Using USB WiFi adapter on Dockstar?

all possible drivers are includet
u can find the complete list here
http://ss4200.homelinux.com/files/module.list.txt

like

drivers/staging/rt2870
drivers/staging/rt2870/rt2870sta.ko
drivers/staging/rtl8187se
drivers/staging/rtl8187se/r8187se.ko
drivers/staging/rtl8192e
drivers/staging/rtl8192e/r8192e_pci.ko
drivers/staging/rtl8192su
drivers/staging/rtl8192su/r8192s_usb.ko
drivers/staging/rtl8192u
drivers/staging/rtl8192u/r8192u_usb.ko

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/27/2010 11:15AM by gorgone.

Hello gorgone,

Unfortunately the wireless drivers ath must be enabled individually:
Device Drivers, Network device support, Wireless LAN, Atheros Wireless Cards <M>
+ all device <M> & debug support [*]

The driver ath9k_htc is found in TP-Link WN721N, what is a low cost USB-adapter (atelco.de).
It is available since kernel 2.6.35.

Would you please be so kind and run another build for that :-) and tell me the download address.
Up to now I did not manage to setup the cross compile (objcopy problem).

Regards, Rudolf

here the atheros wlan driver pack

install and overwrite

Hello Gorgone,

Thank you very much for the quick help. With "dpkg --install athpack.deb" it was quick installed.
But then I recognized that my DockStar kernel was still 2.6.32. I have to update, but tomorrow.

Best regards, Rudolf

sorry but i cant support the old kernel
only my actual own build

Rudolf:
As far as I know, in addition to the kernel files included, it is also necessary to have drivers to make the wifi dongle work, e.g., zd1211 folder and rt73.bin in the /lib/firmware folder. Do you know which driver should be used for TP-Link WN721N?

Hello twinclouds,
Thank you for taking care. The driver for TP-Link WN721N is in:

/lib/modules/2.6.35.4-dockstar/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath.ko and
ath9k/ath9k.ko
ath9k/ath9k_common.ko
ath9k/ath9k_htc.ko
ath9k/ath9k_hw.ko

Because I failed with cross-compiling Linux-dockstar on Ubuntu 10.04 (objcopy failure),
I setup an Arch Linux from www.plugapps.com with native compiling. The compiling works good (2.5 h), but the modules were not loadable (wrong format). Sigh
Gorgone was so nice to compile the ath drivers for me for the 2.6.35.4 kernel, but I got an error at

modprobe ath9k_htc
user.warn kernel: ath9k_hw: Unknown symbol ath_print (err 0)

I have seen in the source code, that "ath_print()" is defined in "ath/debug.c", but do not know why it is not linked.

Third try now is native compiling on Debian-dockstar, with the source package of gorgone.
When I started "make menuconfig" I got the message that ncurses is not installed. Ncurses is installed, so I tried with "make config" and "make modules", what is still running.
As soon as I have something stable, I will write a wiki page.

Regards, Rudolf
It has not finished yet, I cross fingers.

Hello twinclouds,
Thank you for taking care. The driver for TP-Link WN721N is in:

/lib/modules/2.6.35.4-dockstar/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath.ko and
ath9k/ath9k.ko
ath9k/ath9k_common.ko
ath9k/ath9k_htc.ko
ath9k/ath9k_hw.ko

Because I failed with cross-compiling Linux-dockstar on Ubuntu 10.04 (objcopy failure),
I setup an Arch Linux from www.plugapps.com with native compiling. The compiling works good (2.5 h), but the modules were not loadable (wrong format). Sigh
Gorgone was so nice to compile the ath drivers for me for the 2.6.35.4 kernel, but I got an error at

modprobe ath9k_htc
user.warn kernel: ath9k_hw: Unknown symbol ath_print (err 0)

I have seen in the source code, that "ath_print()" is defined in "ath/debug.c", but do not know why it is not linked.

Third try now is native compiling on Debian-dockstar, with the source package of gorgone.
When I started "make menuconfig" I got the message that ncurses is not installed. Ncurses is installed, so I tried with "make config" and "make modules", what is still running. It has not finished yet, I cross fingers.

As soon as I have something stable, I will write a wiki page.

