Ubuntu 8.04 wireless problems on t60 thinkpad using atheros wireless adapter AR5212

NuxIT · 08-21-2008, 05:54 AM

Hi, I've been trying to get my atheros based adapter on my t60 with WPA1 TKIP encryption to work for days. Basically, I used to have 128bit WEP encryption working fine on my previous load of 7.10. I was using the built in linux drivers and didn't have any issues. Ever since I upgraded to 8.04 my wireless has been dead in the water. I'm running a dual-boot XP/Ubuntu load and ending up trying to follow this guide to use ndiswrapper:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...er/Ndiswrapper

I just grabbed the windows wireless drivers from my windows/system32 directory and used the command line to install the wireless driver in linux with ndiswrapper utility. This is my wireless adapter:
Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)

The driver appears to be successfully installed judging from this command.

Code:

styles@t60:/etc/network$ ndiswrapper -l
net5211 : driver installed
        device (168C:1014) present (alternate driver: ath_pci)

Also, I've blacklisted the appropriate drivers using in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist:
# causes issues with atheros wireless driver
blacklist ath_pci

# disable linux wireless
blacklist ath_hal

I seem to have to manually start ndiswrapper using the command modprobe ndiswrapper in order for the wireless adapter to come up under system > network. I then enter my 63 character WPA1 key. After that it tries to enable the adapter but will give me a non-routeable IP (169.x.x.x) after timeout from DHCP request to my router.

Code:

ath0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:19:7e:4c:15:eb
          inet6 addr: fe80::219:7eff:fe4c:15eb/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:727 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:890 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:82151 (80.2 KB)  TX bytes:125569 (122.6 KB)
          Interrupt:21 Memory:edf00000-edf10000

ath0:avahi Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:19:7e:4c:15:eb
          inet addr:169.254.6.229  Bcast:169.254.255.255  Mask:255.255.0.0
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          Interrupt:21 Memory:edf00000-edf10000

Here's some more info:

Code:

styles@t60:/etc/network$ iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

irda0     no wireless extensions.

ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"ROCCO"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.442 GHz  Access Point: 00:11:50:5E:FC:1F
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:64/100  Signal level:-55 dBm  Noise level:-96 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Code:

styles@t60:/etc/network$ sudo cat interfaces
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
address 127.0.0.1
netmask 255.0.0.0


#iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto eth1
#iface eth1 inet dhcp

auto eth2
#iface eth2 inet dhcp


auto wlan0
#iface wlan0 inet dhcp





iface ath0 inet dhcp
wpa-driver wext
wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
wpa-proto WPA
wpa-ssid ROCCO



iface eth0 inet dhcp



auto ath0

auto eth0

I also tried using the wicd utility and it would show all the wireless networks and I could enter my WPA key but that utility didn't work either. Any ideas what the heck is wrong? Thanks a lot.