In Ubuntu it really does try to detect your Atheros chip. In Ubuntu 7.10 the wireless on my laptop was detected as the AR5006EG and I use ndiswrapper and the net5416.inf driver. On Ubuntu 8.04 my wireless was detected as the AR242x and I was able to download ndisgtk (in the repos) and use the net5211.net driver, (the ndisgtk is just a graphical interface for ndiswrapper, very easy and very nice!). This time (Ubuntu 8.10) it wasn’t detected as the AR5006EG, it was however detected as the AR242x BUT I couldn’t use ndisgtk as before. I’m thinking it’s because they updated the network manager in 8.10. Either way here is how I got it working.
Remember TAB is your friend in the terminal!
To check what you wireless is detected as just run the following in the Terminal:
lspci | grep Wireless
These steps are done using Ethernet, if it is unavailable, just go to any computer with Internet and download the mad wifi snapshot shown in these steps. Just follow the step from there once you have gotten the file.
1) First disable Ubuntu’s Atheros HAL driver if loaded:
Click ‘System’ -> ‘Administration’-> ‘Hardware drivers’ then deactivate support for the Atheros 802.11 wireless driver
I rebooted just to make sure there was no chance it was running.
Everything else is done in the Terminal
2) Get the Ubuntu built essentials package, this will allow the program to compile:
sudo apt-get install build-essential
**if this is a new install of 8.10 you MUST do “sudo apt-get update” (without quotes) to update your repositories
3) Download the madwifi snapshot:
wget http://snapshots.madwifi-project.org/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-current.tar.gz
4) Untar (unzip) the newly downloaded file:
tar xvf madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-current.tar.gz
5) Go into the newly created directory:
cd madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r3879-20081204
6) Then compile the package:
make
7) The install the package:
sudo make install
Then load the newly created module:
sudo modprobe ath_pci
if yours is like mine you may not get a wifi light, in that case you won’t know if the card is on, just try pushing the button to toggle it (on the Acer 4720Z it’s a picture of a satillite)
9) If your wireless is working after this when you reboot the computer it won’t to fix it, you must add it to the kernel boot modules list:
In the terminal type “sudo gedit /etc/modules”(without quotes) and add “ath_pci”(again without quotes) to the bottom of the list if you don’t have anything in the list just add it to the bottom. Click ‘Save’ and that’s it. ::PER Joe Purdy “DO A REBOOT”::
FYI: If there is ONLY one reason you want to update to Ubuntu 8.10, it’s for the boot-up time. It’s supa-speedy.
