Netexpertise

I was surprised ifconfig wouldn’t return an interface for my Atheros chipset based Netgear wireless card. Unlike Redhat, Madwifi does not seem to compile on Ubuntu, no matter what version is used. Kernel headers installed, I keep getting the same error:

/root/madwifi-0.9.4/net80211/ieee80211_power.c:
In function 'ieee80211_pwrsave':
/root/madwifi-0.9.4/net80211/ieee80211_power.c:240:
error: implicit declaration of function '__skb_append'
make[3]: *** [/root/madwifi-0.9.4/net80211/ieee80211_power.o]
Error 1
make[2]: *** [/root/madwifi-0.9.4/net80211] Error 2
make[1]: *** [_module_/root/madwifi-0.9.4] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-7-generic'
make: *** [modules] Error 2

Seems to be some changes in the newest kernels. A solution is to install madwifi-ng.

Start installing svn

root@ubuntu:~# aptitude install subversion

And follow instructions on madwifi-ng website. It’s pretty straightforward.

I also noticed wpa_supplicant was provided on Ubuntu but does not support the madwifi driver. Hence, it’ll need to be compiled as well.
Don’t forget to install openssl and its libs:

root@ubuntu:~# aptitude install openssl libssl-dev

You can then follow instructions on my WPA howto to connect to your wireless network.

Tags: linux, network, ubuntu, wifi

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