Re: [Madwifi-users] installing madwifi in Linux-Mandrake 8.0 Powerpack

[p0g0 <p0...@ma...>]

Hi Charles,

The '2nd' way is for old versions of madwifi. I doubt you'll want that. 
However, if all you want is a station & your card works with 'old' 
madwifi- that is pre-built as an rpm, and you can find that bundle and 
install 'old' with less trouble than building from source. You'll know 
it's 'old' for sure if you install the rpm, and the ath_pci modprobe 
makes an ATH0 but not a WIFI0. Mandriva only added 'new' madwifi in the 
2007 release, so the RPMs they have are likely old and obsolete-they 
also don't need compiling. The Mandriva dialog boxes are not very 
helpful either as they try to steer you t the Mandriva Club and not to a 
working solution.

To build a new madwifi from source on Mandriva, please do the following:
* see here: http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/Distro/Mandrake
* remove (with urpmi or whatever) the existing madwifi you've installed.
* get the latest tarball release from the madwifi website: 
http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/GettingMadwifi
* use uname -a to ascertain the kernel you are _running_. NB- mandriva 
often hands you the wrong kernel source and/or changes the name/rev of 
the kernelwhen you custom build one. You'll have to pay Very Close 
Attention to acquiring the full and accurate source for your running 
kernel...rpmsearch and google are your friends. Download the kernel 
source for the kernel you are running.
*Use the examples in the Mandriva docs on the wiki ( 
http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/Distro/Mandrake#InstallKernelSource )to 
force the kernel name to conform to your running kernel (this only works 
right with the correct source). Make the kernel, but do not install it. 
You can harvest the existing config file to make from /boot. The whole 
point of this is to set up the kernel headers-you need them to proceed 
to the compile/make/install for madwifi.
*once you have the kernel headers in place (from the make but not 
install above), you can use the standard scripts in the madwifi tarball 
to make the modules.
*you'll need to fuss with the module configuration-see the autocreate 
stuff in the wiki userdocs 
(http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/autocreate), and the madriva doc cited 
above to craft the right line, probably in /etc/modules.conf, to load 
the ath_pci module.
*read on wlanconfig, it's not supported by the Mandriva wireless 
manager, so if you are doing anything but autocreating a station, you'll 
need to run your own scripts and not use the /etc/sysconfig/networks ones.
*As you can tell, Mandriva is not a friendly OS when it comes to 
building and developing source modules. They've made a cynical choice to 
not support the 'non-free' madwifi, unless you pay them the club fees.

Good Luck

Will Herrick




Charles Kunkle Jr. wrote:
> I'm trying to install the madwifi driver in Linux-Madrake 8.0 Powerpack edition 
> and having a problem. I am following the instructions given under old guides - 
> guide two (although I gewt the same error trying to use guide one)
>
> The error is this, when I try to do the make of madwifi I get an error message 
> saying "only supported kernel versions 2.4.xx and up. But the kernel version 
> for Mandrake 8.0 is 2.4.3. So I can't understand why its not working.
>
> I did the 'urpmi kernel-source gcc cvs' and that worked fine, but when I try to 
> do '  cd madwifi 
>       make 
>       sudo make install '
>
> or '  root@machine:/root/# cd /home/user/madwifi
>       root@machine:/home/user/madwifi/# KERNELRELEASE=`uname -r` make
>       root@machine:/home/user/madwifi/# KERNELRELEASE=`uname -r` make install
>       root@machine:/home/user/madwifi/# modprobe ath_pci '
>
> I get the error message saying only kernel version 2.4.xx and up supported.
>
> In case it helps, I'm running this all on an AMD 500 Mhz, with Linux installed 
> on a 4 gig drive (set up as the second HD or HdB) 
>
> The Linux-Mandrake is basically installed 'out of the box' with everything 
> installed except the server packages.
>
> Anyone have any ideas? If you have advice or help please send a direct email to 
>
> fra...@ya...
>
> (Be sure to put something in the subject line about 'help with madwifi' or 
> something like that, so I won't think its SPAM)
>
> I'd really appreciate any help anyone can supply
>
>
>
>
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