Atheros wireless problem

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rod
rod
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Joined: 12/07/2011

Hi,

I've some problems to install the wireless card on a laptop with an atheros card.

I think, with this card, there's a free firmware and driver.

When I search the card with lspci i found :
"01:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter (rev ff)"

But when i tape iwconfig, there's just "lo no wireless extensions."

And with lsmod | grep ath, i find some ath9k.

My version is a 64 bits Trisquel 5.0, and the kernel 2.6.38.11.

How can I install my wireless card ? I don't have any connection to Internet on this laptop. So, it's a little bit complicated to download some new packages.

Michał Masłowski

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Joined: 05/15/2010

> I think, with this card, there's a free firmware and driver.
>
> When I search the card with lspci i found :
> "01:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9485
> Wireless Network Adapter (rev ff)"
>
> But when i tape iwconfig, there's just "lo no wireless extensions."
>
> And with lsmod | grep ath, i find some ath9k.

ath9k is free, but there is similarly named ath9k_htc which needs
nonfree firmware.

> My version is a 64 bits Trisquel 5.0, and the kernel 2.6.38.11.

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k lists AR9485 as
supported since 2.6.39, so maybe it needs newer kernel (I don't know
what the Trisquel kernel has backported).

> How can I install my wireless card ? I don't have any connection to
> Internet on this laptop. So, it's a little bit complicated to download
> some new packages.

Try a newer Linux-libre package (fetching it from another machine and
installing via dpkg)? I don't use Trisquel, so I don't know which one
to use, http://jxself.org/linux-libre/ was recommended in a recent
thread.

Report the card on http://h-node.com/ if it works with newer kernel (or
if it doesn't), this will make such problems easier to solve in future.

t3g
t3g
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Joined: 05/15/2011

They should just rename this distro to "the one that hates wireless internet" because that is what the majority of the posts on this forum are about.

quiliro@congresolibre.org
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Joined: 10/28/2010

El 27/12/11 12:07, name at domain escribió:
> They should just rename this distro to "the one that hates wireless
> internet" because that is what the majority of the posts have turned
> into.

Saying that is like saying: "They should rename you as the person that
does not value his freedom and on his way helps those that impose unjust
conditions on himself and on his peers." But maybe saying that is too
diplomatic.

There is a tremendous effort to make Trisquel against the flow of the
powerful. Reading comments like yours does not lighten anybody's load.
It would be more help to boycott those 10% of the makers of hardware
that do not use free software for their drivers or firmware.

t3g
t3g
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Joined: 05/15/2011

Don't be so naive. I run Trisquel on this computer and got wireless working out of the box on my brother's laptop (also runs Trisquel) because I apparently lucked out with it being compatible. I have an older Linksys USB dongle that doesn't like Trisquel even if it works fine in Ubuntu. I do not use it anymore.

I also contribute code back to GPL and Affero GPL web projects. Do you, Mr. Smartass?

SirGrant

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Joined: 07/27/2010

Ok guys, lets try to chill out a bit and bring it back to helping the OP. Bickering and name calling with each other doesn't solve anything.

quiliro@congresolibre.org
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Joined: 10/28/2010

El 27/12/11 14:00, name at domain escribió:
> Don't be so naive. I run Trisquel on this computer and got wireless
> working out of the box on my brother's laptop (also runs Trisquel)
> because I apparently lucked out with it being compatible. I have an
> older Linksys USB dongle that doesn't like Trisquel so much even if it
> works fine in Ubuntu. I do not use it anymore.
>
> I also contribute code back to GPL and AGPL web projects. Do you, Mr.
> Smartass?

I do not have anything to prove to you. Your contribution is not
important for me.

Chris

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Joined: 04/23/2011

USB Wifi is a major issue right now. There are only a handful of cards you can still get with the right chipsets. Those chipsets are 8187B, 8187L, and AR9170. Two are 802.11G chipsets and the third is an 802.11N chipset.

The number of cards with these chipsets still available I can probably count on one hand.

Laptop wifi cards are not a major issue for the time being as all Atheros 802.11N Mini PCIe cards are supported. To clarify this I'm not saying that the most recent edition is supported out of the box. It should work out of the box going forward though.

The one thing you should be careful of with Atheros Mini PCIe cards is the bluetooth/wifi combo cards. The Bluetooth chipset on these cards is not free software compatible. The source code for the firmware is not available under a free software license like the wifi card is.

We sell a USB bluetooth card that works with free software though so if you need support for this you can get it. I should also mention that we came across some USB bluetooth adapters that appeared as though they should have worked with free software and did not. CSR puts out the chipset you want although not all Bluetooth USB cards with this or at least some of their bluetooth chipsets are compatible. It may just be a matter of time until these are supported. I'm not 100% sure.