Atheros AR5007EG, Which Distro works best out of the box?

garbo73 · 12-14-2008, 03:10 PM

Ok, I'm a little bit closer. I can now see that knetworkmanager actually tries to log onto a network, but it still won't connect to a secured or non-secured wireless router. I know because I reset my router back to factory settings and tried to connect with no success. I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong or what I can post here to show possible error messages, or where to even look. Hopefully someone out there has some ideas.

hgsolari · 12-15-2008, 05:39 AM

OK, let us go on...
In case knetworkmanager detects an existing network, means that primary communication has been stablished.
Your atheros card is up and running (not necessarily running properly)
Check dmesg and see whether ath_pci or other atheros modules produced error reports.
If no errors are present. Wait for networkmanager to give up (or kill both the applet and the daemon).
And do it your self. All front-ends use wireless-tools to communicate. You may want to update to latest version.

is ath0 or wlan0 up? (as root, needless to say!)
ifconfig ath0 returns something?
ifonfig ath0 up if needed.
iwlist ath0 scanning does it report the ap ? are the parameters OK?
iwconfig ath0 essid (essid= name of your network)
if something fails, report. Use options in iwconfig to give a more precise command.

The light of the network switch cannot be lighted up so far in linux (requires a touch in acpi control)
but the switch sends a key-code. Move it and the dmesg|tail an you will see the code scanned.
Extra codes can be programmed using hot-keys program/daemon.

hgsolari · 12-15-2008, 05:39 AM

OK, let us go on...
In case knetworkmanager detects an existing network, means that primary communication has been stablished.
Your atheros card is up and running (not necessarily running properly)
Check dmesg and see whether ath_pci or other atheros modules produced error reports.
If no errors are present. Wait for networkmanager to give up (or kill both the applet and the daemon).
And do it your self. All front-ends use wireless-tools to communicate. You may want to update to latest version.

is ath0 or wlan0 up? (as root, needless to say!)
ifconfig ath0 returns something?
ifonfig ath0 up if needed.
iwlist ath0 scanning does it report the ap ? are the parameters OK?
iwconfig ath0 essid (essid= name of your network)
if something fails, report. Use options in iwconfig to give a more precise command.

The light of the network switch cannot be lighted up so far in linux (requires a touch in acpi control)
but the switch sends a key-code. Move it and the dmesg|tail an you will see the code scanned.
Extra codes can be programmed using hot-keys program/daemon.

garbo73 · 12-24-2008, 05:23 PM

Along the bottom when I run dmesg I get the following information that relates to eth0:

Code:

   46.277915] sky2 eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex, flow control both
[   61.558713] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] 3987456 512-byte hardware sectors (2042 MB)    
[   61.561177] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off                           
[   61.561186] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00                        
[   61.561189] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through            
[   61.569283] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] 3987456 512-byte hardware sectors (2042 MB)    
[   61.571777] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off                           
[   61.571784] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00                        
[   61.571787] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through            
[   61.571794]  sdb: sdb1                                                       
[  110.036046] NET: Registered protocol family 10                               
[  110.038021] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions                                  
[  110.039722] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): ath0: link is not ready                     
[  114.269300] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  114.835519] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  131.142304] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  131.560645] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  131.610441] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  132.063575] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  132.215412] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  132.767967] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  145.636050] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  158.175306] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  168.287218] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  174.684663] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  203.509408] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  206.495797] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  207.351551] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  207.402513] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  208.118506] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  208.336163] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  208.377749] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  208.394906] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  208.856263] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598          
[  208.923193] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  211.814566] __ratelimit: 8 callbacks suppressed
[  211.814575] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  211.973981] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  212.989146] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  213.274912] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  214.799773] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  215.034051] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  215.789412] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  215.910839] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  217.797325] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  281.584066] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  324.095904] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  424.815788] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  694.308229] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  694.922252] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  694.973839] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  695.424638] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  697.602205] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  697.947783] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  698.415834] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  698.792982] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  698.852876] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  699.613542] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  702.047536] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  702.876264] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  702.925088] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  703.396055] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  703.556633] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  703.929337] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  879.255979] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  881.776487] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598
[  882.685678] sky2 eth0: rx length error: status 0x45a0100 length 598

A little further up is:

Code:

[   15.945832] ath_pci 0000:03:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)             
[   15.945842] ath_pci 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17 
[   15.945857] ath_pci 0000:03:00.0: setting latency timer to 64                
[   16.446009] MadWifi: ath_attach: Switching rfkill capability off.

Keep in mind, I have the cable plugged in to my computer instead of the wireless router... I only have one cable right now and I'm hoping to get the wireless resolved so I can keep it to just one cable.

Code:

ifconfig ath0
ath0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:19:7e:54:2b:a0
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

Hopefully this sheds some more light so you guys can help me. Thanks again!

hgsolari · 12-25-2008, 07:07 AM

First, lots of errors in the cable device, some problem with that driver, your eth0 device is not working well. I am not familiar with sky2 driver.
Second, ath0 is up but has no address. use iwconfig ath0 (see manual page) to request a connection.
Be sure NetworkManager is not running, it will turn off wireless connections when wired connections are present (by design). Easy fix, unplug the cable to connect wireless.

garbo73 · 12-26-2008, 08:46 PM

I installed Fedora 10 after trying the livecd. The wireless network installed flawlessly and now I can get to actually using the system. I might try to give other distros a try later, but right now I know that this one works with my hardware.

Thanks for all of your help!

hgsolari · 12-27-2008, 04:17 AM

Congratulations.
Now that it works, take a few minutes and close this thread with the details of what you are using.
uname -a for the kernel
driver? and modules in use
wireless-tool version
the program managing the network and its version
config files?

There are plenty of different reasons to pick a distribution, yet Linux is always under the hood, and independent projects are always integrated into the distribution. Linux and the independent projects make things portable across distributions, they are the real stuff that works, distributions make your life easier by taking away part of your freedom and resources. Nice if its the freedon you don't care about and you have plenty enough of resources. Ugly otherwise.

garbo73 · 12-27-2008, 08:48 AM

Everything worked right off of the livecd for Fedora 10 with KDE, since I installed everything on the hard drive now I have updated, the kernel is:

Linux Fedora-Will 2.6.27.9-159.fc10.i686 #1 SMP Tue Dec 16 15:12:04 EST 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

I think this is the information you requested for wireless-tools:

iwconfig Wireless-Tools version 29
Compatible with Wireless Extension v11 to v22.

Kernel Currently compiled with Wireless Extension v22.

wlan0 Recommend Wireless Extension v21 or later,
Currently compiled with Wireless Extension v22.

If there is anything else you want me to look up within Fedora just to have the info out there, let me know... Would be great getting this to work out of the box with any distro or even understanding myself how this works so that I can make it work with any distro.

Thanks for your help hgsolari!