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ar9170
ar9170usb is a GPL driver for the Atheros 802.11n USB chipset (AR9170).
See also otus, the driver which ar9170 is based on.
Contents
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.
two stage: recommended firmware
The firmware files are included in the firmware tree. The
retrieved the files through git.
git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/dwmw2/linux-firmware.git md5sum linux-firmware/ar9170-[12].fw
compare the generated the checksums.
firmware checksums
filename
md5sum
ar9170-1.fw
bebf8de7bf0aa8ae3eb395cc6be2e762
ar9170-2.fw
33ae4899340c75be4bc80c34fbe5d171
copy the files into the right place.
sudo cp linux-firmware/ar9170-[12].fw /lib/firmware/
delete the linux-firmware directory.
one stage: 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
available devices
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.