I also found this post very useful. On Fedora Core 1 things are a bit simpler. I've attached my notes below, which worked OK for me on FC1 with the 20040523 tarball of madwifi. Right now CVS access is down.

Problem is, after I do this I get random delayed doubled characters at the keyboard when in Gnome, though not from any of the virtual text consoles. Anyone else seen anything like that? I have a D-Link DWL-G650.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My notes for installing madwifi on Fedora Core 1.

1. If you haven't, install the kernel-source RPM for your kernel.
2. The following commands have to be done as root unless you, as I do, 'chmod
-R /usr/src/linux-2.4' to an ordinary user.

cd /usr/src/linux-2.4
cp configs/kernel-2.4.22-CPU.config .config # replace CPU with yours
make menuconfig
# when menuconfig starts, tab once to highlight EXIT, hit Enter, then
# accept default answer to "Save configuration" with another Enter.
make dep

3. cd to your madwifi directory and do "make" then, as root, "make install"

4. Put the following lines in a file called /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ath0:

DEVICE=ath0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet

5. Edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 and change ONBOOT from "yes"
to "no" if you have a hard wired network connection.

6. Then /sbin/service network restart should shut down eth0 and bring ath0 up.

What about WPA? Does iwconfig and the other stuff support WiFi Protected Access?

WPA is supported but only via the 'wpa' branch of madwifi. See the project home page at http://sf.net/projects/madwifi for details. Sam Leffler says that as soon as a few more bugs are squashed, the WPA branch will become the only one.

Remember, we are trying to install a network card, so if you don't have it installed, you can't download anything. I make this mistake often when giving advice.

I followed your instructions up to the cvs command and got a host bla bla bla doesn't exist error so I am stuck. . .

Also, for future peoples, some people might not know how to find out what kernel version they have and all that other info too. Is there a simple way to find this info out?

Yes, there is a bootstrap problem when you're trying to get on line. My best advice is to buy a cheap wired network card and build WiFi with it installed, then make the switch per my instructions. Most mobos and laptops nowadays come with integrated wired network, so you may not even need to buy a card.

To find out what kernel version you're using:

uname -a

The output will be similar to

Linux localhost.localdomain 2.4.22-1.2194.nptl #1 Thu Jun 17 10:56:28 EDT 2004 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux

which tells you you're running 2.4.22-1.2194.nptl on an athlon CPU. On Fedora, though, if you simply do

yum install kernel-source

it will pick up the latest version automagically.

I found a recent madwifi driver online so I didn't need to use cvs. Anyway, I did the export thing and the make && make install. I am sure I did it correctly because there were no errors from what I could see.

Anyway when I try to modprobe it tells me that there is no wlan module and when I try the insmod they say no such file wlan. There are three files in the net directory wlan.ko is one of them.

I'm using Mandrake 10 2.6.3 Kernel and I used a kernel source link for the make and make install. I'm guessing that I can't skip these steps, do you know what I did wrong? Or didn't do?

Thnx for the detailed desc. Not many people get so detailed on these forums and it is hard for us newbies


--Nubbin

Hi!

First of all, i'd like to thank you for such a nice and useful how-to...

I followed your instructions and everything worked fine...just until ``make install".

After some time, i got several warnings and an error:

i randomly picked one of the warnings...there are lots of 'em!

As you might have seen...i'm a
(and my english is not very good)

thanks in advance
Sir Kueber
P.S.: Debian 3.0 (testing),kernel 2.6.7

I am having similar problems using Fedora Core 2 after compiling the 2.6.7 kernel (Fedora came with 2.6.5-1.358). I downloaded the latest madwifi from the cvs that now has wpa built-in. I'd appreciate any advice. These seem to be only warnings, but it didn't used to do them when I was using RedHat 9 and 2.4 kernels.

Here are a couple of the warnings of each type (no CRC and undefined)

*** Warning: "ieee80211_crypto_register" [/usr/local/src/madwifi-20040809/net80211/wlan_wep.ko] has no CRC!
*** Warning: "rc4_crypt_skip" [/usr/local/src/madwifi-20040809/net80211/wlan_wep.ko] has no CRC!
*** Warning: "ieee80211_crypto_unregister" [/usr/local/src/madwifi-20040809/net80211/wlan_wep.ko] has no CRC!
*** Warning: "rc4_init" [/usr/local/src/madwifi-20040809/net80211/wlan_wep.ko] has no CRC!
*** Warning: "ether_sprintf" [/usr/local/src/madwifi-20040809/net80211/wlan_wep.ko] has no CRC!


