I am having trouble with connecting my wireless card to the internet.. Reading all the information from this forum, and tons of other sites are getting me nowhere..

I can get the card to show up in iwconfig, and ifconfig, but seems it doesn't want to run properly.. I have used ifconfig ath0 up before and that doesn't work..

1.) ifconfig ath0 up
2.) iwconfig ath0 channel 6
3.) iwconfig ath0 essid myessid
4.) iwconfig ath0 key s:key and iwconfig ath0 enc s:key
5.) modprobe wlan, ath_hal, and ath_pci

Here is what I get from ifconfig:

ath0 Link encap: Ethernet HWaddr 00:13:46:48:5B:6C
inet6 addr: fe80:: 213:46ff:fe48:5b6c/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:377 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:377
TX packets:9 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collision:0 txqueuelen:199
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:2368 (2.3 Kb)
Interrupt: 11 Memory:c8980000-c8990000


Here is what I get from iwconfig:

ath0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"linksys"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437GHz Access Point: 00:12:17:09F:EE
Bit Rate:36Mb/s TX-Power:50 dBm Sensitivity=0/3
Retryff RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff Security mode:restricted
Power Management: off
Link Quality:43/94 Signal level:-52 dBm Noise leve:-95 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:7 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

If this is the order you're doing things, you've got it backwards. You need to load madwifi with modprobe first, then configure it.

I did them in backwards order from 5 to 1 and still didn't work.. Also Slax is crashing everytime I do the iwconfig ath key s:key or iwconfig ath0 enc s:key. Not sure why that is happening as that use to work.. I am not sure if the key should be 123456790 or should it be 0000001234567890?

As for other things, I did a lspci | grep Atheros and this is what came up: 06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)

I have no other ideas on what to do, and seems that nothing is working...

OK, from your lspci output, you've got a AR5212 chipset which is supported by madwifi.
This suggests to me that you're not real sure if you have the text or hex version of your WEP key (by the way, you're using WEP, not WPA right?).

If your key is text, then you use iwconfig ath0 key s:TextKey

However if your key is the hex version, then you use this:

iwconfig ath0 key HexKey

Usually when you generate keys on your access point, you enter in a text word or phrase and the AP then generates hex keys from that. So knowing which one you are entering into the card is key.

I am using WEP and Hex version, and I was able to get the key to punch in.. I did use the "iwconfig ath0 key HexKey", but it crashed not sure why but it keeps crashing on me.. I was able to do it the first bit using Slax and now it deads on there.

As for other things I have found out.

lsmod | greph ath:

ath_pci 53408 0
ath_rate_onoe 7816 1 ath_pci
wlan 105052 3 ath_pci, ath_rate_onoe
ath_hal 147408 2 ath_pci


dmesg | grep ath:

ath_hal: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel
ath_hal: 0.9.14.9 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF413)
ath_rate_onoe: 1.0
ath_pci: 0.9.4.12 (EXPERIMENTAL)
ath0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps
ath0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps
ath0: mac 7.9 phy 4.5 radio 5.6
ath0: 802.11 address: 00:13:46:48:5b:6c
ath0: Use hw queue 0 for WME_AC_BE traffic
ath0: Use hw queue 1 for WME_AC_BK traffic
ath0: Use hw queue 2 for WME_AC_VI traffic
ath0: Use hw queue 3 for WME_AC_VO traffic
ath0: Atheros 5212: mem=0x9000000, irq=11

The crashing is definitely not normal. I'd have a look in your log files (without using grep ath) and see if anything jumps out. The output from dmesg looks OK, so I'm hoping that something else will be in there.

Also, when you compiled madwifi, were there any difficulties? You also might want to run depmod -a and see if that helps.

I have tried to use depmod -a but then the "iwconfig ath0 key Hexkey", crashed again.

As for the log, the whole thing is so long that I couldn't put it in here, so I am going to link you to here: Full Dmesg

All the time I use Slax and then go back into Windows, they seem to run chkdsk to try and fix something...

There reallly isn't anything in your dmesg that hints at what it going wrong. Is it possible you've got some sort of wireless tools/extensions mismatch? Run iwconfig -v and see if anything obvious jumps out. Otherwise, I'm at a bit of a loss as to why this crashing is happening. The madwifi drivers appear to be loading normally.

As for chkdsk, your dmesg output does have a lot of complaining from NTFS. I'm wondering if Slax isn't doing something it shouldn't be. I almost hate to suggest this, but I'm thinking that the install may not have gone well and it might be worth re-doing if you don't have a lot invested into this.