Regards, Rudolf

Rudolf:
Thanks for your reply.
In addition to the .ko files, do you also need the ar9271.fw? Should that be put into the /lib/firmware folder? Another problem is that when I try to download it from http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/dwmw2/linux-firmware.git;a=tree, I either get a empty ar9271.fw file or if I click on the raw item, I got a file called git_kernel_org. Should I just rename it to ar9271 and use it? Otherwise, where and how I should download it?

Hello twinclouds,

I made the same experience. Then I got a firmware from an Hungarian server (53368 bytes) which was wrong.
The firmware I downloaded then from:
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/dwmw2/linux-firmware.git
Click at ath9k_htc from 2010-09-08 on snapshot, the file linux-firmware-b5ce48e.tar.gz will be generated and downloaded.
Extract ar9271.fw (51280 bytes) and put it in /lib/firmware, that worked.

With the ath9k_htc.ko driver I made progress. The local compilation now works. A precompiled binary from gorgone unfortunately did not work (error: unknown symbol ath_print), Then I compiled without debug support and at least I could load the driver and the firmware, but not more. I heard from Mosci that his installation of at9k_htc.ko works, see:
http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?2,582,1315#msg-1315

Tomorrow I will make a last try with self compiled drivers with debug support.

Regards, Rudolf



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2010 11:03PM by Rudolf.

Rudolf:
Thanks. I will try it tonight but as least the download to pc works fine.
My old airlink101/zd1211 works fine but it is too bulky. The rt73 based WN321 works but the response time was slow (ping >100ms from local lan). Don't know this WN721 will work better, once it works.

give my 2.6.35.5 kernel a try - with that the ath9k_htc works like a charm on my dockstar
link to my kernel-post
if it works - let me know ... if not - i have no idear ;-)

Hello twinclouds,
I am sorry, I gave you a link to a wrong firmware ar9271.fw. Correct is:
The firmware I downloaded then from:
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/dwmw2/linux-firmware.git
Click at ath9k_htc from 2010-09-08 on snapshot, the file linux-firmware-b5ce48e.tar.gz will be generated and downloaded.
Extract ar9271.fw (51.280 bytes) and put it in /lib/firmware, that worked.

Now I have first seen a green light from the WN721N stick (compared to red from WN321G). To my surprise the system gave it the name "wlan1". OK, I added it to /etc/network/interfaces and changed in file /etc/wicd/manager-settings.conf "wlan0" to "wlan1".
The router (Fritz.box) tells me a speed of 48 Mbit/s with 55% quality.
On the serial link (/dev/ttyS0) I see with "iwconfig" just "Bit Rate= 1 Mb/s", and I cannot connect with PUTTY.
To my surprise the green LED of WN721N is always on, on the WN321G the red LED comes on only if some traffic is there.

Puh, finally I brought it to work, but it is useless. If not someone has a good idea today, I will return it tomorrow to the dealer.

Regards, Rudolf

Rudolf:
O.K. got it. Thanks.
I also have trouble of using TL-WN321G. Will try to use WN721 to see if it works well (not receive it yet).



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2010 12:12AM by twinclouds.

Hello twinclouds,

The WN321G works very good at my site. I only had a problem streaming a WebCam with mjpg-streamer as a server via WLAN. The streaming client was Firefox on windows XP. Now I tried VLC portable Ver. 1.1.4 as a streaming client (640 x 480 px). In 2 hours no disconnection. With Firefox a connection lasted maximum 30 minutes. In VLC the streaming address was

http://192.168.17.92:8008/?action=stream

It took me a while to figure that out.

Regards, Rudolf

Hi, Rudolf:
The problem I found was that it takes WN321G longer to respond than for zd1211 when you ping it from another (Windows) computer on the same LAN. The delay could be 20ms or more while zd1211 took only less than 1 ms. I can notice a slower response when I SSH into it. However, for continuous file transfer, it is actually even slightly faster an the zd1211. I also observed a couple duplicate packets when I ping WN321G . Maybe I am just being picky but it seems that WN321G has some peculiar behavior, even though not major.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2010 11:56PM by twinclouds.

I just received the WN721N. Using ath9k-htc kernel and ar9271.fw firmware, it works very well. The pings from my PC take less than 1ms similar to zd1211, while WN321G would take tens of ms. To copy a 50MB file, 721N took 22 seconds vs. 29, 32 for 321G and zd1211, respectively. It's response time is also good.