*** Warning: "ieee80211_ioctl_giwtxpow" [/usr/local/src/madwifi-20040809/ath/ath_pci.ko] undefined!
*** Warning: "ieee80211_chan2mode" [/usr/local/src/madwifi-20040809/ath/ath_pci.ko] undefined!
*** Warning: "ieee80211_ioctl_siwessid" [/usr/local/src/madwifi-20040809/ath/ath_pci.ko] undefined!
*** Warning: "ieee80211_vlan_register" [/usr/local/src/madwifi-20040809/ath/ath_pci.ko] undefined!
*** Warning: "ieee80211_crypto_encap" [/usr/local/src/madwifi-20040809/ath/ath_pci.ko] undefined!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sir_Kueber

***Warning: "blahblah" [/usr/src/madwifi/driver/ath_pci.ko] undefined!
***Warning: "ath_hal_detach" [/usr/src/madwifi/driver/ath_pci.ko] undefined!
***Warning: "blahblah" [/usr/src/madwifi/driver/ath_pci.ko] undefined!
[...]
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.7´
test -d //lib/modules/2.6.7/net || mkdir -p //lib/moules/2.6.7/net
strip -S ath_pci.ko
cp ath_pci.ko //lib/modules/2.6.7/net
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/madwifi/driver´
/sbin/depmod -ae
depmod: QM_MODULES: Function not implemented

make: *** [install] Error 1


With the 2.6.x kernel, you need to have the module-init-tools package installed. That's where the error QM_MODULES is coming from. (I'm guessing you see this error alot at bootup as well...)

Just run:

apt-get update
apt-get install module-init-tools


P.S. After you install the package, recompile your kernel and run 'make modules_install' as well.

I keep getting this. I know the Kernel path is right because I checked it myself, the version is correct too. I'm using Fedora Core 2

[root@localhost madwifi]# export KERNELPATH=/usr/src/linux-2.6.5-1.358 && export KERNELRELEASE=2.2.6 && export TOOLPREFIX=/usr/bin && export TARGET=i386-elf
[root@localhost madwifi]# make && make install for i in ./ath_hal ath_rate/onoe ./net80211 ./ath; do \
(cd $i; make) || exit 1; \
done
make[1]: Entering directory `/root/madwifi/ath_hal'
uudecode ./../hal/linux/i386-elf.hal.o.uu
make[1]: uudecode: Command not found
make[1]: *** [hal.o] Error 127
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/madwifi/ath_hal'
make: *** [all] Error 1
[root@localhost madwifi]#

What do I need to change for 2.6.9 kernel? Following the above process does not work:

/lib/modules/2.6.9-1-686/net# insmod wlan
insmod: can't read 'wlan': No such file or directory

All modules have .ko

/lib/modules/2.6.9-1-686/net# insmod wlan.ko
insmod: error inserting 'wlan.ko': -1 Invalid module format

Not sure what to do next

Hello everyone.

I'm happy to see that some of you have been able to use my how-to.

It seems that I need to clearify what is said in the subject; this is a how-to for the 2.4 kernel series, and NOT for 2.6 series.

I have not made the change to 2.6 on my laptops and I do not plan to do so for some time yet, therefor I cannot provide
any help on getting this to work on 2.6.

Also this how-to is getting rather outdated and may not work anymore due to being irrelevant in its current state.

I do not plan on posting a how-to for 2.6 any time soon, so please do not ask, all information that should be needed can be found
in the README and INSTALL files that is included with the madwifi package, alternatively the wireless-tools package.

Good luck!

If your using Debian 2.6.x there is a very good chance it will work. Though I can only speek for the Atheros Driver for Wifi (madwifi).

I have a D-Link AirPlusXtreme DWL-G520 PCI installed on a Gateway 1.7MHZ 384MB PC
I got it to work and communicate with the D-Link DWL-2100AP 108Mbps Access Point.
The Access Point is connected to a Linksys ROUTER that is connected to my ADSL Modem
which is connected to the ISP via DSL (phone line).

My only problem is I cannot seem to get the PC to talk to the internet via wireless though all the hardware works. I could use some help, my guess is I need to set some static routing or such.

Since this is a 2.6.x issue if anyone is interested I will email how I got the wifi running this far, perhaps I'll get the rest done soon.

thanks

WOW! DigitalVixen, I can't thank you enough for the Madwifi walk through. I followed your steps exactly, up to the point of confusion over whether I wanted to use 802.11a, and how to switch the mode. I'm running Mandrake 10.1, kernel 2.6.8.1-12mdk and on a hunch I launched MCC and sure enough, it let me load the atheros driver and config it with nice pretty graphics I can't tell if I was more surprised or shocked when it worked, but I'm a happy camper now that it does. The only downside is that the lights on my DWL-g650 blink too much. Oh well, caveat emptor!

After many days of nothing I stumbled across this howto. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I was able to use it to get my wireless up using WEP. Then once I knew madwifi was set up and working I installed wpa_supplicant and am now successfully using WPA encryption on my Slackware 10.0 box. I added a couple lines to rc.local to start up my dhcpcd and all is well. If anyone is interested I used this howto with the following setup:

Slackware 10.0
2.4.26 kernel
Netgear WG311T 108 Mbps Wireless PCI Adapter
Madwifi driver

-RaPtOrSqUeAk-