Acer Aspire 4715z Wireless Configuration on Ubuntu 7.10

if you are familiar with windows xp installation steps, installing and configuring wireless LAN card is as simple as clicking an executable installation program.

this tutorial will describing step by step to configure wireless LAN on Ubuntu 7.10, this tutorial is compatible with all Acer Aspire series or maybe all notebooks that using Atheros AR5006EG cards.


first thing todo is, check your wireless lan card availability(see red marks below) using lspci command.

# sudo lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8039 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5006EG 802.11 b/g Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

if you are seeing the text in red marks, it's mean your wireless lan card is detected, but the problem is, you cannot find it in network manager. to make sure your wireless lan card is detected, use the lshw command.

# lshw -C network
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: 88E8039 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller
vendor: Marvell Technology Group Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
logical name: eth0
version: 15
serial: 00:1d:72:04:33:69
capacity: 100MB/s
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm vpd msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=sky2 driverversion=1.18 firmware=N/A ip=10.10.5.30 latency=0 link=no module=sky2 multicast=yes port=twisted pair
*-network UNCLAIMED
description: Ethernet controller
product: AR5006EG 802.11 b/g Wireless PCI Express Adapter
vendor: Atheros Communications, Inc.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
version: 01
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix cap_list
configuration: latency=0

if you wireless lan status is UNCLAIMED, it's mean there is no alias assigned to you wireless lan card. the correct alias for this device is "wlan0" or "ath0". you can fix this using ndiswrapper (install it using apt-get install ndiswrapper)
then download atheros device driver for windows containing(net5211.inf.inf and net5211.sys file ) search google and then follow this steps below...

install ndiswrapper
# sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper
# sudo apt-get install ndisgtk
install the driver
# sudo ndiswrapper -i /path/ke/net5211.inf
make sure your device status is "present"
# sudo ndiswrapper -l

use this code to assign an alias for your wireless lan card. make sure the alias is either "wlan0" or "ath0"
# sudo ndiswrapper -m
write the alias to /etc/modprob.d/ndiswrapper using this command.
# sudo ndiswrapper -ma
then load the driver and blacklist the default driver to prevent conflict
# sudo loadndisdriver
# sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
# sudo rmmod ath_pci
# echo "blacklist ath_pci" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
# echo "ndiswrapper" | sudo tee -a /etc/modules
The las step to complete this configuration is RESTART....

#sudo init 6

Now you can see your wireless lan is working now(check wireless manager)...