Atheros wireless under Ubuntu...

[2Tired2Tango]

I just realized Rob doesn't have a "Networking" forum here... (Hint Hint)....

Anyway, I've run into something I could use just a little help with...

I have a Toshiba laptop with Ubuntu 8.04 installed.
It also dual boots to Windows XP.

These machines have Atheros wireless boards in them...

The owner has never been able to get the wireless in this machine to work under Linux, but it works well enough under windows. Can anyone point me in the right direction to configure this to work under Ubuntu?

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Never mind....

We ended up reformatting and going Windows only.

 

[Rob Williams]

I'm late on this, but given that it was Ubuntu 8.04, the best thing would have been to download the latest version, since that one there is a year out of date. Updating to the latest version should have found and installed the driver.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

I'm late on this, but given that it was Ubuntu 8.04, the best thing would have been to download the latest version, since that one there is a year out of date. Updating to the latest version should have found and installed the driver.

Noted for future... except without the wireless working there was no way to do that. Although I suppose I could have burned a disk...

Thing is it said it was using a driver from a non-free source, clicking on the taskbar icon showed check marks for Atheros VM and Atheros Wireless... but we couldn't find any way to set up the SID or Password for the router.

Oh well... he was impatient, so it's done now...

Thanks.

 

[Kougar]

Noted for future... except without the wireless working there was no way to do that. Although I suppose I could have burned a disk...

Thing is it said it was using a driver from a non-free source, clicking on the taskbar icon showed check marks for Atheros VM and Atheros Wireless... but we couldn't find any way to set up the SID or Password for the router.

Oh well... he was impatient, so it's done now...

Thanks.

Well, that's generally the deal with Windows. Can't/won't spend the time to make it work under linux, or just don't want to....

Ubuntu 9.04 was the current version, but if he waited a few days more the next major upgrade 9.10 is about to launch. Edit: Apparently it has already launched. 8.04 is released one and a half years ago.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Well, that's generally the deal with Windows. Can't/won't spend the time to make it work under linux, or just don't want to....

OR, in this case, didn't have any real need for a dual booted laptop. Like me, he thought he'd best learn linux but never could get everything to work and the project stalled.

Ubuntu 9.04 was the current version, but if he waited a few days more the next major upgrade 9.10 is about to launch. Edit: Apparently it has already launched. 8.04 is released one and a half years ago.

I sort of knew that... but still, wireless --especially Atheros-- has been around a lot longer than a year and a half...

Anyhoo... thanks for the extra info, it's appreciated.

 

[Rob Williams]

Thing is it said it was using a driver from a non-free source, clicking on the taskbar icon showed check marks for Atheros VM and Atheros Wireless... but we couldn't find any way to set up the SID or Password for the router.

Since it's a closed-source driver, Ubuntu will do that, but after allowing the driver to run, it should just work. Here's an image to give an example:

http://techgage.com/viewimg/?img=/reviews/hp/dv2/hp_dv2_software_09.png&desc=HP dv2 12-inch Notebook

Like in Windows, there should have been an icon up top showing the network, and clicking on that should bring up the detected networks list, like in the image.

OR, in this case, didn't have any real need for a dual booted laptop. Like me, he thought he'd best learn linux but never could get everything to work and the project stalled.

I still don't understand this. In the past year, I've installed Linux to three or four notebooks I've reviewed, and I've never had a single issue with any of them... not one. Sadly, none of those laptops had Atheros, so I can't comment much there.