# [Solved] Usual wlan driver ath9k does not seem to work

## steak-sandwich

Hi everyone,

my wireless card does not work for some reasons. It's an atheros wireless card and it used to work with the ath9k driver. But now I'm getting the following output from iwconfig:

```
eth0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     no wireless extensions.

```

So it seems like it's not recognized as a wireless card. It works with the live cd but as soon as I compile the kernel the card does not work. I tried it both ways, installing the wireless support into the kernel and as modules and neither way works which is surprising  because it used to work. Looks like I'm missing something. 

This is the output of lsmod:

```
Module                  Size  Used by

ath5k                 132303  0 

ath9k                  93900  0 

ath9k_common            1881  1 ath9k

ath9k_hw              348420  2 ath9k_common,ath9k

mac80211              371015  2 ath5k,ath9k

ath                    14954  4 ath9k_common,ath5k,ath9k,ath9k_hw

cfg80211              145634  4 ath,ath5k,ath9k,mac80211

```

When I restart net.wlan0, I'm getting the following output:

```
 * Bringing down interface wlan0

 *   Removing addresses

 *     Stopping wpa_cli on wlan0 ... [ ok ]

 *     Stopping wpa_supplicant on wlan0 ... [ ok ]

 * Bringing up interface wlan0

 *   Starting wpa_supplicant on wlan0 ...ioctl[SIOCSIWPMKSA]: Invalid argument

ioctl[SIOCSIWMODE]: Invalid argument

ioctl[SIOCGIWRANGE]: Invalid argument

ioctl[SIOCGIWMODE]: Invalid argument

ioctl[SIOCSIWAP]: Invalid argument

ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument

ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument

ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument

ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument

ioctl[SIOCSIWPMKSA]: Invalid argument

 [ ok ]

 *   Starting wpa_cli on wlan0 ... [ ok ]

 *   Backgrounding ... ... * WARNING: net.wlan0 has started, but is inactive

```

What should I do now? Any suggestions?

Thx,

BenLast edited by steak-sandwich on Thu May 23, 2013 3:29 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## Gusar

 *steak-sandwich wrote:*   

> So it seems like it's not recognized as a wireless card.

 

No, it just means there are no wireless extensions. Which is true and ok, wext is not how networking is done nowadays.

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-7143840.html#7143840

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## steak-sandwich

 *Gusar wrote:*   

>  *steak-sandwich wrote:*   So it seems like it's not recognized as a wireless card. 
> 
> No, it just means there are no wireless extensions. Which is true and ok, wext is not how networking is done nowadays.
> 
> https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-7143840.html#7143840

 

Okay thanks. I still don't know how to get it to work.

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## Gusar

It works already. Just not with wireless extensions, but with netlink (nl80211). So simply configure things (in particular, wpa_supplicant) appropriately.

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## steak-sandwich

Great, thanks a lot.

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