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* [ath9k] Recent driver versions break compatibility with AR9285 for me
@ 2013-03-06  5:42 Nick Thomas
  2013-03-06  6:03 ` Sujith Manoharan
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Nick Thomas @ 2013-03-06  5:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: linux-wireless

Hi all!

Summary: In my case, the ath9k driver in kernel 3.7.10 does not work
with the Atheros AR2985, but the 3.2.39 driver does.

I have a Dell Inspiron N5040, which has an Atheros AR9285 wireless
card. lspci -v reports:

12:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network
Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1502 802.11bgn Half-size Mini PCIe Card
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
        Memory at fbe00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
        Capabilities: [60] Express Legacy Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [140] Virtual Channel
        Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 00-15-17-ff-ff-24-14-12
        Capabilities: [170] Power Budgeting <?>
        Kernel driver in use: ath9k

When I run the 3.7.10 kernel with the ath9k module loaded, the
wireless does not work, and iwconfig wlan0 reports:

wlan0:          no wireless extensions.

When I run the 3.2.39 kernel, the wireless works, and iwconfig wlan0 reports:

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"HardFatCox"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:22:75:49:42:F7
          Bit Rate=48 Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:on
          Link Quality=50/70  Signal level=-60 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:23  Invalid misc:11577   Missed beacon:0

My best guess is that recent driver revisions broke compatibility with
my wireless card.

The non-working sources that I used (the 3.7.10 kernel) were
downloaded from the Gentoo portage repository, which has some patches
applied. I am willing to try a more "official" version of the kernel
(really, any version you guys want me to) if you think it would help
in understanding this. Also let me know if there is anything else I
can do to help.

I am not subscribed to the mailing list; please cc me on any replies.
Thank you for your good work on this project! I am very glad that I
can use my wireless card on Linux.

Nick Thomas

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread

* Re: [ath9k] Recent driver versions break compatibility with AR9285 for me
  2013-03-06  5:42 [ath9k] Recent driver versions break compatibility with AR9285 for me Nick Thomas
@ 2013-03-06  6:03 ` Sujith Manoharan
  2013-03-06  7:00   ` Nick Thomas
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Sujith Manoharan @ 2013-03-06  6:03 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Nick Thomas; +Cc: linux-wireless

Nick Thomas wrote:
> When I run the 3.7.10 kernel with the ath9k module loaded, the
> wireless does not work, and iwconfig wlan0 reports:
> 
> wlan0:          no wireless extensions.
> 
> When I run the 3.2.39 kernel, the wireless works, and iwconfig wlan0 reports:
> 
> wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"HardFatCox"
>           Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:22:75:49:42:F7
>           Bit Rate=48 Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm
>           Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
>           Encryption key:off
>           Power Management:on
>           Link Quality=50/70  Signal level=-60 dBm
>           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
>           Tx excessive retries:23  Invalid misc:11577   Missed beacon:0
> 
> My best guess is that recent driver revisions broke compatibility with
> my wireless card.

The card is recognized properly by ath9k, since it is shown in the interface
list and it's even associated with HardFatCox :)

What doesn't work ?

Sujith

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread

* Re: [ath9k] Recent driver versions break compatibility with AR9285 for me
  2013-03-06  6:03 ` Sujith Manoharan
@ 2013-03-06  7:00   ` Nick Thomas
  2013-03-06  7:30     ` Sujith Manoharan
  2013-03-06 14:03     ` Kalle Valo
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Nick Thomas @ 2013-03-06  7:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Sujith Manoharan; +Cc: linux-wireless

Sujith,

Thanks for the reply!

The latter iwconfig readout is from an old kernel version (3.2.39),
where the card does indeed work. What I wish to report is that in a
more recent kernel version (3.7.10), the card doesn't work (iwconfig
says "no wireless extensions"). It's not a problem for me (I'm happily
using the old kernel), but I thought it was worth reporting.

Some Googling tells me that a number of people have run into similar
problems (kernel versions >=3.3 breaking their AR928X cards). Maybe
you guys have been made aware of this?

