NOTE: this page is for archival only, see the note at the end of the page.

Go back –> Atheros Linux wireless drivers

ar9170

ar9170usb was a GPL driver for the Atheros 802.11n USB chipset (AR9170). It is replaced by carl9170.

This driver is deprecated and it was deleted off the kernel tree (on Linux 3.0 (aka 2.6.40)) http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=b0006e69615868f3dfdfe2bd64eb11973f1208fc

ar9170 is based on otus.

caveats

Before you can use the hardware, you have to get the the right firmware.

device driver

ar9170 will be part of the 2.6.31 kernel release but new updates (such as AVM Fritz support, and support for the one stage open source firmware) will be available until 2.6.32. You can however get the latest ar9170 driver, as targeted in the wireless-testing development tree by using git to get wireless-testing directly or by using the compat-wireless tarball which will get you only the wireless drivers.

open firmware

Firmware is open! Go check the ar9170.fw page.

official device firmware

You have to pick the right one, download and put it into the right place. Normally this should be /lib/firmware. However some distributions put firmware in a different place.

  • one stage: adds support for AVM FRITZ!WLAN USB Stick N and AVM FRITZ!WLAN USB Stick 2.4

    • Download ar9170.fw and put it into the right place.

      firmware checksums

      filename

      md5sum

      ar9170.fw

      34feec4ec0eae3bb92c7c1ea2dfb4530

  • two stage: legacy firmware

    • The firmware files are included in the firmware tree. Download ar9170-1.fw, ar9170-2.fw and put them into the right place.

      firmware checksums

      filename

      md5sum

      ar9170-1.fw

      bebf8de7bf0aa8ae3eb395cc6be2e762

      ar9170-2.fw

      33ae4899340c75be4bc80c34fbe5d171

available devices

Vendor
Product USB Vendor
USB Product
MaxPower
3Com Dual Band 802.11n USB 0x0cf3 0x1010
Actiontec 802AIN Wireless N 0x1668 0x1200
Airlive X.USB 11a/b/g/n 0x1b75 0x9170
Arcadyan WN7512 0x083a 0xf522
Atheros 9170 0x0cf3 0x9170
Atheros TG121N 0x0cf3 0x1001
AVM FRITZ!WLAN USB Stick N 0x057c 0x8401
AVM FRITZ!WLAN USB Stick N 2.4 0x057c 0x8402
Cace Airpcap NX 0xcace 0x0300
D-Link DWA-130 D 0x07d1 0x3a0f
D-Link DWA-160 A1 0x07d1 0x3c10
D-Link DWA-160 A2 0x07d1 0x3a09
H3C Dual Band 802.11n USB 0x0cf3 0x1011
IO-Data WNGDNUS2 0x04bb 0x093f
NEC WL300NU-AG 0x0409 0x02b4
NEC WL300NU-G 0x0409 0x0249
Netgear WN111 v2 0x0846 0x9001
Netgear WNA1000 0x0846 0x9040
Netgear WNDA3100 (v1) 0x0846 0x9010 500mA
Planex GWUS300 0x2019 0x5304
Proxim ORiNOCO 802.11n USB 0x1435 0x0804
Sphairon Homelink 1202 0x0cde 0x0027
TP-LINK TL-WN821N v2 0x0cf3 0x1002 500mA
WNC Generic 11n USB Dongle 0x1435 0x0326
Z-Com UB81 BG 0x0cde 0x0023
Z-Com UB82 ABG 0x0cde 0x0026
Zydas ZD1221 0x0ace 0x1221
Zyxel NWD271N 0x0586 0x3417

features

  • 802.11abgn/bgn (depending on hardware)
  • 1 or 2 spatial streams for 802.11n (depending on hardware)

working

  • 802.11 a/b/g
  • Ad-hoc, monitor and station mode
  • Cryptographic accelerator in station mode
  • SoftLEDs

not working yet

  • Cryptographic accelerator in Ad-hoc mode
  • Adaptive Noise Immunity
  • Lots of other things

Sharing code between drivers

ar9170 makes use of ath.ko module for help with regulatory.


This is a static dump of the old wiki, taken after locking it in January 2015. The new wiki is at https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/.
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