# The Ubuntu Forum Community > Ubuntu Official Flavours Support > Networking & Wireless > [kubuntu] Madwifi installation for Atheros card in Karmic koala

## drpjkurian

Hi guys in this thread you will the instructions to install *Madwifi* drivers for *Atheros* wireless cards. Please follow the instructions to the word.

Open the 'terminal' by navigating through Applications-->Accessories--> Terminal

Now type the following commands in terminal

1. 

```
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
```

From there make sure you uncomment anything that starts with "deb" in there. So changer it from "#deb" to "deb" Something along thoes lines. To exit and save hit "CTRL+X" the answer "YES" to do you want to save, then finally hit "ENTER"

2. 

```
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
```

3. 

```
sudo apt-get install build-essential libssl-dev
```

4. 

```
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
```

5. 

```
sudo apt-get install subversion
```

6. 

```
sudo -i
```

7. 

```
sudo svn checkout http://svn.madwifi-project.org/madwifi/trunk/ madwifi-ng
```

8. 

```
cd madwifi-ng
```

9. 

```
echo "" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
```

10. 

```
echo "#Remove To Install MadWIFI Drivers" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
```

11. 

```
echo "blacklist ath9k" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
```

12. 

```
echo "blacklist ath5k" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
```

13. 

```
make && make install
```

14. 

```
echo ath_pci >> /etc/modules
```

Restart your machine.
It should work

Well i use Wicd to connect to the wireless modem
To install Wicd type the following commands in terminal


```
sudo apt-get update
```



```
sudo apt-get install wicd
```


 :KDE Star:  Kernal updates of your system will kill your driver. Well no need to worry about that.Just recompile your driver.
For that you open a terminal and type the command

```
sudo -i
```

 and just repeat the steps from No 8. Your madwifi will cone back to life again. :Popcorn: 

Best of Luck
Dr Kurian

----------


## mahaganapati

Amazing. It just worked (not that I didn't expect it to, but I've learned not to have too high hopes for these things) - and you just saved me hours of frustration. Thank you very, very much.

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## jshayden

Previously, I hadn't tried to use the SVN snapshot; I was hopeful that this would fix my problem.  However, I get the same results: it continually asks for my password.  Every now and then, it actually connects, but it is HORRIBLY slow.  It never failed me in Jaunty (or before).

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Josh

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## jshayden

I decided to give wicd a try in hopes that it would solve my problem.  It seems to get past the WPA stuff just fine.  It just sits forever at "Obtaining IP Address..."

Josh

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## mahaganapati

Try going to "preferences" and change from "madwifi" to "wext" - that has worked for me previously.

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## Prosis

After doing this, I can't even turn my wireless card on... :Sad:

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## drpjkurian

> I decided to give wicd a try in hopes that it would solve my problem.  It seems to get past the WPA stuff just fine.  It just sits forever at "Obtaining IP Address..."
> 
> Josh


Hi
I think yours is not a problem of a driver.How is it after Wicd?

With regards
Dr Kurian

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## kasparillo

Hi mates!

First of all, thanks for the info. I was trying to install dis madwifi driver by my own and was going nuts! It just worked perfectly!

The problem is that now i cant connect to any network and even the signal is much slower than before. 

My question: How can i go back to my old driver? I don't really know which one i was using, but i'm running Koala on a Macbook pro 1,1, wich has an Atheros 5424.

May somebody help me please? i know i know... why i'm touching what i don't understand? I'm a geek i can not do anything else!

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## hilltop_yodeler

Thank you drpjkurian!!!  I am able to now connect to wireless networks via command line.  Neither wicd or network-manager will recognize my AR5212 Atheros wireless card, but using the command line, I can access wireless by specifying the following (as root):



```
## scan for wireless networks
$ iwlist ath0 scanning
$ iwconfig ath0 essid routerName key yourWepKey
## if you can't connect to your router, try obtaining an IP via dhcp:
$ dhclient aht0
```

Thanks again!

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## Maxepr

drpjkurian, I've had the same problem as everyone else with 9.10. My wifi is rediculesly slow. 9.04 was excellent. I was just about to go back to 9.04 when I saw the link to this thread. This is the kind of C**P that makes me nervious but I had nothing to lose anyway so I tried it. My internet is noticably faster. I have not tried it away fron home yet but I see no reason that it would be different anywhere else. Thanks for the help. My wifi is near normal now. It still amazes me that 9.10 was released with such a blatent flaw! Internet is the root of using a computer! Whoever released 9.10 too early deserves a kick in the ***! Once again, Thanks.