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1085309

Nick

On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 11:03 PM, Sujith Manoharan <sujith@msujith.org> wrote:
> Nick Thomas wrote:
>> When I run the 3.7.10 kernel with the ath9k module loaded, the
>> wireless does not work, and iwconfig wlan0 reports:
>>
>> wlan0:          no wireless extensions.
>>
>> When I run the 3.2.39 kernel, the wireless works, and iwconfig wlan0 reports:
>>
>> wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"HardFatCox"
>>           Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:22:75:49:42:F7
>>           Bit Rate=48 Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm
>>           Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
>>           Encryption key:off
>>           Power Management:on
>>           Link Quality=50/70  Signal level=-60 dBm
>>           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
>>           Tx excessive retries:23  Invalid misc:11577   Missed beacon:0
>>
>> My best guess is that recent driver revisions broke compatibility with
>> my wireless card.
>
> The card is recognized properly by ath9k, since it is shown in the interface
> list and it's even associated with HardFatCox :)
>
> What doesn't work ?
>
> Sujith

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread

* Re: [ath9k] Recent driver versions break compatibility with AR9285 for me
  2013-03-06  7:00   ` Nick Thomas
@ 2013-03-06  7:30     ` Sujith Manoharan
  2013-03-06 14:03     ` Kalle Valo
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Sujith Manoharan @ 2013-03-06  7:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Nick Thomas; +Cc: linux-wireless

Nick Thomas wrote:
> The latter iwconfig readout is from an old kernel version (3.2.39),
> where the card does indeed work. What I wish to report is that in a
> more recent kernel version (3.7.10), the card doesn't work (iwconfig
> says "no wireless extensions"). It's not a problem for me (I'm happily
> using the old kernel), but I thought it was worth reporting.

Ah, ok.

> Some Googling tells me that a number of people have run into similar
> problems (kernel versions >=3.3 breaking their AR928X cards). Maybe
> you guys have been made aware of this?

That issue was fixed a long time by reverting the problematic commit.
https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=011afa1ed8c408d694957d2474d89dc81a60b70c

3.7.x shouldn't be affected by that issue. Can you post the kernel log ?

Sujith

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread

* Re: [ath9k] Recent driver versions break compatibility with AR9285 for me
  2013-03-06  7:00   ` Nick Thomas
  2013-03-06  7:30     ` Sujith Manoharan
@ 2013-03-06 14:03     ` Kalle Valo
  2013-03-06 20:32       ` Nick Thomas
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread
From: Kalle Valo @ 2013-03-06 14:03 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Nick Thomas; +Cc: Sujith Manoharan, linux-wireless

Nick Thomas <nhomas@gmail.com> writes:

> The latter iwconfig readout is from an old kernel version (3.2.39),
> where the card does indeed work. What I wish to report is that in a
> more recent kernel version (3.7.10), the card doesn't work (iwconfig
> says "no wireless extensions"). It's not a problem for me (I'm happily
> using the old kernel), but I thought it was worth reporting.

What if 3.7.10 kernel just doesn't have the old wireless extensions
(CONFIG_CFG80211_WEXT) enabled? Did you try iw which uses nl80211?

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Documentation/iw

-- 
Kalle Valo

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread

* Re: [ath9k] Recent driver versions break compatibility with AR9285 for me
  2013-03-06 14:03     ` Kalle Valo
@ 2013-03-06 20:32       ` Nick Thomas
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread
From: Nick Thomas @ 2013-03-06 20:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Kalle Valo; +Cc: Sujith Manoharan, linux-wireless

Kalle,

I'll try those things!

Nick

On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 10:03 PM, Kalle Valo <kvalo@adurom.com> wrote:
> Nick Thomas <nhomas@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> The latter iwconfig readout is from an old kernel version (3.2.39),
>> where the card does indeed work. What I wish to report is that in a
>> more recent kernel version (3.7.10), the card doesn't work (iwconfig
>> says "no wireless extensions"). It's not a problem for me (I'm happily
>> using the old kernel), but I thought it was worth reporting.
>
> What if 3.7.10 kernel just doesn't have the old wireless extensions
> (CONFIG_CFG80211_WEXT) enabled? Did you try iw which uses nl80211?
>
> http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Documentation/iw
>
> --
> Kalle Valo

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2013-03-06 20:32 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 6+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2013-03-06  5:42 [ath9k] Recent driver versions break compatibility with AR9285 for me Nick Thomas
2013-03-06  6:03 ` Sujith Manoharan
2013-03-06  7:00   ` Nick Thomas
2013-03-06  7:30     ` Sujith Manoharan
2013-03-06 14:03     ` Kalle Valo
2013-03-06 20:32       ` Nick Thomas

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