Larry Stotler wrote:
It's a problem with the driver that it falsely loads on the wrong hardware.
Thanks Larry. I had deleted the ath5k driver when I got your reply. Amazingly the problem is NOT an ath5k problem, the problem is an openSuSE ath5k problem. I'm currently using ath5k on this same box with Arch Linux and it works perfectly. I think I know what is wrong with suse's ath5k implementation...
You have to rmmod the ath5k driver and THEN modprobe with ath_pci
I'm not sure about the current kernels, but I know that under 2.6.25, the ath5k driver sucks. I delete it from:
/lib/modules/2.6.25-whatever/kernel/drivers/net/wireless
I delete the entire ath5k directory
That is the workaround. Basically, just: (1) 'find /lib/modules -name ath5k*' and then delete the ath5k directory. Yes with ath5k now part of the kernel, you have to 'delete' (or move) the ath5k module from the module tree to prevent it from loading before ath_pci. blacklisting ath5k has NO effect and will not prevent the module from loading. Even with: /etc/sysconfig/kernel -> MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT="ath_pci" the ath5k module will still load in front of the ath_pci module totally screwing your ability to configure your wireless card. (2) Unload all wireless modules: rmmod ath5k, rmmod ath_pci, rmmod ath_hal, rmmod wlan (3) as mentioned above modprobe -v ath_pci, and confirm ath_pci and ath_hal are loaded with 'lsmod | grep ath'. Then check the existence of wifi0 and ath0 with ifconfig and iwconfig. If the interfaces are not present, then reboot, do the same thing -- and then use yast -> network -> network devices and see if you are able 'edit' your wireless card and go to the hardware tab and choose "ath_pci" from the module drop-box. If you are unable to select ath_pci from the drop box, don't worry about trying to enter it by hand, it won't work. You still have problems.... (4) If you are using WPA encryption, then create your wpa_supplicant.conf with 'wpa_passwd "ath0" "your-secret-pwd"' The resulting wpa_supplicant.conf is created in your present directory. You will need to edit the file and add the ctrl_interface variable and then copy the file to /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf. Your final wpa_supplicant.conf at minimum needs to look something like this: ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant network={ ssid="skyline" #psk="your-secret-pwd-in-ASCII" psk=65ed3df-your-secret-pwd-in-HEX-48ad3921aa7fd8ef6b6a329bf2c } (5) after configuring your wireless card, and wpa_supplicant, you will need to activate the interface as root with 'ifup ath0' which will load wpa_supplicant and call dhcpcd to obtain an IP address for your interface. THE OPENSUSE ATH5K PROBLEM The openSuSE ath5k implementation for Atheros AR2425 wireless cards is flat broken. There are two probably causes, with the latter being the most likely. First, the ath5k driver shipped with the 11.0 kernel could be just broken (I doubt it), or the /lib/modules/2.6.25.20-0.5-default/modules.alias file is more likely failing to correctly identify the wireless hardware resulting in the ath5k module failing to load properly on network activation. The dmesg signature of this problem on openSuSE is: ath5k_pci 0000:17:00.0: registered as 'phy0' ath5k phy0: failed to wakeup the MAC Chip ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:17:00.0 disabled ath5k_pci: probe of 0000:17:00.0 failed with error -5 While on Arch Linux ath5k works just fine on the same machine: ath5k 0000:17:00.0: registered as 'phy0' ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x64 ath: EEPROM indicates we should expect a direct regpair map ath: Country alpha2 being used: 00 ath: Regpair used: 0x64 ath5k phy0: Atheros AR2425 chip found (MAC: 0xe2, PHY: 0x70) The most likely culprit is /lib/modules/2.6.25.20-0.5-default/modules.alias. The two file have completely different entries for ath5k and ath_pci. I suspect the one included with the 11.0 2.6.25.20-0.5 kernel is broken. SLOW TRANSFER ISSUE If you have removed ath5k and you have been able to configure and activate your wireless adapter, you are not out of the woods yet. For some reason the 0.9.4 ath_pci module from the opensuse madwifi repo, the module build from madwifi-project (svn) and the madwifi-project 0.9.4-1-current provide only 1/3 of the normal data transfer that you should expect. With any of the above ath_pci modules, throughput is limited to ~900K/s. That is way slower than the normal 3.3M/s. I kept trying sources and I was able to use the madwifi-r3725+AR5007EG-2.2 snapshot at full-speed. Hopefully this will help. Currently, the openSuSE madwifi driver for AR2425 cards is a mess. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org