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Attention: Linux is in constant improvement. Linus Thorvald has already implemented
the required driver in the recent kernel versions. Today Ubuntu and Kubuntu are using
older kernel versions than the kernels which support the WNA1100 adapter. It is only
time (months/weeks?) until this adapter is supported as plug and play!
This document is written and has been tested on Kubuntu 10.04. Please try to find
information whether your device should work out of the box, or not.
Introduction
Hello,
This quick start manual initially started as a quick post on the Ubuntu forums just to write of
some of my own frustration regarding getting the wireless card to work with my newly built
system. Makeerrors during compiling the sources got me to call a friend, who was able to find
a way and solve my problem. Finally after 2.5 hours of fiddling it compiled and installed !
Immediately I posted my findings to share it with the rest of the world.
My error in posting the quick post was not including Linux command line specifics. Leaving
people unfamiliar with Linux out of the loop. As with most things, simplification is best. This
rewritten manual should help in installing the WNA1100 USB adapter which is based on the
Atheros AR9271 chipset. The Linux wireless driver package for this chipset is named
ath9k_htc. See http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k_htc/devices for similar
devices built with the AR9271 or AR7010 chipset.
Note: Many more adapters are supported by the compatwireless driver package. I have only
tried to get MY adapter working. It is possible this Howto describes 90% of what will need to
get a similar adapter working. Please check if your adapter is listed on the compatwireless
home page, or go directly to their devices section : http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Devices
Terminal commands are displayed by yellow high-lighting. Please read the text carefully before
entering the terminal commands. If this document works entirely as intended, copy-pasting the
commands into your terminal SHOULD work.
Verify
Verify that your adapter is the actual adapter that this document is written for.
However, if you have ensured yourself that your adapter is supported by the compatwireless
driver package you may ignore the 'exact' statement in the following command line results.
Open a command line terminal and enter the following command, followed by an enter or
return.
lsusb <ENTER>
Does one of the lines in your result match exactly ID 0846:9030 NetGear, Inc. ?
Then your adapter is exactly the adapter which made me write this manual !
Continue to next chapter: The download
The Download
To continue the following packages need to be downloaded & installed.
1 Linuxheaders
2 buildessential
3 compatwireless2.6.tar.bz2
4 Atheros Firmware
Please connect your computer to the Internet using a networkcable directly to your (wireless)
router LAN port. Other solutions may work also, just get it connected :)
To download these two packages enter the following commands on the command line. Be
prepared to type your administrator password.
sudo aptget install linuxheaders$(uname r) <ENTER>
sudo aptget install buildessential <ENTER>
wget http://wireless.kernel.org/download/compatwireless2.6/compat
wireless2.6.tar.bz2<ENTER>
Open in your internet browser the following page:
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/dwmw2/linuxfirmware.git;a=tree
Click on snapshot & store the
archive into the same location as
the compatwireless archive.
For Your Information
Linux is sensitive to upper and lowercases in filenames. It is important to follow filenames carefully. (Windows is
not sensitive to filename upper/lower cases)
aptget is a program which allows you to install packages from the repository. The parameter install instructs
the following names are to be downloaded & installed .
uname provides information regarding your kernel version. It is important that the correct kernal version header
files are downloaded for making kernelmodules / drivers.
buildessential is a package needed for building packages.
Untar & Change Directory & Script
The last two steps from previous chapter involved downloading compressed tapearchive files.
These compressed tar archives (may) contain many files and folders. To extract these files
and folders, the archive must be extracted. (Not meant cynical)
To extract the tar archive type the following command. (in the same terminal window)
tar xf compatwireless2.6.tar.bz <ENTER>
tar xf linuxheaders <TAB><ENTER>
TIP: Try to complete the filename after typing only the first characters of a filename by pressing the TAB key on
your keyboard. This auto completes the filename, or gives suggestions from to choose from. This greatly
improves typing efficiency. Also it reduces the chance for typo's.
If the extract operation completed successfully, a new folder will be created with a name
starting with compatwireless. Lets hop into that directory to start with some actual build
preperation work.
Hop into the directory by typing
cd compatwireless <TAB><ENTER>
Run a script which selects the correct device to create a driver for.
./scripts/driverselect ath9k_htc <ENTER>
Good!
Next chapter will fix some details in the files in order to make the driver work.
TIP: In Linux certain programs & scripts can be started from the command line by typing a . (period) in front of
the filename or path.
Fix & Compile
During my first attempts of installing this driver causes 'builderrors'. Upon invoking the make
command, it threw errors. I'm not familiar with Linux source code, nor am I much of a
Makefile knight. This is where I asked a friend to help me. Here is what is needed to make it
work. These problems occoured with version date compatwireless20100928.
The compatwireless driver availible today apears to be working without the need for fixing
the Makefile! However, if you may run again into make file errors try to fix these by following
the following steps.
Now go back to the terminal window and type:
make <ENTER>
sudo make install <ENTER>
Note: make and the make install commands may take several minutes to complete.
!ONLY if you have compile errors try!
Open your favourite file browser (Dolphin in Kubuntu) and navigate to the compatwireless folder. Hop al the way downto
compat-wireless-2010-##-##/drivers/net/wireless/ath
## a number
Open the file Makefile with a texteditor and modify it contents so it looks very similar to the following text. Do not change
the content of the line itself. Only remove the last line which may
look like ath$(CONFIG_ATH_DEBUG) += debug.o
Also make sure the hw.o and key.o lines are included. Also make sure the backslashes are like displayed below:
obj$(CONFIG_ATH9K_HW) += ath9k/
obj$(CONFIG_ATH_COMMON) += ath.o
athobjs := main.o \
regd.o \
hw.o \
key.o
Almost there. Now the only two steps left is copying the Arthos chipset firmware file into the
filesystem firmware directory.
cd.. <ENTER>
cd linuxfirmware <TAB><ENTER>
sudo cp ar9271.fw /lib/firmware
Modprobe & Finish
Lets test if it works!
Reboot the computer, type the following command to test if the driver can be located &
loaded.
modinfo ath9k_htc <ENTER>
Then type the following command to start using the driver!
sudo modprobe ath9k_htc <ENTER>
Hopefully everything went as expected. You now should have wifi.
The blue LED will light up. You can verify your driver is loaded into the kernel by typing. Look
for lines which show ath9k???.
lsmod <ENTER>
Or if you want to be lazy rather than tired:
lsmod | grep ath <ENTER>
The lsmod pipe grep ath command should result in something very similar to the following:
lsmod | grep ath
ath9k_htc 39034 0
ath9k_common 2551 1 ath9k_htc
ath9k_hw 281287 2 ath9k_htc,ath9k_common
ath 12177 2 ath9k_htc,ath9k_hw
compat_firmware_class 6200 1 ath9k_htc
mac80211 236308 1 ath9k_htc
cfg80211 143580 3 ath9k_htc,ath,mac80211
led_class 2864 2 ath9k_htc,sd
For your information
The vertical bar | is called pipe. It relays the output from the left side to a program / command on the right side.
In this example its the program grep received the output from the first command. Grep is a textsearch feature
which then shows only lines containing your specified string.
Revert / Undo your work
To get rid of the ath9k driver go back to the the compatwireless driver directory.
Type the following commands to uninstall it.
sudo modprobe r ath9k_htc
sudo modprobe r ath9k_common
sudo modprobe r ath9k_hw
sudo modprobe r ath
Sudo make uninstall
Kind regards,
Steven4601
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