I have had no problems at all with ath5k on an AR5007EG card in an ACER Aspire 5100
laptop. I only use the same network with a 128bit WEP key and I don't use
NetworkManager.
Your system isn't trying to load both ath5k and ath_pci by any chance?
Message: 11
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:41:04 -0400
From: Scott Robbins <scottro(a)nyc.rr.com>
Subject: ath5k module vs. MadWifi
To: fedora-test-list(a)redhat.com
Message-ID: <20081101034104.GA8554(a)mail.scottro.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
I am wondering, for those who have an AR5007EG card, if
they are finding
that lately (perhaps 2 updates or so ago) that they are
better off
reverting to the MadWifi drivers.
My results are not consistent. I imagine there are various
differences
in the chipsets that I'm missing, but with two Acer
laptops, one the
Aspire One, I get different results. With the 4720z, the
latest kernels
and ath5k module works without any issues. On the AA1, it
will
sometimes show nothing if doing iwlist scan, and other
times, though it
will show available networks, will not get a DHCP address,
nor work with
a statically assigned address. I don't use
NetworkManager, I configure
it manually, so that shouldn't be a factor.
I note that the latest Ubuntu is disabling the ath5k module
by default,
saying, in their release notes, that it will conflict with
the MadWifi
driver--however, they seem a bit ambiguous as to which
works better.
(They say that with some of the chipsets, the MadWifi
won't work with
WPA, or maybe WPA2.) In that case, one wonders why they
are disabling
the ath5k instead of encouraging people to use it--this is
why I felt it
was a bit ambiguous, they just suggest that if your MadWifi
driver isn't
working, install a backports modules with updated ath5k
drivers.
The 4720z is working well with the ath5k. So this might be
some issue
with the AA1, however, I have a few installations on this
machine--those
that are using the MadWifi driver connect without issue,
while Rawhide
isn't.
So, I'm wondering what other people are experiencing.
Is the ath5k
working for you?
Thanks for any input--please note that at present, this is
a fairly
trivial question as it's quite easy to blacklist and
put in the MadWifi
driver. Then, I uninstall it and put back the ath5k with
each update.