Install Madwifi on OpenSUSE 11 with no wired internet

English Hardware
1

Hello

I used to use Mandriva and now I use Ubuntu.
Now I want to switch to either OpenSUSE or Debian.

I want to try OpenSUSE 11 on my PC.

I have a wired ADSL modem connected to a wireless router.

My PC and my laptop both have a wireless card and receive the internet through the wireless router.

Ubuntu and Mandriva both support the wireless card on my PC out of the box.

I got Debian to work with the wireless card by manually downloading and installing the packages for Madwifi.

I want to know how to manually download and install Madwifi for OpenSUSE 11.

Please help me.

2

Hi xlr, welcome to the Forums. Use the madwifi RPMs. Have a read of this, which covers both ndiswrapper and madwifi, but skip past the ndiswrapper:
Madwifi or Ndiswrapper Wireless Network Drivers - Suse/openSUSE 10, 11 - LAN & Internet access

3

The PC I want to install OpenSUSE on has no wired internet connection, so will the instructions on this webpage still work?

4

No internet: You can manually download and transfer toyour computer the requisite Madwifi RPMs and put them in a local directory and add that directory as a repository of RPMs in Yast → Software Repos → Add → Local directory

5

Thank you swerdna I’ll try that.

6

Hello

Swerdna I did what you said to install the RPMs without internet, and then I tried setting up my wireless card, but it still wouldn’t work.

Is there anything I else have to do to get my wireless card working?

7

Let’s check a few things. This might be more than we need but it will stop a lot of Q and A:

Can you open a console window and return the info from these diagnostic commands:

  • To see what network chipsets you’ve got:
sudo /sbin/lspci -nn | egrep "thernet|theros|etwork"
  • To see your kernel:
uname -r
  • To see what madwifi RPMs you installed (enter command then wait 15 secs):
rpm -qa | grep madwifi
  • To see what atheros modules are running:
 lsmod | grep ath
  • To see if any wireless interfaces are active:
sudo /usr/sbin/iwconfig
  • To see if any network interfaces are activated:
sudo /sbin/ifconfig
  • To see exactly what flavour of Suse:
cat /etc/SuSE-release

Then this final question: describe the wireless interface including if USB or PCI or whatebver and the make and model and version number (version is often written on the box & the device with a preface “ver”)

8

This is the info I got by doing those commands

00:09.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. Atheros AR5001X+
Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0013] (rev 01)
00:13.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169 Gig
abit Ethernet [10ec:8169] (rev 10)

2.6.27.7-9-default

madwifi-kmp-default-0.9.4_2.6.27.7_9.1-1
madwifi-0.9.4-1

ath_pci 87124 0
wlan 186872 1 ath_pci
ath_hal 190640 1 ath_pci
ath5k 94876 0
mac80211 199840 1 ath5k
led_class 3896 1 ath5k
cfg80211 23356 2 ath5k,mac80211

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:“”
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2352 B
Encryption key:4136-4646-4441-3433-3039-0000-00 Security mode:open
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noice level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

pan0 no wireless extensions.

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:85:E9:7C:4A
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:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:19 Base address:0xa000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:180 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:180 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:14072 (13.7 Kb) TX bytes:14072 (13.7 Kb)

openSUSE 11.1 (i586)
VERSION = 11.1

9

Hello

These are the outputs to the terminal commands:

00:09.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. Atheros AR5001X+
Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0013] (rev 01)
00:13.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169 Gig
abit Ethernet [10ec:8169] (rev 10)

2.6.27.7-9-default

madwifi-kmp-default-0.9.4_2.6.27.7_9.1-1
madwifi-0.9.4-1

ath_pci 87124 0
wlan 186872 1 ath_pci
ath_hal 190640 1 ath_pci
ath5k 94876 0
mac80211 199840 1 ath5k
led_class 3896 1 ath5k
cfg80211 23356 2 ath5k,mac80211

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:“”
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr: off Fragment thr=2352 B
Encryption key:4136-4646-4441-3433-3039-0000-00 Security mode: open
Power Management: off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noice level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

pan0 no wireless extensions.

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:85:E9:7C:4A
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:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:19 Base address:0xa000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:180 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:180 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:14072 (13.7 Kb) TX bytes:14072 (13.7 Kb)

openSUSE 11.1 (i586)
VERSION = 11.1

I don’t know about the wireless interface, so I’ll find out about it, but I think the wireless interface is Netgear.

10

I have the [168c:0013]. Mine is a D-Link DWL-G520 card. The important thing is the [168c:0013]. It responds to Ndiswrapper and madwifi. But in openSUSE 11.1 you don’t have to install either of those because 11.1 comes with the ath5k driver without needing Madwifi to supply it.

Here is my lsmod | grep ath:

ath5k 95124 0
mac80211 199840 1 ath5k
led_class 3896 1 ath5k
cfg80211 23356 2 ath5k,mac80211

Yours has all those terms PLUS these extra ones because of madwifi:

ath_pci 87124 0
wlan 186872 1 ath_pci
ath_hal 190640 1 ath_pci

So I suggest you uninstall Madwifi so as not to complicate the issue with two compatible drivers interfering with each other (the ath5k and ath_pci will get in each others way).

Then run “lsmod | grep ath” again to make sure ath_pci has gone away, and if it has you can proceed to configure the card in Yast. It should work without extra assistance. If the ath_pci driver sticks and hasn’t gone away, report back and I’ll tell you how to blacklist it.

11

Hello
The ath_pci driver hasn’t gone away.
Please tell me how to blacklist it.

12

Open the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist for editing with root privileges. Add this line to the end:

blacklist ath_pci

Then configure the card in Yast. There will be 3 tabs in “Edit” mode: general, address, hardware. Under Hardware is a drop-down list called module name. make sure ath_pci is not in the frame. Make sure it’s ath5k.

Reboot if necessary.

13

Hello
I did what you said and now only ath5k is in the module name frame, and I rebooted, but my wireless card still won’t work.
Is there anything I might be doing wrong?

14

What do these commands now say:

  • lsmod | grep ath
  • /usr/sbin/iwconfig
  • /sbin/ifconfig
15

Hello
This is what these commands now say:

ath5k 94876 0
mac80211 199840 1 ath5k
led_class 3896 1 ath5k
cfg80211 23356 2 ath5k,mac80211

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:“”
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thr: off Fragment thr=2352 B
Power Management: off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

pan0 no wireless extensions.

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:85:E9:7C:4A
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:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:19 Base address:0x8000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:404 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:404 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:30936 (30.2 Kb) TX bytes:30936 (30.2 Kb)

pan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 06:91:3F:1F:EF:39
UP BROADCAST RUNNING 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)

16

The wireless card is not seeing the wireless router.
When you configure the card in Yast –> Network Devices –> Network Settings. You should see an entry for the wired card RTL8169 and an entry for the wireless AR5001 card. Do you see an entry for the wired card like this:

Atheros AR5001X+ Wireless Network Adapter …etc…

What exactly is yours saying?

17

Mine is saying:

Atheros AR5001X= Wireless Network Adapter (Not connected)
MAC : 00:0f:b5:83:a9:11
. Device Name: wlan0
. Started automatically at boot
. IP address assigned using DHCP

18

Your device is recognised. Now connect to your wireless network. Scan for wireless networks with this command:

/usr/sbin/iwlist wlan0 scan

Do you see any wireless networks?

19

Hello
No I don’t see any wireless networks.

20

The wireless card has been recognised. Do you know whether router and the Suse box are in close enough proximity to exchange signals?