So you installed slax5 live-cd? It comes with ndiswrapper and madwifi drivers for Multiband Atheros(does this cover your chip) and I see there are modules you can add. Does slax5 have guide for ndiswrapper and madwifi setup?
Would the live-cd setup madwifi and ndiswrapper too? Have a look at http://slax.linux-live.or/doc_troubleshoot.php#drivers and the howtos section of the slax forum. Between those and the LQ SW forum help you should be all set. Good luck.

For the iwconfig -v here is what I got:

iwconfig Version 26
Compatible with Wireless Extension v16 or earlier,
Currently complied with Wireless Extension v16.

Kernel Currently complied with Wireless Extension v17.

ath0 Recommend Wireless Extension v13 or later,
Currently complied with Wireless Extension v17.


With the problems to the NTFS, I noticed that but not sure why that is happening.. Maybe my whole Slax CD is dead, and need to replace it from what I see...


I didn't install slax5 live-cd, I just burned it onto the CD, and am running off the CD.. As for using ndiswrapper, I want to try using madwifi down to the last possible idea.. As for add modules, I didn't do any of that, I just used what they had no additions at all.

The guides I am not sure, but from what I have seen they don't have guides which is not weird, but there would something online but maybe my version of madwifi is older.. The live-cd doesn't setup either automaticly unless running wired ethernet.

The commands in the link I have already used, and they are part of this thread.. With the howto section on the slax forum they are using ndiswrapper which I don't want to.. Also I have looked around on these forums everywhere, and still nothing is working for me..

I'm betting this is part of the problem. It looks as if the version of wireless tools on the Slax CD is out of sync with the kernel extensions. My experience is that while this isn't always a disaster, it does cause odd problems and I'd be willing to bet that it is part of the crashing problem. It also suggests that the Slax maintainers aren't paying real close attention to wireless. And the fact that a live CD is messing with NTFS partitions enough to cause a chkdsk run in Windows is definitely a concern.

To be honest, I'd do one of two things here: If you want to stick with Slackware, I'd make space on your hard drive and do a real install. If you want to stick with a live CD, I'd go for a more full-featured one like Knoppix or Ubuntu. What you're posting here suggests that Slax isn't going to work real well on your hardware.

I think that no distro really looks after wireless tools as they are more concerned with whatever makes the distro good.. Why would the kernel and the wireless tools be different verisons?

As for moving to another live CD distro, I don't think I have tried everything to get this to work so I will continue to work on this.. Also I still want to use Slax, and if I can maybe run off the harddrive.. As for other Live-CDs, I am not much into more features as just the basics..

I have used this distro on my other computer that is using wired ethernet, and am able to use internet.. I feel this is an amazing distro, but I feel that I just need to read more on wireless tools and madwifi..

Hi,

I would suggest that you not use wep or wap at this time. Get your hardware working first, then set your security.

You could check your module for the wifi device to make sure it is current. Check to see if you have any hardware that conflicts with the wifi device. Sometimes the oder of load or detection of the hardware solves this type of a proble.

HTH!

I haven't be able to figure out if there is a hardware conficlt but from what I know there isn't one.. As for the WEP thing, I think that is crazy not to use it then people can get into your AP not questions asked...

Here are some things I found out:

This is an lsmod:

Module Size Used by
snd_pcm_oss 47648 0
snd_mixer_oss 16896 1 snd_pcm_oss
ohci_hcd 19844 0
ehci_hcd 31368 0
intel_agp 20252 1
shpchp 91908 0
uhci_hcd 29968 0
i2c_piix4 8592 0
i2c_core 18432 1 i2c_piix4
snd_maestro3 22564 0
snd_ac97_codec 76540 1 snd_maestro3
snd_pcm 78212 3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_maestro3,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer 21764 1 snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 8452 1 snd_pcm
snd 47972 6 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_maestro3,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore 8032 1 snd
ath_pci 53408 0
ath_rate_onoe 7816 1 ath_pci
wlan 105052 3 ath_pci,ath_rate_onoe
ath_hal 147408 2 ath_pci
pcmcia 21388 4
yenta_socket 20232 3
rsrc_nonstatic 11520 1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core 42756 3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
evdev 8320 0
nls_utf8 2688 1
agpgart 29772 1 intel_agp
psmouse 27268 0
nls_iso8859_2 5376 0
unionfs 238968 1
squashfs 31924 6
isofs 32828 1
zlib_inflate 17920 2 squashfs,isofs
loop 14472 12