Re: madwifi drivers in Debian Lenny

On Tue, 2010-05-11 at 16:32 -0700, Paul Zimmerman wrote:
> I've got a Netgear WG111T attached to a dual-boot Windows and Linux
> box. The drivers from Netgear work fine in Windows, but I'd really
> like to use native Linux drivers in Linux instead of ndiswrapper
> around the Windows drivers. Following the apparently simple directions
> at http://madwifi-project.org/wiki/UserDocs/Distro/Debian/MadWifi, I
> installed the madwifi files.

Netgear WG111T is a USB device.  MadWifi doesn't support any USB
devices.

>  The process seemed to work without an error, but I could not get the
> modules to actually load and recognize the device. Instead I got a
> strange error message that ath_hal had 'tainted' the kernel by being
> proprietary. 

This is to be expected if you are using version 0.9.4 or another version
with non-free HAL.

> Moving to the madwifi-project home page to start searching for further
> information, I saw the announcement about the update for later
> kernels. Dedian lenny does use the 2.6.26 kernel, so that seemed a
> logical reason for the failure.

The reason for failure to support your device is lack of USB support in
MadWifi, nothing else.

>  But after downloading the tar file with the updates, I could not
> figure out how to compile the changed files and put them where they
> belong. The convenient automated process didn't give many clues about
> what was actually  happening. Where can I find instructions on how to
> compile and install these updates for the 2.6.25+ kernels?

The instructions should be inside the snapshot, in the files called
README and INSTALL.

>  Would the newer ath5k driver work in Lenny?

ath5k should work with supported hardware, but it doesn't support USB
devices either.

>  What about the ar5523 driver in development?
> (http://wiki.debian.org/ar5523)

I believe that's what you need.  However, the author of the driver is
reluctant to add it to the kernel, so be prepared to problems.

>  Is that only compatible with the new development version, "Squeeze"?

The proof of pudding is in the eating.  You can try that driver and see
for yourself.

Generally, please don't expect that everybody runs Debian and knows
which codenames correspond to which kernel versions.  If you want better
replies, please do your part, that is provide versions of the relevant
software.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin

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