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Wireless Connection on Macbook running Intrepid

Asked by Fara

I've set up my Macbook (version 2,1) to dual-boot with OS X and Intrepid Ubuntu. When I got it running, I found that I had extremely inconsistent wireless support that would typically die within five minutes of selecting a hub. I followed the advice on the https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook2-1/Hardy page, compiling the ath9k and installing it. However, when I rebooted, I found that I no longer could no longer utilize wireless at all! I can't select any option in the Network menu except for wired access. How would I get my wireless to work again?

(I tried following the instructions for Intrepid on the wiki page, but Hardware Drivers doesn't recognize any restricted drivers.)

Computer: Macbook 2,1
OS: Intrepid Ibex

Thank you for your help!

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Ernest Yang (ernest-atheros) said : 		#1

Some questions:
1. Can you find/configure the wireless interface by "iwconfig" ?
2. ath9k is 11n driver, does your access point correctly configured?

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Fara (faratay) said : 		#2

1: iwconfig shows that I have three connections: lo, eth0, and pan0. All three of them say they have no wireless extensions, and running any iwconfig commands to configure the three bring up the same error: "SET failed on device [lo, eth0, or pan0]; Operation not permitted."

2. I'm on a university campus, so I can't configure the access points themselves. But I do know that the hub nearest me is a Cisco 1100. The wireless adapter in my computer is an Atheros Communications Inc. AR5008 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01).

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Ernest Yang (ernest-atheros) said : 		#3

1. lo, eth0, pan0 are not wireless LAN interface. If your wireless card is bringup successfully, you should see "wlan0" or "eth<number>" and have wireless extension.
2. You have to bringup wireless driver first, check if ath9k is inserted by "lsmod | grep ath9k", if it is not loaded, try to load it from /lib/modules/<kernel version>/kernel/driver/net/wireless/ath9k/ath9k.ko

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Fara (faratay) said : 		#4

Could you explain the commands needed to load the .ko file? I can't figure out the right commands...

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Ernest Yang (ernest-atheros) said : 		#5

1. cd /lib/modules/<kernel version>/kernel/driver/net/wireless/ath9k/
2. insmod ./ath9k.ko
3. use "ifconfig -a" and "iwconfig" to check if wireless interface brings up.

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Fara (faratay) said : 		#6

Thanks for the commands. When I run insmod, I get this error: "Unknown symbol in module". How can I fix this?

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Ernest Yang (ernest-atheros) said : 		#7

1. There are dependencies on other modules, use "dmesg" to see the message, post it here.
2. you can try "modprobe ath9k" it should automatically load all dependent modules.

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Fara (faratay) said : 		#8

The error messages:

Unknown symbol ieee80211_start_tx_ba_cb_irqsafe
Unknown symbol ieee80211_free_hw
Unknown symbol ieee80211_alloc_hw
Unknown symbol ieee80211_start_tx_ba_session_
Unknown symbol ieee80211_register_hw
Unknown symbol ieee80211_rate_control_unregister
Unknown symbol ieee80211_get_hdrlen_from_skb
Unknown symbol ieee80211_wake_queue
Unknown symbol ieee80211_rate_control_register
Unknown symbol sta_info_get
Unknown symbol __ieee80211_rx
Unknown symbol ieee80211_stop_queue
Unknown symbol ieee80211_stop_queues
Unknown symbol ieee80211_unregister_hw
Unknown symbol ieee80211_beacon_get

The same errors appear a few times in the message. (I get the same error with modprobe.) I'm guessing the problem is ieee80211. I looked at Ubuntu Package Search for any packages with ieee80211, but they don't have any sources for Intrepid.

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Fara (faratay) said : 		#9

Got it! I found a solution here: http://guide.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=882785

To any future person with this problem, don't bother with net-tools. I did that one alone, and it didn't bring up wireless. I'm not sure which out of linux-generic, linux-headers, or linux-image did the trick, but at least it works.

Thank you for your help, Ernest!