[ath9k-devel] development of the ath9k driver for linux

[ath9k-devel] development of the ath9k driver for linux

[micha]

hello linux-specialists,

i am a linux greenhorn and tried to download and konfig the beta-driver
onto my laptop working with ubuntu 8.04.1 "hardy heron".

it took me about 7 hours, trying to get my damned WLAN-Adapter working. 
finally... i gave up and went for a couple of beers. i have the Atheros
Communications Inc. AR5418 802.11abgn Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev
01)

not only all the (for a fairly experienced win xp user) new commands,
also the install routine seems to be pretty complicated. 

is it possible to build this beta-driver into an automatic install
routine like many other drivers in ubuntu?

that would make my life much easier. ;-) 

thanks for listening to me, folks.

regards from germany,

michael swoboda

[ath9k-devel] development of the ath9k driver for linux

[Léonard Kai Schönitz]

Am Montag, 1. September 2008 19.08:10 schrieb micha:
> hello linux-specialists,
>
> i am a linux greenhorn and tried to download and konfig the beta-driver
> onto my laptop working with ubuntu 8.04.1 "hardy heron".
>
> it took me about 7 hours, trying to get my damned WLAN-Adapter working.
> finally... i gave up and went for a couple of beers. i have the Atheros
> Communications Inc. AR5418 802.11abgn Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev
> 01)
>
> not only all the (for a fairly experienced win xp user) new commands,
> also the install routine seems to be pretty complicated.
>
> is it possible to build this beta-driver into an automatic install
> routine like many other drivers in ubuntu?
>
> that would make my life much easier. ;-)
>
> thanks for listening to me, folks.
>
> regards from germany,
>
> michael swoboda
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ath9k-devel mailing list
> ath9k-devel at lists.ath9k.org
> https://lists.ath9k.org/mailman/listinfo/ath9k-devel

You probably don't want that beta driver anyway. It still seems to be a bit 
unstable. The SVN branch of madwifi-ng supports your card. I think this would 
be the better choice to go for you. You have to install subversion over your 
apt and then check out this branch: 
"svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk madwifi"
cd to the dir, make; make install; modprobe ath_pci and there you go.


L?onard Sch?nitz
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[ath9k-devel] development of the ath9k driver for linux

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Mon, Sep 01, 2008 at 11:44:33AM -0700, L?onard Kai Sch?nitz wrote:
> Am Montag, 1. September 2008 19.08:10 schrieb micha:
> > hello linux-specialists,
> >
> > i am a linux greenhorn and tried to download and konfig the beta-driver
> > onto my laptop working with ubuntu 8.04.1 "hardy heron".
> >
> > it took me about 7 hours, trying to get my damned WLAN-Adapter working.
> > finally... i gave up and went for a couple of beers. i have the Atheros
> > Communications Inc. AR5418 802.11abgn Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev
> > 01)
> >
> > not only all the (for a fairly experienced win xp user) new commands,
> > also the install routine seems to be pretty complicated.
> >
> > is it possible to build this beta-driver into an automatic install
> > routine like many other drivers in ubuntu?
> >
> > that would make my life much easier. ;-)
> >
> > thanks for listening to me, folks.
> >
> > regards from germany,
> >
> > michael swoboda
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > ath9k-devel mailing list
> > ath9k-devel at lists.ath9k.org
> > https://lists.ath9k.org/mailman/listinfo/ath9k-devel
> 
> You probably don't want that beta driver anyway. It still seems to be a bit
> unstable. The SVN branch of madwifi-ng supports your card. I think this would
> be the better choice to go for you. You have to install subversion over your
> apt and then check out this branch:
> "svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk madwifi"
> cd to the dir, make; make install; modprobe ath_pci and there you go.

You should use what your distribution supports, if you are using Ubuntu
then know that Intrepid will have ath9k support. If you are on Hardy and
want ath9k I will soon supply a compat-wireless tarball with ath9k in
it. In the end you're probably better off upgrading to Intrepid as I
think they are testing 2.6.27 right now.

  Luis

[ath9k-devel] development of the ath9k driver for linux

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Tue, Sep 02, 2008 at 12:07:11PM -0700, Luis Rodriguez wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 01, 2008 at 11:44:33AM -0700, L?onard Kai Sch?nitz wrote:
> > Am Montag, 1. September 2008 19.08:10 schrieb micha:
> > > hello linux-specialists,
> > >
> > > i am a linux greenhorn and tried to download and konfig the beta-driver
> > > onto my laptop working with ubuntu 8.04.1 "hardy heron".
> > >
> > > it took me about 7 hours, trying to get my damned WLAN-Adapter working.
> > > finally... i gave up and went for a couple of beers. i have the Atheros
> > > Communications Inc. AR5418 802.11abgn Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev
> > > 01)
> > >
> > > not only all the (for a fairly experienced win xp user) new commands,
> > > also the install routine seems to be pretty complicated.
> > >
> > > is it possible to build this beta-driver into an automatic install
> > > routine like many other drivers in ubuntu?
> > >
> > > that would make my life much easier. ;-)
> > >
> > > thanks for listening to me, folks.
> > >
> > > regards from germany,
> > >
> > > michael swoboda
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > ath9k-devel mailing list
> > > ath9k-devel at lists.ath9k.org
> > > https://lists.ath9k.org/mailman/listinfo/ath9k-devel
> >
> > You probably don't want that beta driver anyway. It still seems to be a bit
> > unstable. The SVN branch of madwifi-ng supports your card. I think this would
> > be the better choice to go for you. You have to install subversion over your
> > apt and then check out this branch:
> > "svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk madwifi"
> > cd to the dir, make; make install; modprobe ath_pci and there you go.
> 
> You should use what your distribution supports, if you are using Ubuntu
> then know that Intrepid will have ath9k support. If you are on Hardy and
> want ath9k I will soon supply a compat-wireless tarball with ath9k in
> it. In the end you're probably better off upgrading to Intrepid as I
> think they are testing 2.6.27 right now.

OK you now have a compat-wireless for older kernels (<= 2.6.26) with
ath9k.

  Luis

[ath9k-devel] development of the ath9k driver for linux

[Mats Johannesson]

On Mon, 01 Sep 2008 19:08:10 +0200 micha wrote:
[...]
> i am a linux greenhorn [...]
[...]
> it took me about 7 hours [...] finally... i gave up [...]
[...]
> also the install routine seems to be pretty complicated. 
> 
> is it possible to build this beta-driver into an automatic install
> routine like many other drivers in ubuntu?

Eh, yes... That's what the ubuntu developers are working on ;-) If the
upstream 2.6.27 kernel is finalized by October they _might_ have had
time to include it in the 08-10 ubuntu distribution (MIGHT).

But you should understand that a new kernel driver - like the ath9k -
can't just be downloaded as a piece of user program. While the
different Windows kernels (pre Vista, from what I understand) chose to
be pretty much backwards compatible in regards to drivers, the linux
kernel developers have taken a stand to always keep their kernel in an
internal flux. They call it "no stable API", which gives them the
freedom to aim for the best ideas and technologies without having to
restrain their creativity. Read more about it in the kernel source
directory Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt

So the ath9k driver must adapt to changes in the overlaying wireless
layer, and that layer must adapt to changes in memory handling etc etc.

In my opinion, the easiest way for a normal user to get a bleeding edge
kernel driver is to wait... The other option is to spend much more than
seven hours to learn about kernel compilation and how to replace the
distribution kernel with that new home-brew.

The latter option is more fun though :-)

Mvh
Mats Johannesson