Ubuntu Wiki

• Contact: Polygon

• Make: Compaq
• Brand: Presario F700
• Model: F767NR
• Wireless Chipset: Atheros AR242x

• Website: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?product=3629552&lc=en&cc=uk&dlc=en&rule=37707&lang=en

Current Issues

*occasional freeze, seems to be related to suspending and resuming of ubuntu

*occasional issue where programs will suddenly start refusing to run, and leads to system freeze

*as of hardy, you need to compile a special branch of madwifi to get wireless working. See notes at the bottom of this page

*as of hardy, you need to install network manager 7.0 in order for wireless to work reliably. see notes at the bottom of this page

* when the battery starts getting low, ubuntu does not notify you that your battery is low by a pop up or anything and the laptop does not suspend or shutdown on critically low battery, even if its set in power management. But the battery icon and ETA remaining and stuff is all accurate however....so just watch your battery icon =P (EDIT: JULY 11: i actually just saw a libnotify popup saying the battery is low, so the auto shutoff/suspend might be working now, ill try it out sometime)

*wireless switch light doesnt change from orange to blue, but this doesnt effect functionality so its not important.

* touchpad sometimes ignores the settings set in mouse options, but as i have also found this in other distros, i believe it is a gnome (or some other package) bug.

System Info

Compaq Presario F700 Notebook PC

Hardware details

Notes

HOW TO GET WIRELESS TO WORK RELIABLY FOR HARDY 8.04 (last updated 7/6/08)

Ok, what you are going to be doing in this is compiling a newer, special branch of madwifi and installing a newer (and better) version of network manager. These things might be included by default in intrepid when it comes out. Your also going to need an internet connection, so if you have internet working now, even if its shaky, don't disconnect it yet.

first off, you need to install some packages. the easiest way to do this is to open the terminal (applications > accessories > terminal ) and copy and paste this:

sudo apt-get install build-essential subversion

then after entering your password, the packages will be installed.

Now, still in the terminal, copy/paste the following command.

cd ~/

changes to your home directory

mkdir svn

makes a new directory in your home folder, svn

cd svn

changes to the svn directory

svn co http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/branches/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6/

does a subversion check out (co) of the madwifi directory. this means it will download the drivers you will need to install. After its done,

cd madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6

changes to the madwifi directory

make

starts compiling the code, it will error out if you don't have build-essential installed, but if you followed the instructions, you should have it.

after its done, (can take a while), the code will be compiled and ready to be installed. But, we are not going to install it just yet! We are going to be disconnecting your internet, so save this page if you wont have access to the internet after you disconnect.

Go to the restricted driver manager (system > administration > hardware drivers) and enter your password. deselect all the atheros entries. It will prompt you for a restart, do that now.

Ok restarted? good. Now, there should be no atheros drivers on your system now, we removed them so they wouldn't conflict with the new ones we are about to install. So, now open up the terminal again, and change directories back to the madwifi directory

cd ~/svn/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6/

and now type

sudo make install

it will ask you for your password, so enter it, and it will install the drivers

Now you need to restart so you don't run into problems in the next step. See you in a few minutes!

Back? Great! Now we are going to be inserting the kernel modules so that the kernel can see and use your wireless. enter these commands using the terminal:

sudo modprobe ath_pci
sudo modprobe wlan_scan_sta

they should both complete without any errors.

Now, go check network manager. Wait a minute, and you SHOULD see your wireless network in there. If so, great! That means the drivers work. If it doesn't, well thats outside the scope of this article...maybe try posting on the forums?

anyway, if they do work, try connecting with it. It should connect, but my experience is that with the hardy supplied version of network manager, sometimes it connects, sometimes it doesn't.

To get the wireless to be loaded on boot automatically, you need to edit a text file, so using the terminal:

gksudo gedit /etc/modules

you should see a list of a few things, so make a new line after the existing entries, and add

ath_pci wlan_scan_sta

to it, and then save / close the file, and it should load the modules on boot.

Now, the last part of this, is to install a newer version of network manager. Why? Because it makes the network more stable, and it also fixed my problem of network manager refusing to connect to my network half the time. Not to mention it has some cooler features

anyway, to install this, go to system > administration > software sources . enter your password. click the 'third party sources' tab, and then click "add"

when you click add, it will ask for an apt line. paste this line in the box:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/network-manager/ubuntu hardy main

then it will add the repo. then click add again, and paste this into the box:

deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/network-manager/ubuntu hardy main

that will add the source code repo. Now, when you click close, it will ask you to reload the repos. click yes, and it will redownload the information. Wait a minute, and ubuntu should tell you that new updates are available. If nothing comes up, you can always do it manually using update manager. Anyway, install the updates, and network manager will update. When it finally updates, network manager will die and say "network manager is missing some required resources and cant continue" and quit. Just wait for the updates to finish, and then restart your computer. When you restart and log back in, network manager will ask for your wep/wpa passwords or keys, just re enter them and you should be good to go