath0. In F10, with the builtin ath5k, it is, once again, wlan0.

Now, booting F9, with a very vanilla 2.6.27 kernel from kernel.org gives me ath0, so I'm guessing that there are some modifications in rawhide that handle that.

In other words, a vanilla 2.6.27 kernel sees it as ath0 while the Fedora 2.6.27.whatever kernel sees it as wlan0--with ath0 bringing the device not found message.

However, in both of them, attempts to use the sysctl options that you mention result in dev.wifi0.ledpins and dev.wifi0.softled give the error that it's an unknown key. Doing sysctl -a and grepping for dev shows nothing even resembling wifi0. Doing a grep for ledpins and softled also returns nothing.

In contrast, rebooting F9 with its default 2.6.whatever kernel (pre 27 though) and doing sysctl -a |grep ledpin for example, gives me the ledpin and softled.
So... I'm guessing it's a 2.6.27 thing, while the wlan0 vs. ath0 is a Fedora thing.

zeroelixis · #11 6th September 2008, 05:14 AM

Looks like you hit it on the head, wifi0 was a sort of virtual "parent" of ath0 that didn't provide true network LED activity just a sort of passive loop through monitor (In F9 anyway).

If .27 have dropped the kernel parameters for dev.wifi in general which seems to be the case then it looks like its back to waiting for the LED to be driver implemented instead. Nice to see ath5k is making good progress though from what I can tell the LED is vendor related....

https://lists.ath5k.org/pipermail/at...ly/000996.html

scottro · #12 6th September 2008, 06:10 AM

Ah, thank you for the link.

For me, at least, I don't care that much about the LED. (I'd only begun using the sysctl options rather recently, and actually often find them more annoying than helpful.)

So, speaking (writing?) for myself, it's more on the "It would be nice if it worked, but it's far from being a showstopper."

If you find another sysctl option in 2.6.27 that's replacing it, (if, for example, you're going to be following the thread that you so kindly provided a link to), please keep us posted.