Wireless cannot connect to linksys WRT54GS Debian Atheros with madWifi drivers

mf93 · 08-14-2009, 08:30 PM

Alright I was online doing work and all of a sudden I could not connect to the internet...I looked on Knetwork Manager and it said I was connected to the internet but the ip, which was supposed to be somewhere between 192.168.1.100 and 192.168.1.254 was actually at 169.254.5.77
here is the output from ifconfig

Code:

ath0     Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr...
         inet6 addr: ...
         UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
         ...
         ...
ath0:avahi Link Encap:Ethernet HWaddr...
           inet addr:169.254.5.77 Bcast:169.254.255.255 Mask:255.255.0.0
           UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1

Also, my network is configured with DHCP...when I set it to manual I change the subnet mask back to 255.255.255.0 which is what its supposed to be and i clear the broadcast or set it to 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.254(im not sure what broadcast is) but when I set it back to DHCP it reverts back to the previous IP. Also in iwlist i get something funny...

Code:

myComp# iwlist ath0 accesspoints
ath0    No Peers/Access-Point in range

Even though I am within 5 feet of my router which I have accessed wirelessly from other comps from up to 100feet away.
restarting the computer does nothing...maybe I installed madwifi drivers wrong? what should I do?
Any help would be greatly appreciated! thanks in advance!

jschiwal · 08-16-2009, 04:53 AM

Look at the output of "iwlist ath0 scan". If you don't see any access points, it could indicate a driver related problem, or the hardware could have gone bad. That happened to me in the middle of listening to a podcast on my old laptop. Also reset your wireless router. It could have a problem as well. The fact that you have a zero config address means that you didn't get a response from a DHCP server. Also check if the wireless enable switch got bumped off (or a Fn wireless key sequence).

I almost forgot. If you had a kernel update, and you don't use a native driver, you may need to rebuild the madwifi driver. When I had a broadcom wireless device, back before the bcm43xx driver, I kept around the ndiswrapper source to quickly rebuild the ndiswrapper kernel module. Seeing that you do have a device, this probably isn't the case, but I though it was worth mentioning.

Also, FYI, there is a native kernel driver that doesn't need a firmware blob. Look at lspci -v. You may see either ath5k or ath9k listed as the preferred driver for your atheros wireless controller.

mf93 · 08-16-2009, 09:27 AM

wow ok now I feel rather dumb...Yah I pressed the enable/disable wifi button and everything works fine again...ty soo much for your help!