[solved] Atheros AR9287 Won't Find Wireless Networks

[xxBartonxx]

Hello all,

I'm a bit of a Gentoo noob, although I've been using Ubuntu for quite a while and use some SUSE systems at work. Anyway, I've been pulling my hair out for days trying to figure out why my wireless won't work on my laptop in Gentoo. I've followed every wiki and guide by Gentoo on the matter, and not a single forum search has found a fix. I've tried using both wicd and NetworkManger; no luck with either. The Network Manager applet doesn't even show wireless as an option (on the drop-down menu), and wicd simply says "No wireless networks found."

I have installed the ath9k drivers, configured (from what I can tell) all of the correct kernel components, installed wpa_supplicant, and dhcpcd.

I know that my hardware is detected, because ifconfig gives me

[DONAHUE]

ifconfig should show results of dhcpcd running like

[xxBartonxx]

Unfortunately, no. It did appear that it wasn't starting automatically, but manually starting it did not produce the desired results.

[cach0rr0]

first, does the device exist?

[xxBartonxx]

Thanks for your reply,

Using "cat /proc/net/dev" does show wlan0 as an interface (since my laptop isn't currently connected to any networks all of the fields are zeros). I currently have ATH9K_PCI built in instead of being a module. Should that change?

I've tried getting wpa_supplicant to run by hand, but have had no luck. I might not be using the proper commands, though. Either way, from what I've read on other boards wicd is supposed to take control of dhcpcd, wpa_supplicant, and all of your net.* interfaces for you.

This has been the one thing stalling my migration from Ubuntu to Gentoo. I need wireless to work!

Thanks again for the help.

Edit: typo

[cach0rr0]

[DONAHUE]

[erzapito]

I've got the same issue with an AR99227, I've checked all points made and still the problem persists. Kernel version is 3.2.12 and the strange thing is that I got a working USB realtek wifi.

[cach0rr0]

[erzapito]

I got wpa_supplicant working with the realtek USB, but with the atheros (and -dd flags) it keeps looking for APs constantly.

By the way, if I run:

[cach0rr0]

[erzapito]

I got the same results with iw.

Here are the logs for the Atheros (modprobe, wpa_supplicant):
http://pastebin.com/VNv3kDMR

and for the realtek (just for comparison):
http://pastebin.com/NZwCjzWu

[Gusar]

Instead of playing with that old kernel, I suggest either trying a newer kernel (3.3, 3.4) or wireless-compat.

[erzapito]

I'll try, but that's the current stable kernel and 3.4 has just been added to the tree. By the way, what's the wireless-compat?

[Gusar]

[erzapito]

I've tried kernel 3.4 and it keeps the same. I've trying to set the country code but I don't know how.

The funny thing is the wireless card works with an Ubuntu live.

[xxBartonxx]

Hope I'm not bumping too soon

I've been very busy with work and school, so today was my first day to sit down and mess with Gentoo again. Here's what we've got:

@cach0rr0 The first wpa_supplicant command you gave me (using -Dn180211) did not output any error. The second did; it gave me "Operation not supported" quite a few times, then "Failed to initiate AP scan". I ran the rmmod code while the first wpa_supplicant command was still active in another terminal; after doing so, wpa_supplicant started throwing the same errors. The output of my dmesg is here:

[xxBartonxx]

bump? I feel like I'm really close to getting this since I can now print out accurate APs. I just need to get wicd working as well.

[wikol]

I had just the same problem as you. Apparently,

[xxBartonxx]

Well, I finally got it. I'm only replying to this thread in case anyone has a similar issue in the future. I ended up doing a fresh install (for multiple reasons), so I now know exactly what it took to get it working. I'm going to put my steps below. More or less all of these can easily be found using the wireless docs on the official Gentoo page as well as the wicd page, but since it gave me months of grief I'm going to list the steps I performed, in order, from a fresh install.

Steps to get wireless working with Atheros AR9287 w/ wicd:

1. Build appropriate modules in the kernel (ath, ath9k, ath9k_hw, ath9k_common).
2. Ensure the modules load at boot by adding them to /etc/conf.d/modules
3. emerge dhcpcd
3. emerge wicd
4. If you've previously added wpa_supplicant, dhcpcd, or any net.* connection to the default run level, you should remove them since wicd takes care of these (with the obvious exception of net.lo), then add wicd.
5. emerge wpa_supplicant
6. Set up basic wpa_supplicant.conf in /etc/wpa_supplicant/. (I used the one previously suggested by cach0rr0)
7. Tell wicd about your wireless card under Preferences->General Settings-> Network Interfaces-> Wireless Interface.
8. Reboot

Note: this assumes that you have the other correct basic wireless kernel functions built in. All of these were automatically enabled for me in my kernel config, using the default/linux/amd64/10.0/desktop/gnome profile on kernel 3.3.8.

I would imagine you could change the order of getting wicd/wpa_supplicant, but since I had so much trouble I'm just posting the exact steps I took.

Assuming you followed all of these steps, you will need to reboot before wicd will start listing APs. I can see how anyone who has done this in the past would think this post is unnecessary since it mostly just follows the steps suggested in the Gentoo guide, but two months ago I could have used such a straightforward guide.

[erzapito]

In my case I discovered that the card can detect WIFI networks with a lower channel (like 7). I think this may be an issue with country configuration, but I can't find a way to change it.