Improve Wireless Performance (if you already installed stable ath5k madwifi drivers)

  • December 10, 2008 – 7:00 pm
  • Posted in writeups

By this point you may have installed the ath5k madwifi drivers, and disabled the existing drivers (Ubuntu), all before coming across this blog. You may notice that the performance of the last stable version of the driver is relatively unimpressive.
Fortunately the ath5k team is actively improving the driver, and you should download and install the latest development driver.
Download the latest development driver here (tested on compat-wireless-2009-01-06.tar.bz2).
This tip is thanks to Veit Wahlich.
Keeping in mind that the install line will take a while, run:

tar -jxf compat-wireless*.bz2
cd compat-wireless*
sudo make install
sudo make unload
sudo make load

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

3 Comments

  1. Hello. I am a noob using openSuse 11.1 on my netbook.

    I tried to recompile the drivers as you suggested, and this is what I got:

    ————–
    massimo@linux-vspk:~/compatw> sudo make install
    root’s password:

    Your old wireless subsystem modules were left intact:

    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/net/mac80211/mac80211.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/net/wireless/cfg80211.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/adm8211.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ath5k/ath5k.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ath9k/ath9k.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/staging/at76_usb/at76_usb.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/b43/b43.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/b43legacy/b43legacy.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/ssb/ssb.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/iwlwifi/iwl3945.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/iwlwifi/iwlagn.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ipw2100.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ipw2200.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/libertas/libertas_cs.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/net/mac80211/mac80211.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/p54/p54pci.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/p54/p54usb.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2×00/rt2400pci.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2×00/rt2500pci.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2×00/rt2500usb.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2×00/rt61pci.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rt2×00/rt73usb.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/usb/usbnet.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/usb/cdc_ether.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/usb/rndis_host.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rndis_wlan.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtl8180.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/rtl8187.ko
    /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/zd1211rw/zd1211rw.ko

    make -C /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/build M=/home/massimo/compatw modules
    make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9-obj/i386/default’
    make[1]: *** No rule to make target `modules’. Stop.
    make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9-obj/i386/default’
    make: *** [modules] Error 2
    massimo@linux-vspk:~/compatw>
    ————–

    What’s wrong? How did you make it work? And how could I??

    Thanks for all suggestions.
    ___
    Max

  2. Is there a difference between doing this and grab the latest madwifi with svn ??

    /me confused

  3. Does anyone know why ubuntu would go disable this every time I restart? The install works flawlessly but then upon reboot, everything goes back to how it was before. How do I keep the settings saved so this doesnt keep happening?


One Trackback/Pingback

  1. By compat-wireless driver update (?) - openSUSE Forums on 01 Feb 2009 at 4:21 pm

    [...] to download a .torrent file, so I switched to XP and the same .torrent got about 50 K/s speed!! On another forum (dedicated to my netbook) I found the suggestion to download the experimental drivers from here and ‘make’ them, but this is [...]

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