moin moin, Mike says he meant to send this to the list. ciao, der.hans -- # http://www.LuftHans.com/Classes - - GNU/Linux Security class Jun 2nd # It's up to the reader to make the book interesting. # An author has only the opportunity to make it uninteresting. - der.hans ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 06:55:46 -0700 From: storkus@storkus.com To: der.hans Subject: Re: Ubuntu and madwifi Ah, if you were talking about me, I finally won the fight! Since this is such a ridiculously common chipset in new laptops, I figured I should comment. First, you need to download the patch. In addition to a kernel patch, they have ready-made patches that can be compiled separate from the main kernel tree so it doesn't "contaminate" it (or whatever), and this is the path you choose. To get both the source patch as well as these ready-made patches, goto: http://madwifi.org/ticket/1679 Yes, it's a BIG ticket. And, to make sure you don't miss it, the driver will ONLY work on 32 bit x86--64 bit x86-64 will not work right now. If you want to do that, you need to go the ndiswrapper + winblows drivers. Personally, the idea of downloading binary blobs from 3rd party web sites that could potential carry a virus isn't very palatable for me. Also, since all available tests show no real gain of 64 bit vs 32 bit, I'm sticking with 32 bit and using the madwifi driver. If you get the full tarball, all you have to do is make sure that "mac80211" is in your kernel (built-in or module), untar, make, and make install. Really, that's it! Now you know why I like this route! And it seems to be reasonably kernel-independent, unlike (perhaps) the diff against the kernel itself. The final step is to "modprobe ath_pci". You should then be able to run both i[f|w]config and see interface "ath0"; you may have to adjust your init scripts to look for this instead of, say, "wlan0"--I did. As for the performance, if you read the ticket, people have wildly varying reports. However, they may have just compiled it wrong. Personally, I find it works absolutely perfectly on our 802.11b LAN here; I suppose the performance could vary a lot more in a faster network, but I don't have one to test handy. The only downside (on my Acer Aspire 5520) is that I haven't been able to get the network indicator LED to work yet, but I can live with that. Oh, one final thing: even though I did this with Slackware 12.0 (soon to be 12.1 as soon as I d/l it), since this is a kernel module it should be distro independent. Mike On Mon, 26 May 2008 10:56:13 -0700 (MST), "der.hans" said: > moin moin, > > at the LoCo InstallFest there was a problem getting the madwifi drivers > to > compile and work. The question made it to the list as well. > > Today there is a kernel update for Ubuntu that might help. > > * Madwifi 0.9.4 (LP: #208754): > - fixes compilation for recently released kernel 2.6.24 > > Still need to get the kernel update before trying to use it. > > ciao, > > der.hans > -- > # http://www.LuftHans.com/ https://LOPSA.org/ > # In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. > # It is not always an easy sacrifice. --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss