For the record, however, this is how I do it.

1) Go to http://atrpms.net/dist/fc5/madwifi-ng/ and download:
madwifi-ng-0.9.4.5-21.rhfc5.at.i386.rpm
madwifi-ng-hal-kmdl-2.6.16-1.2080_FC5-0.9.4.5-21.rhfc5.at.i686.rpm
madwifi-ng-kmdl-2.6.16-1.2080_FC5-0.9.4.5-21.rhfc5.at.i686.rpm
2) Install with rpm -Uvh madwifi*
3) reboot
4) config via standard red hat network tool
5) repeat every time kernel is upgraded

Hi,
I found this post from google while trying to setup my wireless on FC5. I had madwifi going on FC3 and someone told me wireless worked out of the box with FC5. That was a bunch of hooey, but anyways...

after hours of work I finally got madwifi to work on FC5 using the madwifi-old version. Info is at (replace - with / since I can't yet post urls.)
http:--madwifi.org-wiki-UserDocs-GettingMadwifi

I just opened a terminal and typed
svn checkout http:--svn.madwifi.org-branches-madwifi-old madwifi-old
then cd madwifi-old
then make
then su
make install
after that it worked again, like in FC3 and I did the WEP setup through the Network Configuration gui tool. I never got a yum updater version or madwifi-ng to work, but this did the trick, so hey, no complaints here.
Just like last post you need to rebuild every kernel update, but just change to the madwifi-old directory, and make clean, make, make install and there you go.

There's a version of madwifi in the Livna repository now too, though I haven't tried it myself yet. Nice thing about their kmod's is they update along with kernel through yum. So (hopefully) you shouldn't have to recompile every time around. Using Livna's FC5 RPM for my nVidia driver right now as matter of fact.
http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/5/i386/

Yeah, I tried the Livna Yum repository for madwifi... it didn't work. That was actually my first or second try after seeing wireless didn't work out of the box with FC5.

Well, the method I already described did work for me on FC5, so I'm not sure what you did differently. Will have to try Livna the next time around.

FWIW, it's the GPL itself that's causing all these problems and keeping Linux down. Now that Novell has gone "free" (as in not free to include essential drivers, not as in beer) WiFi no longer works "out of the box" with SuSE either.

i tried Crito's method of installing the rpms but it dint work as the rpms needed each other to be installed already as dependencies anyways i tried what alexsinge mentioned and installed using the old madwifi drivers and the card is now detected properly as it should be in the network setup utility. only problem is now to configure it to access the internet. you see, my wireless connection is encrypted and is actualy a DSL connection and after fooling around for a bit i gave up.

any suggestions ??

Of course each setup is different, but here is how I did it. Again, this is FC5 specific and I'm using KDE for my gui. I have a DSL connection with a DLink wireless router and WEP encryption.

Start the Network Configuration tool (Menu, Administration->Network)
Click on the Hardware tab and you should see a card that is wireless. The Device is ath0.
Go back to the Devices tab. Click on New. In the new window choose Wireless connection->Forward.
Choose the Atheros... (ath0) card ->Forward. Then just go with the defaults, we'll change them later.

After all that there should be a Device ath0 in the Devices tab. Make sure the box is checked next to the profile for ath0. (For more on setting up different profiles, visit (replace "&" with "/" and add www at beginning) linuxplanet.com&linuxplanet&tutorials&5779&2& . I have a profile setup in Grub to boot for my school and home configurations with different network SSID's.

With the ath0 selected, click on Edit. The Wireless Settings tab is the one we want. Under Mode choose Managed. For the Network name(SSID) click Specified and enter your network name. Then enter your WEP encryption key in the Key box. If I remember correctly it will not work with Shared Key encryption.

Gook luck. More questions or problems, let me know.

This method is usefull for get the pcmcia card recognized. But my laptop (fedora 5) is recognized as WIFI0 device. Therefore, I can't use it as a wireless conneciton. It treats to the WIFI0 device as regular ethernet connection. Which is the same problem with the thread starter. Anyone was able to come up with a solution of a problem like this ? To make this wifi0 device to a ATH0 device, so it can be used in a wireless connection ?

Thanks.

murtix,
I had the same problem, that is why I downloaded the madwifi-old. See my previous posts in this thread for specific instructions that should take care of all the wifi0 problems. (Be sure to uninstall first using rpm -q madwifi-xxxx.xxx.rpm

I just fixed it. Solution found, do not try to uninstall or anything. A small hacking fixed the problem. Here is how to do:

Our problem is, madwifi is being seen as WIFI0, therefore we can;t create the wireless, right ? I went to /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts directory, and the ifcfg-wifi0 is there. it is supposed to be ath0 driver. So:

# cp ifcfg-wifi0 ifcfg-ath0

# vi ifcfg-ath0

change the device name to ath0 and change the type from ethernet to wireless manually. Save it and exit.

now go to graphical network config tool, that we have all been digging out to see if it is any good for. You will see there are two devices, one for wifi0, other is ath0. And magically, ath0 is recognized as the wireless connection. What I did was, first try to activate it. It failed. Then I went to the wireless settings, change a couple of things, nothing got it to work. try to activate it from the console (/etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart) gave me the answer for unable to determine ip address.

when typed ifconfig at the command like, I see there are two devices are up, ath0 and wifi0. ath0 dies not receive any packets, but wifi0 is receiving a lot packets. BTW, I must tell, I dont have eth0 and any cable attached to my laptop. my situation is either wireless or nothing. So, I know that ath0 supposed to receive the whole packets in transmission. So I have deleted the wifi device from the network config tool. Tried to activate, did not start. This time start giving stupid errors "error for wireless request set mode, invalid argument". Then I realized that, my wireless had a 128 bit wep key, and I found a file called keys-ath0 under the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts directory. I have entered the key in hex mode. saved it. And tried to restarted the network manually from console, it determined the ip info right away. It worked. I can ping gateway, I can ping google, I can browse the web.

I have rebooted the machine, to see if it will break, no. It connects at the start up. Perfect.

The only thing I could not understand is, why I was not able to login to my neighbors unprotected network ? But no matter, I got what I wanted.

Hope this also helps you to overcome your problems.

over and out.

You can pass multiple packages to rpm at once and use wildcards like * (if you downloaded files to their own dir.)

Anyway, my suggestion would be to learn the rpm command, as it's the same in all rpm based distros (SuSE, Mandriva and Fedora Core).

I'm not using a PCMCIA or PC Card, so that's the difference apparently. But above method is usefull for getting laptops with integrated atheros wifi up and running from a clean install. Setup seemed pretty simple on my Toshiba laptop, just like madwifi's website said.
http://madwifi.org/

Having just tried the livna madwifi driver (from a clean install on exact same Toshiba laptop), I can now say definitively that's where you went wrong. Livna's rpm doesn't work right. The network config tool is showing me a wifi0 adaptor that doesn't exist and I can't create ath0. Just like the problem you described.

I had your problem ie no ath0 showing up.

Here is what I found

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...66#post2338466

well, the problem has been resolved. the drivers show up in the network config and since i use broadband instead of DSL now its cool. thanks for the help.