Re: WiFi on Toshiba Sattelite A70 Atheros 5004X

no.. you compile the madwifi drivers for your kernel
or find ones that a precompiled for your kernel: linux-2.6.13-123.4-89.abc

get the latest madwifi drivers from cvs at madwifi.sourceforge.net

no ... compile madwifi .. NOT the kernel

        cd /usr/local/src
        download madwifi drivers
        cd madwifi
        make
        make install
                ls -la /lib/modules/`uname -r`/net
        modprobe "madwifi"

        ifconfig ath0 up
        ifconfig -v

        - how you configure the params is a different ballgame

I have managed to install madwifi as per the instructions on the marlow.dk website - Minus the first bit, which I'm fairly certain was simply to compile a kernel if one was not present.

So, I did all of what the instructions say, in that order. I then had to do some configuration (which I will come to).

The Big Problem:

It takes around twenty seconds for any thing to happen: Then, it turns to its normal, fast self.

Explication:

I have DSL on my main computer. The signal that is being broadcast is at, according to KWiFi Manager (I'll get to that later as well) 54 Mbps (which is what it should be). Now, though this is a fast connection, what happens is this: If I, say, go to Google, it (Firefox) will sit and do nothing for around twenty seconds. After this time, the page loads at the normal DSL speed (often minus pictures, which take another twenty seconds et cetera). I hope that this is clear.

Now, obviously since I've never heard of any thing like this before, there is some thing that I have not done which is causing this to happen. What I need to do is find out what this is and rectify the situation: Siting waiting for a page to load for twenty seconds is rather abominable: It also affects, say, Synaptic; Gaim takes a very long time indeed to connect.

So, here is what I did after the instructions on the marlow.dk web-site ran out:

iwconfig ath0 key open [key]
iwlist ath0 scan
ath0      Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:0B:23:ED:1F:10
                    ESSID:"Litwin"
                    Mode:Master
                    Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
                    Quality=53/94 Signal level=-42 dBm Noise level=-95 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:2 Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:5 Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:6 Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:9 Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:12 Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:18 Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:22 Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:24 Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:36 Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:48 Mb/s
                    Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
                    Extra:bcn_int=200
dhclient ath0
Internet Software Consortium DHCP Client 2.0pl5
Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 The Internet Software Consortium.
All rights reserved.

Please contribute if you find this software useful.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/dhcp-contrib.html

sit0: unknown hardware address type 776
eth1: unknown hardware address type 24
sit0: unknown hardware address type 776
eth1: unknown hardware address type 24
Listening on LPF/ath0/00:11:f5:7a:d4:2d
Sending on   LPF/ath0/00:11:f5:7a:d4:2d
Sending on   Socket/fallback/fallback-net
DHCPREQUEST on ath0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPACK from 192.168.2.1
SIOCADDRT: File exists
bound to 192.168.2.14 -- renewal in 129600 seconds.