Atheros AR242x Wireless on Compaq CQ60

[linuxrocks2009]

Hello....
After several hours of frustration to point of almost scrapping linux alltogether I was finally able to get my wireless networking to work in Linux Mint 6. I searched for hours and came up with several different suggestions that were supposed to fix my problem - NONE OF THEM WORKED! As a new linux user, I can completely understand why so many people try linux and then give up on it. It should not be so hard to get a wireless internet connection working. Said another way - the people making distros should read these forums and see what difficulties are experienced and work on fixing them. In any event - I want to post my solution to the problem for my COMPAQ CQ60-211DX so that anyone else who wants to try linux on this model laptop will save a great amount of time. Here are the steps I took to get linux mint 6 to work on my laptop:

1. Open terminal window
2. Type - lspci | grep Atheros
3. Hit the enter key

If you see:
Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

then these instructions WILL get your AR242x (AR5007) wireless card to work for you. Be warned - I tried everything I read including ndiswrapper, etc. - none of it worked!

You will need to click the menu button go to all applications and then administration. From there, select hardware drivers and look for anything that has Atheros in it. CLICK DEACTIVATE! Now you will have to restart your computer. When it starts back up....

4. Go to: http://snapshots.madwifi-project.org...-hal-0.10.5.6/
5. Download the latest release to your desktop
6. Right mouseclick on the downloaded file and select extract
7. Doubleclick on the newly created folder on your desktop
8. Select "File" and then "Open in Terminal" from your file manager
9. In the new terminal window, type the following:

make - hit enter
sudo make install - hit enter
sudo modprobe ath_pci - hit enter
sudo modprobe wlan_scan_sta - hit enter

10. Now type in gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist - hit enter
11. Add the following line below the last line: blacklist ath_hal
12. Save the file
13. You will need to click the menu button go to all applications and then administration. From there, select hardware drivers and look for anything that has Atheros in it. CLICK ACTIVATE! Now you will have to restart your computer. When it starts back up....

YOUR WIRELESS NETWORKING CARD WILL WORK. YOU WILL SEE ENABLE WIRELESS IN YOUR NETWORK ICON NEXT TO THE DATE IN THE TRAY.

[moose drool]

I just wanted to add on to this one thing. Being new to linux I had the same issue with my wireless on an Acer Aspire One. It uses the same card, and I was successful using these instructions word for word with one small change:

Item 10. is missing sudo at the beginning of the line. It should read:
10. Now type in sude gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist - hit enter

Otherwise, thanks for keeping me from pulling my hair out and resorting to reinstalling (shudder) Windows.

[Satanic Atheist]

I'm using an Atheros AR5212 under Debian Stable (Lenny) and after ripping out the crap Intel card that was in there and rebooting, it was up and running automatically.

That's all with the stock kernel as well.

James

PS. Debian's graphical installer has now made this the easiest distro for a newbie to work with, if you ask me!