802.11-N Howto (Solved)

[John Scott]

From: Raseel Bhagat <raseelbhagat at gmail.com>
Sent: Mon, Nov 2, 2009 2:44 pm
Subject: Re: 802.11-N Howto


On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 6:30 PM, John Scott <fyrbrds at aim.com> wrote:


>> Are there not gui tools for configuring the connection parameters

>>802.11




>802.11 N IS supported on Linux. I have an Intel Wifi chipset which 
requires the iwl4965 driver. It's in "abgn" mode by default.

>I'm pretty sure than ath9K has 802.11n support.
>I don't know of specific GUI tools for configuring the driver, but 
traditionally, the madwifi driver was controlled by the wireless tools 
like iwconfig , iwlist, etc. and hostapd.

>So , you might want to try the following commands :
>sudo iwlist wllan0 modulation

>This might show you if "11n" is selected. If not , try,

>sudo iwconfig wlan0 modulation 11n

>Substitute the above commands with "ath0" if that is your wifi 
interface.

>Also, I'm just guessing those are the above commands since I don;t 
have a Atheros chipset.

>Thanks,
>Raseel





Raseel,
It took a while, but your info came through. I started experimenting 
with the commands you gave me. One of the man pages referenced 
wireless.kernel.org, which talks about on-going work on this driver. 
That lead me here: linux-backports-modules-2.6.31_2.6.31.orig.tar.bz2 
for a discussion of backports which solve many of the problems 
discussed. That lead me here:
https://edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-backports-modules-2.6.31/2.6.31-15.17
This page gives the download link for the Ubuntu back port modules 
source tree, linux-backports-modules-2.6.31_2.6.31-15.17.tar.gz. The 
backport modules include new code that was not available at code freeze 
time for Karmic. No binaries are available so anyone needing this who 
did not install compilation essentials should go here:
https://answers.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+faq/61
for a brief description on how to install the packages you will need to 
compile new drivers.

after decompressing linux-backports-modules-2.6.31_2.6.31-15.17.tar.gz 
with the command
tar xf linux-backports-modules-2.6.31_2.6.31-15.17.tar.gz
I entered new directory /lbm/updates/compat-wireless-2.6 which was 
created.
Then,
make
sudo make install
sudo make unload
sudo modprobe ath9k

About 5 seconds later my wifi connection came back up and was working 
around 1.1 MB/s sustained.

This is only 1/3 the speed I get with the Windows driver but it is 20 
times faster than what I had before and fast enough to keep my Firefox 
snappy.  Now I can use Youtube and download podcasts that don't take 
days. Only time will tell if the driver will remain stable at this 
performance level. There are reports that the driver is still less than 
perfect but for now I am happy for now. Hopefully they will get the 
driver working 100% some day. My main concern for now is usable.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Regards,

Joh=