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Atheros 802.11a/bg PCI/PCI-E devices (ath5k)
This page describes how to enable support for WiFi devices based on Atheros 802.11a/bg PCI/PCI-E chips, using the ath5k driver on Debian systems.
Contents
ath5k is a Linux kernel driver supporting Atheros 802.11a/bg PCI/PCI-E chips, introduced at Linux 2.6.25. Supported devices are listed at the end of this page.
Unlike the MadWifi driver, ath5k does not require a binary HAL (hardware abstraction layer). No firmware is required to be loaded from userspace.
Atheros 802.11a/bg USB devices are supported by the zd1211rw driver.
Atheros 802.11n PCI/PCI-E devices are supported by the ath9k driver.
Installation
The ath5k driver is present in Debian Linux kernel images since version 2.6.24.
Switching from MadWifi to ath5k
This section can be skipped if MadWifi was not previously used.
madwifi-tools (version 1:0.9.4~rc2+dfsg-1 and later) installs the /etc/modprobe.d/madwifi file, which blacklists the ath5k driver.
Purge the madwifi-tools package (aptitude purge madwifi-tools) and run update-initramfs -u -k all to also remove this blacklist from initramfs.
Amend /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules and change 'ath0' to 'wlan0'.
Amend /etc/network/interfaces, changing all references of 'ath0' to 'wlan0'.
- Restart your system.
- Verify that wireless networking is functional.
If you can connect but not send/receive anything, you might need to adjust your firewall configuration. For example, if you have configured your firewall using shorewall, find and replace all occurrences of 'ath0' with 'wlan0' in files within /etc/shorewall.
squeeze/hostapd users: the ath5k driver implements access point functionality as of Debian 6.0 "Squeeze". You are required to amend any existing hostapd configuration (driver=madwifi → driver=nl80211). See the hostapd Linux documentation page for more information.
Configuration
Connect the device to your system. The ath5k kernel module is automatically loaded for supported devices.
Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.
Supported Devices
The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.
The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo ath5k in Debian 3.2.0 (3.2.41-2) kernel images.
PCI: 10B7:0013 3Com Corporation AR5212 802.11abg NIC (3CRDAG675) PCI: 168C:0007 Qualcomm Atheros AR5210 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5000 802.11a] PCI: 168C:0011 Qualcomm Atheros AR5211 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5001A 802.11a] PCI: 168C:0012 Qualcomm Atheros AR5211 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5001X 802.11ab] PCI: 168C:0013 Qualcomm Atheros AR5212/AR5213 Wireless Network Adapter PCI: 168C:0014 Qualcomm Atheros (Device name unknown) PCI: 168C:0015 Qualcomm Atheros (Device name unknown) PCI: 168C:0016 Qualcomm Atheros (Device name unknown) PCI: 168C:0017 Qualcomm Atheros (Device name unknown) PCI: 168C:0018 Qualcomm Atheros (Device name unknown) PCI: 168C:0019 Qualcomm Atheros (Device name unknown) PCI: 168C:001A Qualcomm Atheros AR2413/AR2414 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5005G(S) 802.11bg] PCI: 168C:001B Qualcomm Atheros AR5413/AR5414 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5006X(S) 802.11abg] PCI: 168C:001C Qualcomm Atheros AR242x / AR542x Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) PCI: 168C:001D Qualcomm Atheros AR2417 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5007G 802.11bg] PCI: 168C:0207 Qualcomm Atheros AR5210 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5000 802.11a] PCI: 168C:1014 Qualcomm Atheros AR5212 802.11abg NIC PCI: A727:0013 3Com Corporation 3CRPAG175 Wireless PC Card
Unsupported
Devices with an Atheros AR5005VL (AR5513) chip (PCI ID 168c:0020):
- D-Link DWL-G520M (PCI)
- D-Link DWL-G650M (Cardbus)
- ZyXEL Zyair M-102 (Cardbus)
- ZyXEL Zyair M-302 (PCI)
Use of NDISwrapper may be possible for device support.
See Also
ath9k - Atheros 802.11n PCI/PCI-E devices