hello all!

This is my first post and I am new to KDE. I chose Netrunner 13.06 (Enigma) as my first KDE distro running linux 3.8.0-23-generic x86_64. I installed in on my desktop which is a HP A6000. The issue that I am having is in regards to the wireless adapter which is a d-link DWA-552 pci-e adapter. When I installed Netrunner from the live CD the wifi was working, when I installed the OS it was working (as a note i am running a windows vista 64-bit driver for the DWA-552 through ndiswrapper)...then I started to tinker because of poor internet connectivity. When I looked at the network info I was getting around 52 Mbit/s connection which resulted in lackluster speeds...even though my phone and tablet sitting on the same desk as the computer were achieving much higher speeds. I noticed that the band being used for connectivity was b/g and I did a bunch of Googling in order to get the N band working..I input the following

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sudo rmmod ath9k
sudo modprobe ath9k 11n_disable=0

i got an error on the second command saying there was no ath9k directory. Having entered the first command, obviously the ath9k was removed from the kernel and my wifi stopped working. I did some more Googling on how to re enable the ath9k driver on the kernal. I found a command that worked beautifully for me.

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sudo modprobe -b ath9k

At this point everything was working fine....until i restarted. When Netrunner restarted not only was I not able to connect to the internet but I was unable even detect any wireless networks. I did some more digging I ran:

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sudo lspci -v

and got the following for the wireless network controller

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01:0a.0  Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5416 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5008 802.11(a)bgn] (rev 01)
Subsystem: D-Link System Inc DWA-552 802.11n Xtreme N Desktop Adapter (rev A1)
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 7
Memory at fdee0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: [40] #80 [0000]
Capabilities: [80] #00 [0000]


Also, when looking at the windows wireless drivers, the driver is still loaded and recognizes the adapter...I am kind of wits end and have really exhausted google to find a solution on my own and am not getting it. Any insight would be helpful...I apologize if there are typos in the output above i had to hand type it as the desktop cannot get on the net to write this post.

Help me please!

Not my thing but most wireless drivers are all ready installed in the kernel and should just work see http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k, I'm not sure why you're running a Windows Vista driver under ndiswrapper and wonder if that's your problem.

Please check /etc/modprobe.d/ to ensure the ath9k driver is not blacklisted. The commands "rmmod" and "modprobe" should not have caused the above problems you are mentioning however, as they are purely runtime, and shouldn't change the system configuration.

It certainly sounds like your card may have more than one driver attempting to operate it - and one of them isn't actually able to make it work.
For the wireless adapter, does it have a line reading "Kernel driver in use:" below it in the output of "lspci -v"?

Checked modprobe.d here are the contents with a blacklist in front there are a total of 8.

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blacklist-ath_pci.conf
blacklist.conf
blacklist-firewire.conf
blacklist-framebuffer.conf
blacklist-modem.conf
blacklist-oss.conf
blacklist-rare-network.conf
blacklist-watchdog.conf


as far as the ndiswrapper driver...i installed it after some connectivity issue..I agree though the ath9k driver supports my hardware and there shouldnt be an issue..However removing the ndiswrapper driver does not fix the problem.

thanks so much for the response.

I would suggest removing ndiswrapper, then grepping the contents of /etc/modprobe.d/ for mentions regarding the ath9k driver, and post those here.

SOLVED.

I got to sleep on it and went back at it this am. After reading bcooksley's post recommending that the ndiswrapper driver and the default ath9k would be interfering with each other I took the following steps to remedy the problem.

1. removed the ndiswrapper driver I had loaded. I did not remove ndiswrapper.

2. Used the following to re-initialize the ath9k driver.

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sudo modprobe -b ath9k


3. at this point the wireless was working but I still had the issue of ath9k not being loaded on start up and I could not find it specifically being blacklisted in etc/modprobe.d. So in order to force it to initialize at the end of each user session I added the following to etc/rc.local

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#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.
modprobe -b ath9k
if [ $? == 0 ]
then
exit 0
else
exit 1
fi


4. After restarting and from now on my wireless works. I am not sure if this is the proper cure to my original issue but it is working. I am more than open to hearing any suggestions to a better and more permanent means to an end.

Thanks for the help guys

In terms of the ath9k blacklisting issue, you might want to consult your distribution - they might know more. It wouldn't surprise me if ndiswrapper shipped with a file which blacklisted most of the wireless drivers on your system.