Atheros WiFi Adapter not working in 9.10 Karmic

[Chrono Reaper]

I have installed 9.10 Karmic on my Toshiba Satellite and right out of the box my Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter is not detecting Wireless connections. The current wifi driver from the installation is not working. I haven't done anything yet and have done some research and thinking about installing Madwifi, but the recent history is outdated and only goes up to hardy heron. Any ideas?

[drumkitcat]

I have installed 9.10 Karmic on my Toshiba Satellite and right out of the box my Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter is not detecting Wireless connections. The current wifi driver from the installation is not working. I haven't done anything yet and have done some research and thinking about installing Madwifi, but the recent history is outdated and only goes up to hardy heron. Any ideas?

Hi,
Last night I installed Kubuntu 9.10 as a fresh install on my Toshiba Satellite A40 laptop - it worked great (did the full drive reformat, etc). I also have the AR242x Atheros wireless adapter and the laptop is on my home network amongst some Windows XP machines. I had no problem detecting the wireless network - it was a little tricky getting the WEP coding right, but once I did the thing was working great. I haven't tried the wired LAN connection yet, but wireless is best with my laptop.

Last time I used Linux was Ubuntu's Edgy Eft, and had to use MadWiFi to get the Atheros driver working - which it did, but I found it didn't have the same range it originally had when I was using Windows XP on the laptop.

So, I can say that Madwifi does work - I recall it took a fair bit of configuring to work, but that could be an option for you.

[jelkimantis]

I had this problem. I don't know if it will help you at all, but I found that following the directions on :

http://art.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1163380

really helped me out. I'm running wireless right now!

jsl

[SuperSonic4]

Madwifi has largely been replaced by the ath5k driver for atheros

What is the output of

sudo modprobe ath5k

[swansong]

After upgrading from 9.04 to 9.10, my Atheros (ar5212/ar5213) wireless device was not working, although it had been working before the upgrade. After hours of searching many, many websites, I found a post that mentioned "blacklist-ath_pci.conf". I typed "gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-ath_pci.conf". This is what opened:

# For some Atheros 5K RF MACs, the madwifi driver loads buts fails to
# correctly initialize the hardware, leaving it in a state from
# which ath5k cannot recover. To prevent this condition, stop
# madwifi from loading by default. Use Jockey to select one driver
# or the other. (Ubuntu: #315056, #323830)
blacklist ath5k

I put a "#" in front of the last line (#blacklist ath5k) saved the file, and rebooted (logging out and back in probably would have worked, but after all my searching and reading I wasn't taking any chances.)

It works.

[GreatBunzinni]

I've just logged in to say exactly what swansong said. Kubuntu's default install (or, in my case, automatic update) is set to ignore the default atheros driver. Just remove that default config from:

sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-ath_pci.conf

...and when you restart your system you have a nice network config, free of any proprietary drivers.

Score yet another point for linux. Yey!

[Eric Lathrop]

I have an Atheros AR5001+ nic, and removing the blacklist got me connected to the network, but I can't load any web pages reliably. I get a ton of connection timeouts, and when it does work it's really slow. Should I go back to madwifi?

[dmp1ce]

I have a AR2413 802.11bg NIC and swansong's advice worked for me. Thanks!

I had upgraded from 9.04 to 9.10.

[theWrkncacnter]

After upgrading from 9.04 to 9.10, my Atheros (ar5212/ar5213) wireless device was not working, although it had been working before the upgrade. After hours of searching many, many websites, I found a post that mentioned "blacklist-ath_pci.conf". I typed "gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-ath_pci.conf". This is what opened:

# For some Atheros 5K RF MACs, the madwifi driver loads buts fails to
# correctly initialize the hardware, leaving it in a state from
# which ath5k cannot recover. To prevent this condition, stop
# madwifi from loading by default. Use Jockey to select one driver
# or the other. (Ubuntu: #315056, #323830)
blacklist ath5k

I put a "#" in front of the last line (#blacklist ath5k) saved the file, and rebooted (logging out and back in probably would have worked, but after all my searching and reading I wasn't taking any chances.)

It works.

Not only does this work, it works friggin immediately!
Thanks Swansong!

[buspital]

swansong's advice also worked for me after upgrading from 9.04 to 9.10. ar2413