Atheros 802.11 on Thinkpad x60s

[jeffmock]

Knoppix 5.0.1 finds the Atheros wireless chip in my Lenovo Thinkpad x60s laptop, but the madwifi driver croaks with a message something like "hardware returned unexpected value" and wireless is unusable. Here is the lspci -v for the Atheros chip:

03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
Subsystem: IBM Unknown device 058a
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 66
Memory at edf00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
Capabilities: [60] Express Legacy Endpoint IRQ 0
Capabilities: [90] MSI-X: Enable- Mask- TabSize=1

I find that if I build my own madwifi driver using the current top of tree madwifi-ng driver from www.madwifi.org that the driver works fine. I suppose it's something about the newer version of the chip going in the new thinkpads. Maybe newer madwifi code can be used in a future rev of knoppix?

Other than the problem with the wireless chip, knoppix 5.0.1 works great on the x60 thinkpad. I put it on a USB flash drive and it boots great.

jeff

[madkn]

The same problem using IBM x31 laptop with the "Atheros wireless chip".

It works when using Knoppix 4.0.2, Knoppix 5.0 but not in 5.0.1. :cry.

/Madkn

Knoppix 5.0.1 finds the Atheros wireless chip in my Lenovo Thinkpad x60s laptop, but the madwifi driver croaks with a message something like "hardware returned unexpected value" and wireless is unusable. Here is the lspci -v for the Atheros chip:

03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
Subsystem: IBM Unknown device 058a
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 66
Memory at edf00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
Capabilities: [60] Express Legacy Endpoint IRQ 0
Capabilities: [90] MSI-X: Enable- Mask- TabSize=1

I find that if I build my own madwifi driver using the current top of tree madwifi-ng driver from www.madwifi.org that the driver works fine. I suppose it's something about the newer version of the chip going in the new thinkpads. Maybe newer madwifi code can be used in a future rev of knoppix?

Other than the problem with the wireless chip, knoppix 5.0.1 works great on the x60 thinkpad. I put it on a USB flash drive and it boots great.

jeff

[PaulBx1]

I have a Netgear WG511T which (I think) has the same chipset. It boots up OK and sometimes runs using madwifi (the version on Knoppix 4.0.2) but eventually it loses contact with the AP. If I fiddle with it enough, trying to get it running again, I can hang the whole system.

Did we get later revisions of madwifi in the 5.0 or 5.0.1 releases?