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## bigfootnmd

Greetings all,

I have an Acer Aspire one A0751 that has the Atheros 5001 (or so) network chip.  I followed drpjkurian's posted instructions to the letter.  I am using Ubuntu 10.04.  No kernel updates have occurred since I loaded the pci drivers two nights ago.  

I am using WPA encryption.  My Netbook wifi connects about 20% of the time when the netbook is in the same room as my router.  I have not yet tried the instructions in the posting 
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...Driver/Atheros
because I don't want to make things worse.  

Any help or suggestions will be appreciated.
Oh, and of course my compliments to Dr. Kurian for his well written instructions.

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## simontaylor

I went back to Jaunty Jackalope. No further problems. In fact, connectivity better for wireless than on my desktop running Lucid.

Best,
Simon

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## pwabrahams

> I have an Acer Aspire one A0751 that has the Atheros 5001 (or so) network chip.  I followed drpjkurian's posted instructions to the letter.  I am using Ubuntu 10.04.  No kernel updates have occurred since I loaded the pci drivers two nights ago.  
> 
> I am using WPA encryption.  My Netbook wifi connects about 20% of the time when the netbook is in the same room as my router.


Something that happens 20% of the time suggests a signal strength or hardware problem.  If it's software, then I'd expect either 0% or 100%.




> I have not yet tried the instructions in the posting 
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...Driver/Atheros
> because I don't want to make things worse.


Those instructions are very unlikely to make things worse, even if they don't make things better.  Dr. Kurian himself looked at them and thought they were just fine.

----------


## bigfootnmd

> Greetings all,
> 
> I have an Acer Aspire one A0751 that has the Atheros 5001 (or so) network chip.  I followed drpjkurian's posted instructions to the letter.  I am using Ubuntu 10.04.  No kernel updates have occurred since I loaded the pci drivers two nights ago.  
> 
> I am using WPA encryption.  My Netbook wifi connects about 20% of the time when the netbook is in the same room as my router.  I have not yet tried the instructions in the posting 
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...Driver/Atheros
> because I don't want to make things worse.  
> 
> Any help or suggestions will be appreciated.
> Oh, and of course my compliments to Dr. Kurian for his well written instructions.


Minor update here.  Set my Verizon supplied Actiontec router to use channel 8.  So, far my netbook is connecting via wifi.

I will monitor events over the next few days before trying anything else.

----------


## bigfootnmd

This morning when I booted up my Netbook (with Lucid, and the madwifi drivers installed) my Netbook could not connect to my router.  My Netbook was no more than 18 inches from my router.  So, there could not have been an issue with signal strength.  I also verified that my WPA key was correct in my settings for my WIFI connection.  So, I did some more research and I found this community doc (which I believe has been mentioned several times in this thread.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...Driver/Atheros

This doc was last updated on May 15, 2010. It has Dr. Kurian's excellent instructions toward the bottom of the page. There is one additonal warning about kernels 2.6.32.22 and later that I have not seen (and maybe I missed it) in this thread.

"Additional step for kernel 2.6.32.22 and later

Kernel 2.6.32.22 changed the default for the rfkill parameter of ath_pci from 0 to 1, which had the effect of killing the methods described above. You'll need to make sure that it's set back to 0 on system startup. To do that, edit (or create) the file /etc/modprobe.d/options.conf to include the line

options ath_pci rfkill=0"

Since I added 'options ath_pci rkill=0' to my /etc/modprobe.d/options.conf file my netbook is connecting 100% of the time to my WIFI router.  

I have taken the last three steps from Dr. Kurian's method and placed them in a document on my Netbook desktop so that when I get kernel update in the future it will be easy to restore the madwifi drivers.
My thanks again to Dr. Kurian and to everyone who has shared their experiences with the Atheros drivers in this thread.
 :Popcorn:

----------


## SonnyKing

Still not working...
AR9287 + ubuntu 2.6.32-24-generic, (also,HP 6930P integrated an Intel 5300 card, and it works well with some other driver);

I have tried many methods, including above.
After building, lsmod | grep ath can return "ath_pci","ath_wlan",and "ath_hal", nevertheless, lshw -C network always returns "Unclaimed"...

I checked "Hard Drivers", and nothing except ATI graphic, even my intel card isn't in the list (but it works well)

Is there someone earnest to help me?
Thanks.

----------


## bigfootnmd

UPDATE:

Earlier this week I had a brain freeze and I could not remember the password to my Router. So, I reset the router to factory defaults.  Immediately my Acer Aspire one A0751h using the Madwifi drivers for the Atheros 5XXX card could not connect via WIFI.
I logged in to my router and checked the WIFI settings.  I had of course changed the SSID and WPA password to match what I had been using before (these were wiped when I reset the router).  The channel selection was set to automatic.  I changed this to channel 6 and immediately my Netbook was able to connect.  So,  If you have tried the MADWIFI drivers before and still have issues, change the WIFI channel on your router to 6 or 11.

