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Thread: HOWTO: Latest Madwifi driver

  1. #1
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    HOWTO: Latest Madwifi driver

    My Wireless laptop card is a DWL-G650 (d-link) which was supposed to work with
    the madwifi drivers in hoary but did not because the firmware is too new. So I decided to manually install the drivers. Here is my (rough) howto.

    WARNING: If you are uncomfortable with manipulating kernel modules or at all unfamiliar with such concepts do not use this HOWTO. In addition this is bleeding edge software and as such may not work as advertised. You have been warned!
    It is worth pointing out that ndiswrapper often works with atheros chipsets and should be preferred if the above applies to you. For a howto on this see, for example,

    http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=31926


    0) Install the basic development packages for Ubuntu (see another HOWTO)

    1) Install the linux-headers package for your kernel. Make sure carefully that the headers package you install correspond with your version of the kernel you have installed. So I have linux-image-2.6.10-5-686-smp installed so I installed linux-headers-686-smp as well as linux-headers-2.6.10-5-686-smp

    2) Install the linux-source package and set up (If not already done):
    cd /usr/src
    sudo tar jxvf linux-source-2.6.10.tar.bz2
    ln -s linux-source-2.6.10.tar.bz2 linux

    3) Install the sharutils package

    4) Grab the latest madwifi source tarball from here
    http://madwifi.otaku42.de/madwifi-cvs-current.tar.bz2
    and decompress
    tar jxvf madwifi-cvs-current.tar.bz2

    4)a As of mid July it looks like they have changed the driver so instead download and uncompress

    http://madwifi.otaku42.de/2005/07/ma...-07-01.tar.bz2

    5) Go into the madwifi directory created by step 4) and type
    sudo make clean
    sudo make
    sudo make install

    6) All going well you should now have the drivers in
    /lib/modules/2.6.10 (a new subdirectory) but now you need to replace the existing drivers. These are in four places:

    Assuming you have the standard kernel installed (2.6.10-5-386) they are:

    /lib/modules/2.6.10-5-386//kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath_pci.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.10-5-386//kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ath_hal/ath_hal.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.10-5-386//kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ath_rate/onoe/ath_rate_onoe.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.10-5-386//kernel/drivers/net/wireless/net80211/wlan*.ko (TOTAL of six files here)

    A total of 9 files in all which should be the number of files in /lib/modules/2.6.10
    (Note if you use the 2.6.10-5-686-smp kernel replace 2.6.10-5-386 with 2.6.10-5-686-smp in the paths above)

    So now all you do is replace all the first 9 files with the corresponding new files in /lib/modules/2.6.10. As an example
    sudo cp /lib/modules/2.6.10/ath_pci.ko /lib/modules/2.6.10-5-386//kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath_pci.ko

    and so on .....

    reboot and the madwifi drivers will now hopefully work as expected. See
    http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/WiFi...sesRouterHowTo
    Step 0) for further instructions....

    You can now trash ndiswrapper Yay!

    One downside to all this is that everytime a new kernel is installed all this needs repeating (groan). Of course breezy will have the latest madwifi driver
    Last edited by kleeman; July 21st, 2005 at 07:38 PM. Reason: Clarification

  2. #2
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    Re: HOWTO: Latest Madwifi driver

    whats the difference between ndiswrapper and madwifi?

  3. #3
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    Re: HOWTO: Latest Madwifi driver

    Quote Originally Posted by RastaMahata
    whats the difference between ndiswrapper and madwifi?
    madwifi is a native driver for wireless cards with the Atheros chipset

    ndiswrapper is a "quick-fix" for cards that have no linux drivers... it is a compatibility layer to use windows drivers in linux


  4. #4
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    Re: HOWTO: Latest Madwifi driver

    Quote Originally Posted by benplaut
    madwifi is a native driver for wireless cards with the Atheros chipset

    ndiswrapper is a "quick-fix" for cards that have no linux drivers... it is a compatibility layer to use windows drivers in linux

    great to know! Any tips then on buying a laptop? So it's easy to have wifi configured?

  5. #5
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    Re: HOWTO: Latest Madwifi driver

    Well I thought I was being smart by buying a D-Link DWL G650 because the list on the Ubuntu wiki said it was supported. The problem is that the manufacturers are constantly changing things (hardware/software) so it is a moving target. Very frustrating!!!

  6. #6
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    Re: HOWTO: Latest Madwifi driver

    Roger that!! I did lots of shopping and returning of cards before I finally got one to work, two actually, one is a Proxim 8410, which actually has the good old Luncent chipset, works out of the box in 12 different distros and every live CD I've ever run, great for war driving with a knoppix STD live cd. The other card is a Proxim 8480 that is Atheros based, worked first time out with Ubuntu and Mepis 3.3.x ---->>>>NOT IN THE TERRIBLE LIBRANET 3 though!! Have had mixed success with WPA in any distro. Bottom line: SHOP, SHOP, SHOP, make sure you look at the revision # of the chipset(should be on the cards box, or check with the vendors support folks, and look through every forum post possible prior to making the buy. NDISwrappers is a nice package, but generally you dont get the full attributes of the card when you use it (IMHO); Microsoft friendly vendors change chipsets all the time!!!

  7. #7
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    Re: HOWTO: Latest Madwifi driver

    What basic development packages are you talking about exactly? every different program has the potential for different development prerequsets. Personaly I just used the WINE stuff and am hoping that is going to work.
    MacBook Air 2,1 - Ubuntu 10.10 i386
    MacPro 3,1 - Ubuntu 10.10 X64 + Win 7 X64 + OS X 10.6.5

  8. #8
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    Re: HOWTO: Latest Madwifi driver

    I was thinking:
    sudo apt-get install build-essential

  9. #9
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    Re: HOWTO: Latest Madwifi driver

    Quote Originally Posted by kleeman
    I was thinking:
    sudo apt-get install build-essential
    oooohhh...
    *bangs his head into the wall a few times*

    Ok that was a stupid question.
    MacBook Air 2,1 - Ubuntu 10.10 i386
    MacPro 3,1 - Ubuntu 10.10 X64 + Win 7 X64 + OS X 10.6.5

  10. #10
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    Re: HOWTO: Latest Madwifi driver

    guys, please stay on topic (installing Madwifi drivers, problems with the steps outlined in this howto, etc).

    Though it's OK to go off-tangent sometimes in the Community Chat, doing so in a HOWTO article usually leads to one of those 50 page messes commonly found on Gentoo forums and Slashdot
    Quote Originally Posted by tuxradar
    Linux's audio architecture is more like the layers of the Earth's crust than the network model, with lower levels occasionally erupting on to the surface, causing confusion and distress, and upper layers moving to displace the underlying technology that was originally hidden

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