My Debian Linux tech page

Well i'm not detailing everything here, as it's already done by other's. I'll just point out my findings on the last quest to have wifi working in linux 2.6.2x versions.

first step check, with dpkg -l | grep ^i.*'madwifi' all the already installed madwifi packages, if any, just delete them wth dpkg -r and purge them dpkg -p .

Alright, now the best and easiest way to do it is using the automated way :

1. Add to you /etc/apt/sources.lst the following lines :

# Testing
deb ftp://ftp.au.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
deb-src ftp://ftp.au.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free

2. Get the debian packages :

$ su
# apt-get update
# apt-get install madwifi-source
# apt-get install madwifi-tools
# m-a prepare
# m-a a-i madwifi

3.Check if modules are loaded :

# lsmod | grep ath

you should see something like this :

ath_rate_sample        11776  1
ath_pci                87712  0
wlan                  183620  4 wlan_scan_sta,ath_rate_sample,ath_pci
ath_hal               191440  3 ath_rate_sample,ath_pci

NOTE: If you don't see it just do the following :

# modprobe ath_pci

Then do lsmod  again to check that the module was loaded. If not check syslog (dmesg command) and see any error msg

4.Now it comes the tricky part. The physical wireless interface is wifi0, but madwifi supports virtualization (concurrent/multiple AP's/stations), so it will creat a virtual interface called athx. The default is ath0, and you can safely do :

# ifconfig ath0 up
# iwlist ath0 scan

(use man iwconfig help to configure your AP parameter's)

# ifdown ath0
# ifup ath0  ( this is just to refresh dhcp query)

You may find detailed information on madwifi main site at :

http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/Distro/Debian/MadWifi

Also, on old distributions marlow's site is quite good :

http://www.marlow.dk/site.php/tech/madwifi