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## drpjkurian

Thank you very much for your compliments

----------


## Zerberus

I have installed the latest version of maverick, I also used the latest update from

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...Driver/Atheros




> options ath_pci rfkill=0


however my problem currently is as follows:




> *-network               
>        description: Ethernet interface
>        product: RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller
>        vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
>        physical id: 0
>        bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
>        logical name: eth0
>        version: 02
>        serial: 00:1e:68:a3:d3:ae
> ...





> *ath0*      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:22:69:11:c8:88  
>           inet6 addr: fe80::222:69ff:fe11:c888/64 Scope:Link
>           UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
>           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
>           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
>           collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
>           RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
> 
> eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1e:68:a3:d3:ae  
> ...


so i supposedly have two wifi networks one is wifi0 and one is ath0, the problem is atheros is not set as ath0 but as wifi0, so how can i circumvent the problem that it becomes ath0. Yes I did try to change the setting in wicd from ath0 to wifi0 as well I restarted it, I also pressed on the slider for the wifi (altho we all know the lights aren't working), so pretty much i tried everything, I even reinstalled maverick from scratch, as my operating system has a partition so no personal files get deleted!

so the problem is I still can not connect to anything without wired connection. And no wireless network shows up! The wireless was working perfectly in lucid, however you just want to know how the newest netbook edition is  :Capital Razz:

----------


## chandru1

oh after doing what kurian has said, i have not made my wireless active. What has happened is this.

Madwifi has installed and the iwconfig command shows this.


lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wifi0     no wireless extensions.

ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"g\xC6isQ\xFFJ\xEC)\xCD\xBA\xAB\xF2\xFB\xE3F  |\xC2T\xF8\x1B\xE8\xE7\x8DvZ.c3\x9F\xC9\x9A"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power:16 dBm   Sensitivity=1/1  
          Retry :Surprised: ff   RTS thr :Surprised: ff   Fragment thr :Surprised: ff
          Power Management :Surprised: ff
          Link Quality=0/70  Signal level=-96 dBm  Noise level=-96 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

chandru@Chandru1:~$ 


Before installing madwifi i had tried these things which i posted on http://askubuntu.com/questions/18723...ss-not-working 

Now if i want to remove madwifi driver how can i do it? I would be glad if anyone can make my wirless to work as i am in great need of it

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## lentilman

I'm using ubuntu 10.04 and ath5001. the wireless was showing networks but i couldn't connect, i thought this might be an issue with the driver so I followed drpjkurian's method. However, I'm now having the same problem as Chandru1. Please help.

----------


## lentilman

I tried to install wicd using the two commands but i get an error. 

Setting up wicd-daemon (1.7.0+ds1-2) ...
 * Starting Network connection manager wicd                            [fail] 

Could this be the problem?

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## suniljoseph

Thanks Dr. Kurian. It worked!!!
Would you be any chance the same Kurian from dzlabz & CET?
Thanks anyway

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## suniljoseph

I guess I spoke too soon.
After a while the wireless connection got disconnected and then it says it can't find a wireless network. But my phone is connected to the same wifi network.

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## amunibabu

Awesome... you rock..

Was just playing with 'fn' buttons and turned off wifi.
never knew that playing with extra buttons on laptop would give me this much trouble..

You saved my day..
Thankyou..

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## Subito Piano

Blessings, blessings, drpjkurian...

I encountered a MAD ORNERY Atheros AR2413 802.11bg card (5005) on an Acer 3680 running Mint 9 (i.e., Ubuntu 10.04 LTS). Yours was the last hope before installing a PCMCIA card.  

For anyone following this, it didn't work until I installed WICD.  

Merci!!   :Very Happy:

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## Subito Piano

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Like suniljoseph, i spoke too soon.  Weird, yesterday i restarted several times and it worked fine but today -- no go.  The same thing happened with the original Ath5 driver.  I can't figure this out.    :Confused:

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## Subito Piano

*SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!*

SOMEwhere i saw this:  Go to Synaptic, search for "Atheros" and download everything you hadn't -- in my case, two packages: hostapd (which i think was the one i needed) and collectd-core.  I installed both, rebooted, and i got on that ornery network!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I will try more neworks and report back ONLY if i DO have problems.   :Very Happy:   :Very Happy:   :Very Happy:

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