Hi, I bought a LogiLink "Wireless N USB2.0 Adapter" which has got the USB # 148f:3070.

[  180.707750] usb 1-1.4: new high speed USB device using orion-ehci and address 4
[  180.844862] usb 1-1.4: New USB device found, idVendor=148f, idProduct=3070
[  180.851789] usb 1-1.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[  180.859162] usb 1-1.4: Product: 802.11 n WLAN
[  180.863536] usb 1-1.4: Manufacturer: Ralink
[  180.867749] usb 1-1.4: SerialNumber: 1.0
[  180.873660] usb 1-1.4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

On my DockStar, Debian Squeeze is installed, the device didn't work out of the box, so I downloaded the Ralink driver from the company's homepage. Nevertheless, after compiling, the module didn't load.

insmod: error inserting 'rt3070sta.ko': -1 Invalid module format
[  442.117141] rt3070sta: unknown relocation: 3

Well, the I installed the last wireless-compat drivers from October 1st. The module loads perfectly, the stick connects to the WLAN and associates, but I can't access any IP on my network. Not sure what to do.

not a propper kernel module !!
'rt3070sta.ko': -1 Invalid module format
[ 442.117141] rt3070sta: unknown relocation: 3

it looks like a self build without make patch

Looks like rt3070 should be supported by rt2870sta as shown in http://wiki.debian.org/rt2870sta. Have you tried it? I never did, though.

I never got the rt2870 driver properly working on Debian Squeeze. The USB stick was found and the driver was loaded, but either I did not get an IP via DHCP or the ping times were horribly slow (>100ms) or even timing out completely.

After switching to Lenny the driver was working perfectly without any issues.

Joschi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I never got the rt2870 driver properly working on
> Debian Squeeze. The USB stick was found and the
> driver was loaded, but either I did not get an IP
> via DHCP or the ping times were horribly slow
> (>100ms) or even timing out completely.
>
> After switching to Lenny the driver was working
> perfectly without any issues.

I have never had good luck with Squeeze when come to using WIFI usb adapters. I feel much comfortable with Lenny and stick with it now.
In general, I still don't know what Squeeze can offer that Lenny cannot.

Has anyone run into anything at all that Lenny can't do as easily as Squeeze?
I have a rt73 adapter but I'm waiting for a serial cable.

lenny is 2-3 years old u cant get support for new devices easy
because debian use a strict kernel rules
u have 2 wasy build own kernels or take a new version

But I found that your kernel works fine on Lenny. Is this normal?

yes its normal :-) thats linux
only the debian rules permitts the kernel upgrade directly from the distribution side..

gorgone Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> yes its normal :-) thats linux
> only the debian rules permitts the kernel upgrade
> directly from the distribution side..

So besides Kernel support new devices, Lenny can perform well. However, is this true if I need Squeeze to support new devices, I also have need to do the same thing? Is there a significant difference between Lenny and Squeeze in any functional area and device support?

WiFi works on Squeeze Now!
I reinstalled squeeze using the new bootstrap file in jeff's scripts to URL_DEBOOTSTRAP=http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/d/debootstrap/debootstrap_1.0.25_all.deb and installed the latest kernel (2.6.35.7) by grogone. I am able to boot wifi usb adapter without ethernet cable connected. Nothing else need to be added. I don't know if it is due to the new bootstrap file or the kernel. In any case, it works fine now.
One advantage I found for the squeeze distributions seems it yield smaller installation than lenny.

and it feels a bit more faster

twinclouds Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> WiFi works on Squeeze Now!
> I reinstalled squeeze using the new bootstrap file
> in jeff's scripts to
> URL_DEBOOTSTRAP=http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/po
> ol/main/d/debootstrap/debootstrap_1.0.25_all.deb
> and installed the latest kernel (2.6.35.7) by
> grogone. I am able to boot wifi usb adapter
> without ethernet cable connected. Nothing else
> need to be added. I don't know if it is due to
> the new bootstrap file or the kernel. In any
> case, it works fine now.
> One advantage I found for the squeeze
> distributions seems it yield smaller installation
> than lenny.

Hi,

I'm bit confused :) what installation procedure did you used ? Could you please post your relevant config files ?

Regards,
Adam.