NetGear WNA1100 Wireless-N 150 Atheros AR9271 chipset

[bobbydriver]

Has anyone got this Netgear wireless dongle working on Raspbian?

The Pi recognises it is plugged n and lsusb command tells me

Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0846:9030 NetGear, Inc. WNA1100 Wireless-N 150 [Atheros AR9271]

I then noticed when it boots, the syslog says

Oct 23 20:52:33 squeezePI kernel: [ 3.371429] usb 1-1.3: Product: WNA1100
Oct 23 20:52:33 squeezePI kernel: [ 3.381580] usb 1-1.3: Manufacturer: NETGEAR WNA
Oct 23 20:52:33 squeezePI kernel: [ 3.388795] usb 1-1.3: SerialNumber: 12345
Oct 23 20:52:33 squeezePI kernel: [ 4.907819] bcm2708_i2c bcm2708_i2c.0: BSC0 Controller at 0x20205000 (irq 79)
Oct 23 20:52:33 squeezePI kernel: [ 5.054835] bcm2708_spi bcm2708_spi.0: SPI Controller at 0x20204000 (irq 80)
Oct 23 20:52:33 squeezePI kernel: [ 5.110822] bcm2708_i2c bcm2708_i2c.1: BSC1 Controller at 0x20804000 (irq 79)
Oct 23 20:52:33 squeezePI kernel: [ 5.323263] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
Oct 23 20:52:33 squeezePI kernel: [ 6.361976] usb 1-1.3: ath9k_htc: Firmware - htc_9271.fw not found
Oct 23 20:52:33 squeezePI kernel: [ 6.376727] ath9k_htc: probe of 1-1.3:1.0 failed with error -22
Oct 23 20:52:33 squeezePI kernel: [ 6.401203] usbcore: registered new interface driver ath9k_htc
Oct 23 20:52:33 squeezePI kernel: [ 6.628643] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:

So it's not finding the driver - I found the required Atheros firmware drivers here
http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k_htc
and it says that all I need to do is put in in the /lib/firmware directory

I did that and next time I boot it says something slightly different about firmware loading store vmap failed - then the same errors as before

Oct 25 18:40:27 squeezePI kernel: [ 6.016412] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
Oct 25 18:40:27 squeezePI kernel: [ 7.106836] firmware 1-1.2: firmware_loading_store: vmap() failed
Oct 25 18:40:27 squeezePI kernel: [ 7.115772] usb 1-1.2: ath9k_htc: Firmware - htc_9271.fw not found
Oct 25 18:40:27 squeezePI kernel: [ 7.128257] ath9k_htc: probe of 1-1.2:1.0 failed with error -22
Oct 25 18:40:27 squeezePI kernel: [ 7.142810] usbcore: registered new interface driver ath9k_htc
Oct 25 18:40:27 squeezePI kernel: [ 7.382360] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:

Doing an lsmod tells me that the Atheros modules are loaded

ath9k_htc 54918 0
mac80211 236178 1 ath9k_htc
ath9k_common 3181 1 ath9k_htc
ath9k_hw 376754 2 ath9k_common,ath9k_htc
ath 16648 3 ath9k_hw,ath9k_common,ath9k_htc
cfg80211 171957 3 ath,mac80211,ath9k_htc

So I'm a bit baffled - I'm fairly new to Linux, having been a UNIX sysadmin 20 years ago (Ultrix..any remember that?) - things like networking are all new to what I used to know in the darkest past.

Anyway - hopefully I'm just doing something fundamentally wrong, or missing a step, so any advice is welcome...

[redhawk]

I have a Virgin Media wifi dongle aka Netgear WNDA3200 it has a similar chipset to the N150 so the following procedure may work for you (tested on Raspbian and Xbian).

sudo apt-get install firmware-atheros
sudo apt-get install usb-modeswitch <- required if your dongle has a virtual CD-ROM drive.
sudo modprobe ath9k_htc

To test your wifi dongle you need to enter the following command: iwlist scan
If no networks are reported then your dongle is underpowered you may require a powered USB hub.

Richard S.

[bobbydriver]

when I do the apt-get install firmware-atheros

It reads in the package lists but then can't find the atheros package?

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package firmware-atheros

My source.list file says:

# deb http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/ wheezy main
deb http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
deb-src http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
## Raspberry Pi Foundation official repository
deb http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian wheezy main contrib non-free

[redhawk]

hmm strange, is your internet connection working??

I just tried apt-get install firmware-atheros on Xbian again and it's fine:

root@XBian:~# apt-get install firmware-atheros
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
initramfs-tools linux-image
The following NEW packages will be installed:
firmware-atheros
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 426 kB of archives.
After this operation, 733 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://archive.raspbian.org/raspbian/ wheezy/non-free firmware-atheros all 0.36 [426 kB]
Fetched 426 kB in 0s (682 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package firmware-atheros.
(Reading database ... 30095 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking firmware-atheros (from .../firmware-atheros_0.36_all.deb) ...
Setting up firmware-atheros (0.36) ...
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/locale: 0 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/man: 0 KiB

Total disk space freed by localepurge: 0 KiB

root@XBian:~#

If apt-get still won't install then download the deb file directly: http://archive.raspbian.org/raspbian/po ... 36_all.deb

Richard S.

[bobbydriver]

Jackpot...

No idea why the apt-get couldn't find the Atheros firmware - I am online and it found the USB-Modeswitch package without any issues (and all other apt-gets I've done)

Anyway - downloading the deb manually and installing it with dpkg -i seems to have worked

Rebooted and the LED is on and iwconfig picks it up just fine now!

Many thanks