Madwifi on FC6 - Wireless Card Misconfigures as Ethernet

[Temlakos]

kalinix wrote:

>On Mon, 2007-01-08 at 01:08 -0500, Temlakos wrote:
>  
>
>>Anyone:
>>
>>Just installed FC6 on a Dell Inspiron 1200 having a Netgear Dual Band 
>>Wireless Card Model WAG511.
>>
>>I installed the madwifi and kmod-madwifi packages for the latest 
>>kernel--an i686 kernel; I made sure of that.
>>
>>But the hardware device is misconfigured as though it were an Ethernet 
>>card, and not a Wireless card.
>>
>>As a result, the system doesn't even know that it has a wireless card in 
>>place.
>>
>>Attempts to establish a "New Wireless Connection" require me to specify 
>>"Other Wireless Card"--and no Netgear cards show up. Any device I try to 
>>put in, won't probe for the MAC address.
>>
>>Result: I can't configure wireless settings, nor put in a WEP pass-key.
>>
>>And when I force the MAC address, the drivers still won't run.
>>
>>What now, short of reverting to FC4 to get back my last known good setup?
>>
>>Temlakos
>>
>>    
>>
>
>I can only tell how I fixed this for an atheros card, using the same
>driver (madwifi)
>
>"su -" to become root and edit /etc/modprobe.conf ("using your favorite
>editor" ;) )
>
>remove the line containing wifi0
>
>add a line "alias ath0 ath_pci"
>
>and reboot.
>
>After reboot you will be able to see ath0 as wireless card and configure
>it in Network Manager
>
>
>Again, this is how I did and worked for me.
>
>
>HTH,
>
>
>
>Calin Cosma
>
>=================================================
>I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it.
>
>  
>
It did. All I had to do was to change the alias. Of course what happened 
is that the Hardware tab in system-config-network gained a /new line/ 
that showed ath-pci as a Wireless deviced nicknamed ath0. Once I had 
that, I could set up a new wireless connection, save it to the profile, 
and activate it.

I still have a long way to go to configure the laptop for all I want on 
FC6, but now I know it's worth it.

For the benefit of /any other user/ who has the same problem: I flatly 
don't know why "wifi0" looks like an Ethernet peripheral when it's not 
supposed to be. But Calin is right: the proper alias is /ath0/ and if 
"ath-pci" has any other alias, you have to change it. I used "su" to 
become root, changed to /etc, and then used vim (that /is/ my favorite 
command-line-started editor) to edit the file modprobe.conf.

I still say this is a bug in system-config-network, or perhaps in the 
madwifi or kmod-madwifi rpm. Somebody ought to report that. Workarounds 
are fine, but this is exactly the sort of thing that is going to make 
people throw up their hands in frustration.

Unless we all want to set up a standard for /certification/ as a Fedora 
technician. But that's another topic.

In the meantime: Thanks, Calin, for your help, and for responding far 
more quickly (ten hours) than a Microsoft techie would have.

Temlakos