Sluggish/Unresponsive internet with wireless.

[Zeorymer]

To the point: Internet connectivity is spotty at best, despite wicd reporting a near-perfect connection to my router. This (I'm guessing) has to do with the current set of atheros wifi modules (ath5k specifically).

Ubuntu had the same issue, but after installing the backported modules, it began to work as it was supposed to do.

I tried getting the most recent ones to compile/install but compile fails due to no kernel source available (its locked in GSlapt).


What should I do here?

It took me about 5 tries to post this one message.

[gapan]

http://www.salixos.org/wiki/index.php/H ... nel_source

[Zeorymer]

This is what happens when I try to make compat-wireless that I found here: http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download

Code: Select all

root[compat-wireless-2.6.33.5]# make
./scripts/gen-compat-autoconf.sh config.mk > include/linux/compat_autoconf.h
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.33.4-smp/build M=/home/jerichokru/Downloads/compat-wireless-2.6.33.5 modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.33.4'
  CC [M]  /home/jerichokru/Downloads/compat-wireless-2.6.33.5/compat/main.o
/home/jerichokru/Downloads/compat-wireless-2.6.33.5/compat/main.c:8:2: error: #error "You need a COMPAT_BASE_TREE"
/home/jerichokru/Downloads/compat-wireless-2.6.33.5/compat/main.c:12:2: error: #error "You need a COMPAT_BASE_TREE_VERSION"
/home/jerichokru/Downloads/compat-wireless-2.6.33.5/compat/main.c:16:2: error: #error "You need a COMPAT_VERSION"
/home/jerichokru/Downloads/compat-wireless-2.6.33.5/compat/main.c:19: error: 'COMPAT_BASE_TREE' undeclared here (not in a function)
/home/jerichokru/Downloads/compat-wireless-2.6.33.5/compat/main.c:20: error: 'COMPAT_BASE_TREE_VERSION' undeclared here (not in a function)
/home/jerichokru/Downloads/compat-wireless-2.6.33.5/compat/main.c:21: error: 'COMPAT_VERSION' undeclared here (not in a function)
/home/jerichokru/Downloads/compat-wireless-2.6.33.5/compat/main.c: In function 'compat_init':
/home/jerichokru/Downloads/compat-wireless-2.6.33.5/compat/main.c:41: error: expected ')' before 'COMPAT_PROJECT'
/home/jerichokru/Downloads/compat-wireless-2.6.33.5/compat/main.c:45: error: expected ')' before 'COMPAT_BASE_TREE'
make[3]: *** [/home/jerichokru/Downloads/compat-wireless-2.6.33.5/compat/main.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** [/home/jerichokru/Downloads/compat-wireless-2.6.33.5/compat] Error 2
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/jerichokru/Downloads/compat-wireless-2.6.33.5] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.33.4'
make: *** [modules] Error 2

And for madwifi:

Code: Select all

root[madwifi-0.9.4]# make
./kernelversion.c:13:30: error: linux/utsrelease.h: No such file or directory
Checking requirements... ok.
Checking kernel configuration... /bin/sh: -c: line 0: syntax error near unexpected token `|'
/bin/sh: -c: line 0: `echo char *uts_release = UTS_RELEASE; | grep -q -i '^[2-9]\.[4-9]\.' || { \'
make: *** [configcheck] Error 1

[Shador]

Regarding compat-wireless, it sounds like some sort of configuration problem as it's missing some defines.
Madwifi probably got a bug in their (configure?) script.

echo char *uts_release = UTS_RELEASE; | grep -q -i '^[2-9]\.[4-9]\.'

The problem is the ';' in there. It's the char used to mark the end of a command and shouldn't be there. But it's hard to blame anything with sufficient context.
I guess both drivers are just incompatible with linux 2.6.33.x as for example utsrelease.h is in fact there but not (anymore?) inside linux/ but inside include/generated/ instead.

[Zeorymer]

Regarding compat-wireless, it sounds like some sort of configuration problem as it's missing some defines.
Madwifi probably got a bug in their (configure?) script.

echo char *uts_release = UTS_RELEASE; | grep -q -i '^[2-9]\.[4-9]\.'

The problem is the ';' in there. It's the char used to mark the end of a command and shouldn't be there. But it's hard to blame anything with sufficient context.
I guess both drivers are just incompatible with linux 2.6.33.x as for example utsrelease.h is in fact there but not (anymore?) inside linux/ but inside include/generated/ instead.

What should I do though?

I set the proper utsrelease path and it still can't find it. I can't remove the ";" either:

Code: Select all

[madwifi-0.9.4]$ make
./kernelversion.c:13:30: error: include/generated/utsrelease.h: No such file or directory
Checking requirements... ok.
Checking kernel configuration... FAILED
Only kernel versions 2.4.x and above are supported.
You have char *uts_release = UTS_RELEASE.
make: *** [configcheck] Error 1

I don't know what to do here...I need properly working wireless.

[Shador]

In case you use kernel 2.6.25 or newer, you need to get this snapshot of the madwifi-0.9.4 branch instead of the v0.9.4 release! That snapshot is basically v0.9.4 plus compilation fixes for recent kernels.

Compat wireless (bleeding egde snapshot 2010-06-19) is building fine here with Salix 13.1 + kernel-huge 2.6.33.4 (+ kernel-source/-headers).

Out-of-tree drivers have always been problematic as the linux kernel is changing extremely fast making it extremely hard to keep patches up-to-date. Therefor I haven't had an exactly great experience with them so far (exceptions exist like nvidia driver, maybe tuxonice and probably others).

[Zeorymer]

In case you use kernel 2.6.25 or newer, you need to get this snapshot of the madwifi-0.9.4 branch instead of the v0.9.4 release! That snapshot is basically v0.9.4 plus compilation fixes for recent kernels.

Compat wireless (bleeding egde snapshot 2010-06-19) is building fine here with Salix 13.1 + kernel-huge 2.6.33.4 (+ kernel-source/-headers).

Out-of-tree drivers have always been problematic as the linux kernel is changing extremely fast making it extremely hard to keep patches up-to-date. Therefor I haven't had an exactly great experience with them so far (exceptions exist like nvidia driver, maybe tuxonice and probably others).

I actually found trunk builds for both compat wireless(dated 6/19) and madwifi(6/20), which built and installed without issue.

I'll test it later to see if it works.