Stable compat-wireless releases

This page is dedicated to the stable kernel compat-wireless releases. This started with the announcement of work for 2.6.30-rc series and will continue for all stable kernels releases. These stable releases are intended for users looking for more stability than what bleeding edge compat-wireless releases provide.

Case for support

Wireless vendors are encouraged to use these releases for support purposes as no extra tree needs to be created and supported. Stable fixes must always be sent upstream as well. This ensures wireless vendors are testing with stable kernels and helping stabilize the kernels further.

Releases

Recommended

We recommend these the following userspace applications to be installed:

• wireless-regdb

• CRDA

• iw

Prerequisites

Check if you have installed fitting linux-headers for your running kernel. To install them e.g. for Debian systems do:

apt-get update
apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Note: Verify if /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build points to the location where linux-headers are installed:

ls -l /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build

Output (here as symlink):
/lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build -> /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r)

A possible warning could be like this (here: .../build pointed to an extracted - but uncompiled or cleaned - kernel-source):

...
  WARNING: Symbol version dump $HOME/src/linux/Module.symvers
           is missing; modules will have no dependencies and modversions.
...

Unpacking source

After downloading, unpack the source by typing (as example: version 2.6.30):

tar -xf /path/to/compat-wireless-2.6.30.tar.bz2

Note: Modern tar selects decompressor automatically (otherwise add "–bzip2" or "-j").

Building and installing

cd /path/to/compat-wireless-2.6.30
make
sudo make install
sudo make unload

Loading

To load the new shiny drivers either reboot or just modprobe the module you want. To test whether or not the new drivers are being picked up you can use modprobe -l on the modules, you should see the wireless modules being picked up using the updates/ directory instead of the kernel/ directory. For example:

$ modules="cfg80211 mac80211 ath9k"
$ for i in $modules; do sudo modprobe -l $i; done
/lib/modules/2.6.27-11-generic/updates/net/wireless/cfg80211.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.27-11-generic/updates/net/mac80211/mac80211.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.27-11-generic/updates/drivers/net/wireless/ath9k/ath9k.ko

Note that the make install command will output this for you so you can just look at that.

Note #2: If you got no network connection automatically, try to restart your network. For Debian systems do:

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

Bugs

If you find a bug, please ensure you are on the latest kernel for that series. Bugs should be reported upstream on the http://bugzilla.kernel.org/. You may also want to address this on the linux-wireless mailing list first. For more details please see our reporting bugs guidelines.

Patches

If you have a patch for an bug please also ensure you are using the latest release for the respective kernel. If unsure you can ask on the linux-wireless mailing list. If you are sure its a fix you can send the patches to:

To: stable@kernel.org
Cc: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org