How to Get your Atheros (ar242x) working on ubuntu intrepid

Tested environment :

- Ubuntu Intrepid , fully upgraded
- Kernel 2.6.27-11-generic and below
- Both gnome and KDE

First, be sure you have ar242x chipset on your machine :

$lspci | grep AR242
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

Before starting i must say that, you have to redo the steps which are marked (*) after you download and use new kernel.Also there are a couple more methods to get your card working HOWEVER this is the only method i got mine working.

STEP 1 : REMOVING linux-restricted-modules-common

$sudo update-rc.d -f linux-restricted-modules-common remove

We removed it : )

STEP 2 : RE-CHECK YOU HAVE THE RIGHT HARDWARE

Please re-check if you have the right hardware :

$lspci | grep Atheros

STEP 3 : DOWNLOADING NEEDED PACKAGES

Lets go to our desktop first :

$cd ~/Desktop

Now lets download what we need :

Navigate to rapidshare and download this file (i am sorry , i couldn't find any other hosts ):
Click-n-Download

Ok we downloaded the file and lets untar it :

$cd ~/Desktop && tar xvf compat*.tar.bz2

Now lets navigate to new created compat* directory

$cd compat*

STEP 4 : DOWNLOADING PACKAGES WHICH WE WILL USE AT MAKING STUFF

let's install the packages ,we need them to give the make command under ubuntu

$sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install build-essential

STEP 5 : MAKING THE MODULES

Now we are ready for the make :

$make
$sudo make install

(*)STEP 6 : UNLOADING and LOADING THE MODULES

You have to re-do this step every time you download and use new kernel :

$sudo make unload
$sudo make load

STEP 7 : CHECK YOUR WIRELESS

Let's check if it is working or not :

$iwconfig (or you can check it via sudo iwlist scan // be sure you have wireless spots/routers etc near you of course)

If everything is ok lets add our module to startup so we don't need to do make load stuff everytime we reboot :

$echo ath5k | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

That is all.

EDIT :

Kernel.org updated their compat-wireless package, so instead of my link, you may give the newest one a try :


http://wireless.kernel.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/compat-wireless-2009-02-26.tar.bz2


OR

http://wireless.kernel.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/

EDIT 2 :

I wrote another method which uses ndiswrapper.If this one does not work for you, you can try it also.BUT revert what you have done here before doing that! You can find the blog post here :

Get your atheros card working with ndiswrapper on ubuntu

PS : This is important, if you still can't manage to get it working, be sure you disabled your bluetooth service, i had to disable it to get this working.(System>Administrator> Services )

PS 2 : If you have problems, questions, DO NOT FORGET TO ADD the OUTPUTS OF
$sudo iwlist scan
$uname -a
$iwconfig

EDIT : This is fixed at Ubuntu Jaunty, now it works out of the box