Atheros WiFi problem (solved)

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67GTA
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Re: Atheros WiFi problem

Post by 67GTA »

Vista will dual boot fine. Most linux distros use the grub boot loader. Once Mint is installed, it will have a grub screen and give you the option to boot into either OS when you boot the computer. Just take your time and read everything the installer is telling you. It will have a few options. One of them will shrink Vista, and install Mint in the freed space. Just be careful and don't erase Vista. I have the AR5007. It works great with ndiswrapper. If all you have is wireless, then you can get the drivers in Vista and move them to Mint. All commands are ran in a terminal:Menu>Accessories>Terminal. After installation to your HD, get the drivers

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wget http://blakecmartin.googlepages.com/ar5007eg-32
This will download them to your /home folder. Extract the drivers in your home folder

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tar xvf ar5007eg-*.tar.gz

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tar xvf ndiswrapper-newest.tar.gz
Install the driver

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sudo ndiswrapper -i net5211.inf
Load the driver into the kernel

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sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
Add ndiswrapper to your module list to be loaded at boot time

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echo “ndiswrapper” | sudo tee -a /etc/modules
Blaclist the native driver which doesn't work(problem with new kernel) and keep it from being loaded at each boot

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echo “blacklist ath_pci” | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
Go to Menu>Administration>Hardware Drivers and disable ath_pci and ath_hal drivers. After a reboot, you should be good to go. If you want, you can load the live CD and post the output of

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lspci
from a terminal. This will show if everything is properly detected. Also

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lsusb
will show anything connected to a usb port. If you have anymore questions, just ask away. We hope to see you around!
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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67GTA
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Re: Atheros WiFi problem

Post by 67GTA »

It is up to you if you trash Vista. D: is your recovery partition, and C: is your Vista partition. If it were me, I would leave C: in case you have problems and need a backup OS until you get more comfortable with Mint. You can use the partition tool on the live CD before starting the installer:Menu>Administration>Partition Editor. I would shrink C: and delete the D: partition. Then in the empty space create a 1GB swap partition and create an EXT3 partition for Mint. When you go to install, tell the installer to mount the Mint partition you created as "/"(root). Since you did all of this manually, you will know exactly which partitions are being touched.
Now If I were to eradicate Vista all together and just go Linux I would either need to be wired or put the drivers before hand on a USB drive, is that correct?
This depends. You have a wired ethernet card in your laptop. If you have an ethernet connection, then it should work with Mint if you plug an ethernet cable into it. If you don't have one, then you will have to store the drivers somewhere to transfer them after install.
At step 6 or 7 it says that mint couldn't detect a suitable OS to transfer data from( that's why I thought it couldn't detect Vista)
That is the migration assistant. It tries to bring your settings from browsers, wallpaper, desktop settings and apply them to Ubuntu/Mint at first boot. It sounds like it chocked for some reason. It has nothing to do with dual booting.

I really don't see anything here that would suggest it won't work. If you could post the

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lspci
output from a terminal, we could see exactly what you have. Most HP PC's are pretty good with Linux.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke
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Re: Atheros WiFi problem

Post by 67GTA »

If your questions get too dumb, we will smack you around a little :lol: Yes, lspci is a linux command, so it has to be run with the live CD if Linux isn't installed. lspci will list all PCI devices on your PC. You can also run

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sudo lshw
(list hardware)You will get a lot more detailed info on more devices. It took 3 DVD's with a brand new Vista install for me. They do not compress anything. One thing that makes it so big is they put the recovery partition(D:), and the Vista partition(C:) on the backups.
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Re: Atheros WiFi problem

Post by 67GTA »

Sorry about the typo. You have to install that .inf file with ndiswrapper. You should run

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sudo ndiswrapper -i /home/ryan/ar5007eg-32-0.2/ar5007eg/net5211.inf
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke
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Re: Atheros WiFi problem

Post by 67GTA »

Did you remove the ath_pci module before trying it?

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sudo rmmod ath_pci
I've seen this happen a lot lately. I'm not sure what causes the ndiswrapper module to freeze the system like that. I would remove and blacklist the ath_pci module, check the restricted drivers manager:(Menu>Administration>Hardware Drivers) to be sure any ath drivers aren't enabled, reboot, and try it again. That way we know it isn't another module causing it.
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Re: Atheros WiFi problem

Post by 67GTA »

We should be really close. Post a copy of your /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file so we can see what it is complaining about. Post a copy of /etc/modules. Also post the output of

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lsmod
from a terminal. You should disable ath_pci and ath_hal in the drivers manager.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke
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67GTA
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Re: Atheros WiFi problem

Post by 67GTA »

Your ndiswrapper module isn't loaded. Edit the modules file

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sudo gedit /etc/modules
and delete the quotation marks on each end of ndiswrapper. It should load after that. The quotation marks are keeping it from being loaded. You also need to remove the quotation marks from the ath_pci module in your blacklist file

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sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
so it just reads blacklist ath_pci. I bet you will have wireless then after a reboot.
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Re: Atheros WiFi problem

Post by 67GTA »

Users guide: http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/linuxmint.com/ ... /EN-v1.pdf There isn't a link up for it yet. It would be better to make new threads for your other issues so they don't get buried in this thread. I'm sure we can get you fixed up. Make sure and edit your original post and mark it solved :wink:
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Re: Atheros WiFi problem (solved)

Post by cedenburn »

Any one have any success getting this card to work with the Atheros drivers?

17:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5418 802.11abgn Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

Thanks

Chuck
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