13 Responses to “How To Install MadWifi On Debian 4.0 (Etch)”

1. E. Plesner, on June 27th, 2007 at 12:46 am Said:

   Today I installed the wifi driver on Debian 4.0

   Laptop:
   Acer Aspire 5100
   AMD Turion 64×2 Mobile Technology TL-50
   RAM 1024MB

   Sources List
   deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib
   deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib
   deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ etch main contrib non-free
   deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ etch main contrib non-free

   Wireless Adaptor
   02.00.0 Ethernet controler: Atheros Communications, Inc. Unknown device 0001c (rev 01)
   Subsystem: AMBIT Microsystems Corp. Unknown device 0428
   flags: fast devsel, IRQ 217
   Memory at 52000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=64K]
   Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
   Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
   Capabilities: [60] Express Legacy Endpoint IRQ 0
   Capabilities: [90] MSI-X: Enable- Mask- TabSize=1
   Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
   Capabilities: [140] Virtual Channel

   Installation
   apt-get update
   apt-get install madwifi-source
   apt-get install madwifi-tools
   m-a prepare
   m-a a-i madwifi

   Pakage Manager shows everything installed OK

   Now tthe question is:
   How does one get it work?

2. SMD, on June 27th, 2007 at 1:49 am Said:

   E. Plesner,

   You forgot to install it from the source files.

   m-a a-i madwifi-source

   and load it, as root:

   modprobe ath_pci

   Check if it works or not :

   iwlist ath0 scanning

   If it works, your access point will be detected and listed. Then, try to connect :

   
iwconfig ath0 essid "<your essid>"
dhclient ath0
ping http://www.google.com -c 5


3. E. Plesner, on June 27th, 2007 at 7:06 am Said:

   Thanks for replying so promptly. You’re right, I didn’t use ‘madwifi-source’. I have now reinstalled it with the proper name.
   I did ‘modprobe ath_pci’ (I did this the first time too but forgot to write it)
   Unfortunately it is still not right.
   ‘iwlist ath0 scanning’ returns
   ‘ath0 Interface doesn’t support scanning.’

4. SMD, on June 27th, 2007 at 9:56 am Said:

   E. Plesner,

   I think we forgot to up the network

   'ifconfig ath0 up'

5. Jack McKinney, on December 25th, 2007 at 4:55 am Said:

   I followed these instructions exactly (copy and pasted), but the build of madwifi fails. I choose the option to view the build log and I get this:

   CC [M] /usr/src/modules/madwifi/ath_hal/ah_os.o ▒
   │ /bin/sh: scripts/genksyms/genksyms: No such file or directory ▒
   │ make[5]: *** [/usr/src/modules/madwifi/ath_hal/ah_os.o] Error 1 ▒
   │ make[4]: *** [/usr/src/modules/madwifi/ath_hal] Error 2 ▒
   │ make[3]: *** [_module_/usr/src/modules/madwifi] Error 2 ▒
   │ make[3]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.18′ ▒
   │ make[2]: *** [modules] Error 2 ▒
   │ make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/modules/madwifi’ ▒
   │ make[1]: *** [binary-modules] Error 2 ▒
   │ make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/modules/madwifi’ ▮
   │ make: *** [kdist_build] Error 2

6. cozmo, on January 1st, 2008 at 2:30 pm Said:

   thanks for the great tips!

7. erik, on January 30th, 2008 at 10:53 am Said:

   each time i start apt-get install wadwifi-tools, it will end up like this :
   Err http://ftp.debian.org etch/contrib madwifi-tools 1:0.9.2+dfsg-1
   Connection timed out
   Failed to fetch http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/contrib/m/madwifi-tools/madwifi-tools_0.9.2+dfsg-1_i386.deb Connection timed out

   is this proxy problem or the repository failure?

   my sources.list exactly as E.Plesner used.

8. SMD, on January 30th, 2008 at 11:32 am Said:

   erik,

   why don’t you try other mirror. hope it will work.

9. milos, on April 8th, 2008 at 9:25 pm Said:

   followed guide, worked perfect. thanks

10. kyle, on June 7th, 2008 at 6:07 am Said:

    ok i got everything set up
    i even did “iwlist ath0 scanning” and i got the info on the dirver i have. unfortunetly, i can’t actually connect to the network itself.
    any suggestions?

11. kyle, on June 7th, 2008 at 6:35 am Said:

    ok
    still nothing works
    i even tried ndiswrapper but still nothing
    i no that i need the driver for 168c:0013 (i think)
    but it wont show up when checking for hardware in either madwifi or ndiswrapper
    please help
    i want ot use debian wirelessly

12. M. Skrepsky, on February 22nd, 2009 at 4:47 am Said:

    Tried to install, but blown up with:

    ┌───────────────────┤ module-assistant, log file viewer ├────────────────────┐
    │ │
    │ dh_testroot ↑
    │ if [ -f /usr/src/modules/madwifi/debian/control.template ]; then \ ▮
    │ cat /usr/src/modules/madwifi/debian/control.template > ▒
    │ /usr/src/modules/madwifi/debian/control; \ ▒
    │ fi ▒
    │ dh_testdir ▒
    │ make: dh_testdir: Command not found ▒
    │ make: *** [configure-stamp] Error 127 ▒
    │ 1 ▒
    │ ▒
    │ ▒
    │ ▒
    │ ▒
    │ ▒
    │ ↓
    │
    │
    │ │
    └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
    Please help

13. Jason Zerbe’s logbook » DWL-G510 rev B running native in Linux, on August 4th, 2009 at 5:03 am Said:

    [...] project. Because I was feeling lazy and wanted a tried and true install method, I found “How To Install MadWifi On Debian 4.0 (Etch)” by Sumardi Shukor. The following is based on the article on his blog. vi [...]

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