bknight1983

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Initially incompatiable, but used the madwifi drivers:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi

I followed the directions as given on the MadWifi Wiki:
http://madwifiwiki.thewebhost.de/wiki/Mandrake100AndDLinkDWLG520

I've only used it with dynamic IP from a DHCP without encryption.

rustynailz

Installed as per instructions above - worked like a charm.

LQ comes through once again!

kersten78

I've only used ndiswrapper (available at http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net) to get this card running, but because of the simplicity of the install, I would consider it compatible with Linux. If you are comfortable following directions (read the INSTALL file) and compiling from source (read the INSTALL file), this card should work without a hitch. A couple things to be aware of...
1) Have wireless-tools installed.
2) Use the XP driver (the *.inf file) on the CD supplied with the card--it works with whatever chipset you happen to get.
3) If you write a script to activate the card on boot, put a "sleep" command after the modprobe. For me, "sleep 6" was long enough. If you try to configure your iwconfig settings too quickly, they will not take.

I've had this running with ndiswrapper .10 on Slack 10, Mandrake 10, and Mandrake 9.*. If you use Mandrake 10, make sure to remove ndiswrapper .04 before you start--It comes pre-loaded with Mandrake 10.
Good luck and PM me if you have any questions.
-Kris

ctucker10

I'm new to Linux...just a few weeks into it. The information and links provided in previous HCL reviews of this product were valuable in figuring out how to download and install drivers, kernel updates, and edit/create configuration files needed to get this card up and running.

I do not have a coherent, step-by-step procedure of what I did to get this card to work for me. Trial and error, patience, and tidbits of knowledge snatched from various forums was the key.

I have an Apple Airport Express as my access point. Bellsouth DSL service with an Alcatel Speed Touch Home (DSL modem).

batard

I got this working using the madwifi drivers. I'm a newbie, so it took some figuring out, but it was a good learning experience. Looking back, what I did seems simple: I got the cvs snapshot, unpacked it, and installed that. It worked like a charm afterwards (despite some weird network setup stuff that was FC's fault :)). The card I have, by the way, is Rev. B.

For total newbies (like I was), here's the step-by-step guide.

1) go here: http://madwifi.otaku42.de/ and download the file called madwifi-cvs-current.tar.gz. I have a multi-boot system, so I downloaded from windows XP and transferred it to Linux via a VFAT partition.

2) Login as root. Go to the directory where you put the file (it doesn't matter where. Your home directory will do) and type gunzip madwifi-cvs-current.tar.gz. This outputs a file called madwifi-cvs-current.tar.

3) in the same directory, type tar -xvf madwifi-cvs-current.tar. This extracts a file structure with a top-level folder called madwifi. You can now cd madwifi and type vi README if you want to look at setup nuts and bolts. Otherwise, continue...

4) In the ~/madwifi directory, # make

5) # make install

6) # modprobe ath_pci, #modprobe ath_hal. Read the documentation on modprobe commands and which file to put them in so they automatically load on startup.

You're done. Type lspci to see that the card has registered. Now type iwconfig and see if you see a device called ath0. If you do, that's your card. All you have to do now is set it up properly. Type man iwconfig if you want some directions on how to change settings.

that's how I did it. I hope this works for someone else.

wedgef5

The card I got is H/W Version B3, F/W Version 4.10. I got this card working OK with the madwifi drivers. It uses the Atheros AR5212 chipset. Mine is the "ExtremeG", 108 Mbps version, but I haven't gotten to try that speed, as my signal strength isn't good enough. However, it's been running at 36 Mbps consistently.

I used the config script at the address below. It's actually supposed to be for RH9, but it worked better for me than the setup instructions I found for FC2.

http://www.linuxtested.com/notes/CFG_NOTE_MADWIFI_RH9.html

One final note: I did have my machine completely hang (i.e. punch the Reset button!) a couple times when trying to bring the device up, but now that it is totally configured, that hasn't happened again.

gruven

I have rev. B of the card, and it works great with the madwifi drivers.

timbelina

What a circus! As always of course, I might be the main clown, so please let me know if you can think of anything I may have missed. The gory details:

The card is a D-Link DWL-G520. H/W Version B3. F/W Version 4.3

The card is recognised by the kernel at installation:
Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)

Following OS installation, I can set the card up with YaST. All the time, the two LEDS blink alternately. Once YaST config is complete, restart the box, but no change; alternately blinking LEDS, no IP. Can ping the iface itself (10.0.0.119), but no other IPs on the LAN.

iwconfig shows ath0 with:
Bit Rate: 0 kb/s Tx-Power: 18dBm Sensitivity=0/3
Link Quality=0/94 Signal level=-95dBm Noise level=-95dBm

So, download madwifi's latest ng release. Compiled ok, except for warnings about ath_hal_[buildopts|version|attach|process_noisefloor] being undefined. This could well be fatal, but I could not find anything on Google about it, and compilation completed without error.

Installed the modules, modprobe ath-pci and... nothing! :-) The LEDs stopped blinking alternately, with only the power LED remaining constantly on, and the LAN LED remaining constantly off. Can still ping the local iface, but still no IP beyond that.

I have done lots of other fiddly little changes over the past 10 hours (yay for Easter long weekends :-) but I can't get it to work. I did get a D-Link DWL-G510 to work with the same kernel on another box a couple of months back, but no luck with the DWL520, at least for the H/W B3 and F/W 4.3 that I have.

Ah well, time for a beer.

CU,
Tim.

void_linux

The card is a D-Link DWL G520, hardware is B3. Card was a used card, purchased on ebay.de. We had to send an email to the supplier to confirm in advance the hardware firware version # was B3.

After the card arrived we installed it in my wife's PC (a Sempron-2800 cpu, with 1GByte RAM). Booted SuSE-10.0 and I went directly to YaST > Network Devices > Network Card. The card was recognized by YaST, and in YaST I selected "edit" to configure the card. I've done this before with the wireless on our family laptop, so I know the correct YaST settings to use. I then rebooted the PC. The wireless was immediately working upon reboot. We had internet access and could access our local LAN. Connection was good. No unexpected disconnections after hours of operation.

The total configuration time from boot to re-boot was about 5-minutes.

In contrast it took my wife 2-driver downloads, and 3-driver installs (total time about 3-hours) to get it working exactly the way she wanted under WindowsXP. (She had dropouts under WinXP with the driver that came with the D-Link card - which was fixed with the other two drivers she downloaded). Reference the total time for WinXP install, I couldn't help her much in that, as I don't know the first thing about Windows. Perhaps someone famililar with WinXP could have done it quicker on WinXP.

We have a Speedport W700V router.

Guimauve2

This card is absolutely marvelous !

I have the Revision B, which is supported by MadWifi, and Ubuntu has detected it ever since I got it. I tried it using ndiswrapper - it works. And I think ndiswrapper works with Revision A.

Some versions of Ubuntu ago, I had a strange little problem : every now and then, maybe once in two or three days, my card would disconnect. I just had to restart the networking on my box to get it work again : I made a cron job that did this every hour, just in case.

But now it doesn't do that anymore :)

void_linux

Further to my previous post, this card also works on openSUSE-10.3, through use of the 3rd party packaged madwifi drivers. As noted above, the card we use is a D-Link DWL G520, hardware is B3.

Madwifi drivers (packaged as rpms) for openSUSE-10.3 for the card are here:
http://madwifi.org/suse/10.3

Guide for openSUSE users in using the card are here:
http://en.opensuse.org/Atheros_madwifi

Per that guide, for openSUSE and the madwifi driver, one needs to install both madwifi and madwifi-kmp-<your kernel flavor>.