Install Atheros AR242x 802.11abg Wireless Driver in Ubuntu

Recently I had a chance to install Ubuntu 9.04 in an ASUS EEE PC for a friend of mine. Everything was working smoothly except wireless which was  Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01). Eventhough available drivers were listed on Hardware Driver, it was already in active mode and still not working. Finally i got it working. Here is what i did.

•  Goto System > Administration > Hardware Drivers and disable both Atheros HAL and the Atheros wireless listed and then reboot.
• Now install build-essential and subversion. Goto Applications > Accessories > Terminal and type as follows.

 sudo apt-get install build-essential subversion

Now make a new directory  in you home.

     cd ~
     mkdir madwifi

Now cd into the newly created directory, madwifi.

  cd madwifi

Download the code now.

svn co https://svn.madwifi-project.org/madwifi/branches/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6

After finishing downloading subversion cd into directory madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6

  cd madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6

Run make to build the driver.

  make

Install the driver.

 sudo make install

Now you have to add the Atheros kernel module to the list of modules to be automatically loaded at boot by adding “ ath_pci ” (without the quotes) to the end of the /etc/modules file. I used gedit here. You can use the editor of your choice.

 sudo gedit /etc/modules

Reboot. It should work now. Let me know if there is any problem with this guide.