OpenWrt Forum Archive

Topic: WRT54GL and linux/drivers

The content of this topic has been archived on 6 May 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

Post #1
S0625
21 Dec 2006, 21:22

Hello Everyone!


I have a Linksys WRT54GL router. I tried installing 2.6 version kernel that comes with Kamikaze; make menuconfig showed that "atheros wifi" is the only option available;

After flashing the firmware, the wireless seems to work (as I am able to telnet/ssh to it through the wireless interface), but I on doing an "iwconfig", i get "no wireless extensions" for all the interfaces ... why is this the case?

Here is what I would like to do, but I am stuck right now ::

1. I want to be able to put the interface into monitor mode etc, but "iwconfig" does not work. Are there any alternatives to do this?

2. Is it better to install 2.4 kernel instead ?

3. What is the wireless driver that is being used? Is it an open source driver? (It might be easier for me to make some changes I want if the driver is open source)

4. Do you suggest switching to a different router? What is the router that is best supported by OpenWRT? Madwifi is open source, so having madwifi on a router would be useful to me -- what is the best router for having the combination of openWRT and madwifi ?


Any suggestions/comments would be of great help to me. Thanks a lot for the same!

Best,
-SK

Post #2
candlerb
22 Dec 2006, 10:12

I can't understand how you connected via the wireless interface - you need Broadcom wifi for the Linksys. The Broadcom driver is a binary-only object (not open source) which only runs under a 2.4 kernel. There's an attempt at writing a 2.6 open source driver, but it's very experimental, mainly because Broadcom don't release the programming specs for their hardware.

So for your existing hardware you need to rebuild with a 2.4 kernel, which will offer you Broadcom wifi as an option. Or just use White Russian RC6 if you want something which just works out-of-the-box.

I don't know what hardware currently works with madwifi - probably something with an Atheros mini-PCI card. The Atheros system-on-chip devices (including Fonera, Meraki Mini and Compex WP54WRT) are not currently supported by OpenWrt, although I have heard rumours this will happen Real Soon Now.

The discussion might have continued from here.