Atheros 5001 wi-fi & Puppy

[whisperwalker]

tempestuous, completed procedure, ran network wizard, unable to connect. power cycled router, ran network wizard - still unable to connect. Attached is the dmesg file - thanks again for your help

[tempestuous]

completed procedure, ran network wizard, unable to connect.

At the outset, it would be really helpful if you could tell us what country you're in. I only used "USA" as an example.

Your dmesg results certainly show progress -

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ath5k phy0: DANGER! You're overriding EEPROM-defined regulatory domain.
ath5k phy0: Your card was not certified to operate on the domain you choosed.
ath5k phy0: This might result in a violation of your local regulatory rules.
ath5k phy0: Do not ever do that unless you really know what you do!
ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x8348
ath: EEPROM indicates we should expect a country code
ath: doing EEPROM country->regdmn map search
ath: country maps to regdmn code: 0x3a
ath: Country alpha2 being used: US
ath: Regpair used: 0x3a

Are you really in the USA? If so, the error message "Your card was not certified to operate on the domain you choosed." is a concern.

What about the wifi router? Was it purchased in some other country than the one you're in?
Also I'm hoping that you have disabled all encryption at your wifi router. Encryption is only going to confuse the issue during testing.

[whisperwalker]

tempestuous, USA current location; wi-fi router purchased USA - no encryption, MAC address restricted. Thanks again,

[tempestuous]

I'm running out of ideas here.
dmesg appears quite healthy - but the ath5k wifi adapter and the wifi router are failing to associate with each other.
Since we have eliminated the issue of channel/frequency compatibility, I'm now at a loss as to what else could be wrong.

You could possibly check the logs of your wifi router to obtain clues.

MAC address restricted.

Could this be blocking the wifi adapter? Run this command to check your "wlan0" MAC address -

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ifconfig -a

then check that the wifi router allows that MAC address ...
or to be certain, temporarily disable MAC address restrictions.

[whisperwalker]

tempestuous, performed your instructions for address checking and MAC filtering, it's the correct address. Turned MAC filtering off. Totally open wi-fi network and still unable to connect with Puppy.
Mint 10 is installed on this machine and it connects immediately. Began wondering if it's a Mint thing, (I'm still a newbie). So I burnt an iso of Mint 11, (w/o the codecs), for a live cd Mint test. It took a while to boot, 640mb or so, but it connected immediately also. So that got me thinking it's a Mint thing.
Really appreciate all your help with this riddle, but if it's not to be, that's cool thanks again, wm whisperwalker

[tempestuous]

It looks like the ath5k driver in Puppy 5.2.8 just doesn't play well with your wifi device, and I suspect the only solution is to move up to a more modern kernel version, which will have a more recent version of the ath5k driver.

Your results with Linux Mint add weight to this idea, since Mint 10 and 11 both have a more recent kernel than Puppy 5.2.8 :
Puppy 5.2.8 = kernel 2.6.33
Mint 10 = kernel 2.6.35
Mint 11 = 2.6.38

The good news is that the upcoming Puppy 5.2.9 will have a 2.6.37 kernel, so a (likely) Puppy-solution for you is to try the Luci-529 beta; "Three Headed Dog" available here -
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=70736

[whisperwalker]

tempestuous, Your kernel insight is spot-on! 529 connected immediately on this old Sony machine! Ten-thousand thank you's!