CrunchBang Linux

Element

Member

From: Florida

Registered: 2013-06-27

Posts: 14

Atheros AR9285 Driver support

Hello it's me again. I've been trying to get my Wi-fi card on my laptop to work, which the model is mentioned in the title, and it's just not happening.
The computer detects the hardware, but it just won't connect to my router. I've wondered if it was just my router but I have tried using the router at my work but it wasn't working either. So I figure it's the driver, though I may be wrong.
I have tried following this wiki but it states the kernal should be "automatically uploaded" which I didn't understand because if that's so then it should work.
I looked at the bottom of the page and there was a link that sent me to where I could possibly download the drivers. I found the link to the directory to download the latest driver and did the following (which I found out how to do this by google)

cd /home/user/downloads
tar -zxf ./backports-3.10-rc1-1.tar.gz
cd /downloads/backports-3.10-rc1-1
make

This was followed by a few errors that said I had to do

 make deconfig-blahblahblah

or something along those lines, for about 5 items. After doing that I did

make
make install
sudo reboot

After the reboot the wireless still didn't work. So I guess what I did either didn't work, wasn't the right driver, or I messed up somewhere.
Help would be appreciated, thanks in advanced.

annoyingbeggar

#! Junkie

From: Florida

Registered: 2013-05-30

Posts: 430

Re: Atheros AR9285 Driver support

Do you have the package firmware-atheros installed?

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“I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.” - Eduardo Hughes Galeano

Element

Member

From: Florida

Registered: 2013-06-27

Posts: 14

Re: Atheros AR9285 Driver support

Do you have the package firmware-atheros installed?

Uhh. I don't know? Haha I haven't installed it myself, so it might not be installed. How would I go about this?

annoyingbeggar

#! Junkie

From: Florida

Registered: 2013-05-30

Posts: 430

Re: Atheros AR9285 Driver support

Open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install firmware-atheros

You need to have internet access to do this, it can be wired. If you don't there are other ways to get it. Let me know and I can help you get it.

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“I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.” - Eduardo Hughes Galeano

Element

Member

From: Florida

Registered: 2013-06-27

Posts: 14

Re: Atheros AR9285 Driver support

Open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install firmware-atheros

You need to have internet access to do this, it can be wired. If you don't there are other ways to get it. Let me know and I can help you get it.

Alright it's done and I rebooted.
Is there anything else I need to do?

annoyingbeggar

#! Junkie

From: Florida

Registered: 2013-05-30

Posts: 430

Re: Atheros AR9285 Driver support

You can see which modules are loaded with the terminal command lsmod

You need to have:

• mac80211

• ath9k

• ath9k_common

• ath9k_hw

If any of these are missing you can load them with modprobe <drivername> once they are all loaded you should be able to connect to wireless. You can set these to load automatically at boot by adding them to the file /etc/modules (require root or sudo).

If this doesn't work, post the output of the following two commands inside of separate code tags.

lsmod

rfkill list

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“I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.” - Eduardo Hughes Galeano

Element

Member

From: Florida

Registered: 2013-06-27

Posts: 14

Re: Atheros AR9285 Driver support

You can see which modules are loaded with the terminal command lsmod

You need to have:

• mac80211

• ath9k

• ath9k_common

• ath9k_hw

If any of these are missing you can load them with modprobe <drivername> once they are all loaded you should be able to connect to wireless. You can set these to load automatically at boot by adding them to the file /etc/modules (require root or sudo).

If this doesn't work, post the output of the following two commands inside of separate code tags.

lsmod

rfkill list

Okay. I thought it didn't work at first because lsmod showed that I already had all of those drivers. But I went ahead and did the modprobe <drivername> idea and it worked! Thanks man!

Last edited by Element (2013-07-01 19:44:07)

annoyingbeggar

#! Junkie

From: Florida

Registered: 2013-05-30

Posts: 430

Re: Atheros AR9285 Driver support

No problem! Glad you got it working. Please edit the title of your first post to mark this thread solved.

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“I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.” - Eduardo Hughes Galeano