27/09/13

ath9k - Linux Wireless

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Go back > Atheros Linux wireless drivers

About ath9k
ath9k is a completely FOSS wireless driver for all Atheros IEEE 802.11n PCI/PCI-Express
and AHB WLAN based chipsets.
Tabla de Contenidos
1. About ath9k
2. Subscribe to this page!
3. Mailing list
4. Get the latest ath9k driver
5. Enabling ath9k
6. Supported chipsets
7. Available devices
8. Features and modes of operation
1. Modes of operation
2. Features
9. A little history on ath9k
1. When it went in
2. Early distributions which picked
it up
10. Statistics on contributions
11. Other sections

Subscribe to this page!

You should subscribe to this page so you can get e-mail updates on changes and news for
ath9k automatically. You'll get an e-mail as soon as this page gets updated.

Mailing list
Our mailing list for this driver is:
https://lists.ath9k.org/mailman/listinfo/ath9k-devel
wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k#Get_the_latest_ath9k_driver

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Get the latest ath9k driver

Any distribution shipping a kernel >= 2.6.27 will have ath9k present but the ath9k driver on
2.6.32 is the oldest one recommended, anything older than that is completely unsupported.
The latest ath9k driver can be obtained from

backports.

Enabling ath9k
To enable ath9k, you must first enable mac80211 through make menuconfig when
compiling your kernel. If you do not know what this means then please learn to compile
kernels or rely on your Linux distribution's kernel. Below are the options you need to enable
ath9k through make menuconfig.
Networking --->
Wireless --->
<M> Improved wireless configuration API
<M> Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack (mac80211)

You can then enable ath9k in the kernel configuration under

Device Drivers --->
[*] Network device support --->
Wireless LAN --->
Atheros Wireless Cards ---->
<M> Atheros 802.11n wireless cards support

Supported chipsets
SB = single-band 2.4GHz DB = dual-band 2.4GHz or 5GHz
Legacy:
AR2427 (no 802.11n hardware support, its bonded out) 1x1 SB PCIe
AR5008:
AR5418+AR5133 AR5418 = DB 11n PCIe, AR5133 = 3x3 DB 11n
AR5416+AR5133 AR5416 = DB 11n PCI
AR5416+AR2133 AR2133 = 3x3 SB 11n
AR9001:
AR9160 2x2 DB 11n
AR9102 2x2 SB 11n
AR9103 3x3 SB 11n
AR9002:
wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k#Get_the_latest_ath9k_driver

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AR9220 2x2 DB 11n PCI

AR9223 2x2 SB 11n PCI
AR9227 2x2 SB 11n PCI
AR9280 2x2 DB 11n PCIe
AR9281 2x2 SB 11n PCIe
AR9285 1x1 SB 11n PCIe
AR9287 2x2 SB 11n PCIe
AR9003:
AR9380 3x3 DB 11n PCIe
AR9382 2x2 DB 11n PCIe
AR9331 1x1 SB 11n
AR9340 2x2 DB 11n
AR9004:
AR9485 1x1 SB 11n PCIe
AR9462 2x2 DB 11n PCIe
AR9565 1x1 SB 11n PCIe
AR9580 3x3 DB 11n PCIe
AR9550 3x3 DB 11n

Available devices
See the ath9k device list.

Features and modes of operation

All of these modes of operation are supported and should work on all ath9k cards.

Modes of operation
Station Mode
AP Mode
IBSS Mode
Monitor Mode
Mesh point with HT support, as well as RSN
WDS (as of >= 2.6.37)
P2P GO/CLIENT

Features
802.11abg
802.11n
wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k#Get_the_latest_ath9k_driver

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HT20
HT40
AMPDU
Short GI (Both 20 and 40 MHz)
LDPC
TX/RX STBC
802.11i
WEP 64 / 127
WPA1 / WPA2
802.11d
802.11h
802.11w/D7.0
WPS
WMM
LED
RFKILL
BT co-existence
64-bit support / big endian, small endian
AHB and PCI bus
TDLS
WoW
Antenna Diversity

A little history on ath9k

When it went in
ath9k was announced to have been
merged into Linux-2.6.27-rc3 by Linus on Tue, 12
Aug 2008 19:33:16 -0700 (PDT), and consisted of 58.8% of the entire rc3 patch.

Early distributions which picked it up

OpenWrt became the

first distribution to pick up ath9k and contribute to it.

Statistics on contributions
Visit the
ath9k contribution graphs. You can help keep this up to date if you like. If
interested contact the ath9k driver maintainers.

Other sections
For more information please see:
Bugs
wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k#Get_the_latest_ath9k_driver

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Power consumption
Bluetooth Coexistence
Antenna Diversity
Wake on WLAN
DFS
Debugging
Products with supported ath9k cards
ath.ko module
RHEL
initvals-tool
Vista de impresin
Ingresar
About this site

wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k#Get_the_latest_ath9k_driver

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