CentOS - Jan 2011 - Recommendation for a Linux alternative to Centos - ATH9K disaster

I persuaded a reluctant friend to buy a new computer. I enthusiastically
extolled the joys and benefits of Centos and promised to install it on
his new machine - dual booting with Micro$oft Windoze 7.

His super-duper new laptop arrived. Acer, AMD 4 core, fast etc. but not
as nice looking as my impressive HP DV5. The wireless refused to
connect. 

After 8 hours on Saturday I could sometimes see hubs in the
neighbourhood but could not connect to my own hub using WPA2.

	iwlist wlan0 scan

produced technical details of local hubs - but still could not connect.
NetworkManager sometimes froze.

Spent many hours Googling for his wifi adaptor Altheros AR928K which
uses a driver known as ATH9K.  Many others have had a similar problem.
Kernel 2.6.27 apparently includes this driver but Centos 5.5 is 2.6.18.

On my Sony Vaio netbook I abandoned XP and installed Centos 5.5. No wifi
(yet XP had) but luckily for me I eventually discovered the Altheros
AR8132 needed ATL1E which, for Centos 5.5, means a kernel modification.
Luckily it is on Elrepo as kmod-atl1e. A quick Yum and I was connected.
Many thanks to Elrepo.  The netbook comes to life with Centos. Its now a
really usable machine. XP on a netbook was pure crap.

However ATH9K for Centos 5.5 does not exist.

This afternoon I had to tell my friend his brand new computer is
incompatible with Centos and wifi.

Please can anyone recommend a suitable Linux variant with a kernel >2.6.27
that is a bit like Centos ?

Does anyone know if Centos 5.6 will be on 2.6.18 and whether it will
have drivers like ATH9K ?

Anyone any idea what kernel version Centos 6 will have ?

Thank you.

Best regards,

Paul
GB

Centos on 2 VPS, 2 desktops, 1 laptop and 1 netbook.
Going cheap : genuine Windoze 95 and 98 installation disks :-)

On 01/25/2011 09:49 AM, Always Learning wrote:
> I persuaded a reluctant friend to buy a new computer. I enthusiastically
> extolled the joys and benefits of Centos and promised to install it on
> his new machine - dual booting with Micro$oft Windoze 7.
[...]

For a new laptop your best hope for a successful native install is 
probably Ubuntu 10.10. Laptops in particular are difficult platforms for 
hardware support and CentOS5 is not 'cutting edge'. If you want CentOS 
on it to work well, you will probably need to wait for CentOS6 - which 
could be a month or two.

An alternative I've used is to install VMware Workstation on top of 
Windows and install Linux into a VM. Running fullscreen the practical 
difference is nil. Then you by and large get the laptop hardware support 
gratis from the windows layer including things like wireless and video 
drivers drivers.

-- 
Benjamin Franz

Always Learning wrote:
<snip>
> After 8 hours on Saturday I could sometimes see hubs in the
> neighbourhood but could not connect to my own hub using WPA2.
>
> 	iwlist wlan0 scan
>
> produced technical details of local hubs - but still could not connect.
> NetworkManager sometimes froze.
>
> Spent many hours Googling for his wifi adaptor Altheros AR928K which
> uses a driver known as ATH9K.  Many others have had a similar problem.
> Kernel 2.6.27 apparently includes this driver but Centos 5.5 is 2.6.18.
About 5 years ago, I had to install a wireless card in my tower, and it's
an ATH9xx, I *think* - I can check this evening, if that's relevant. I was
running SuSE, and had to find drivers from madwifi. A few minutes of
googling found...
<http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k/RHEL5>, where the
module's been backported to RHEL5.

         mark

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 12:49 PM, Always Learning <centos at g7.u22.net>
wrote:
>
> I persuaded a reluctant friend to buy a new computer. I enthusiastically
> extolled the joys and benefits of Centos and promised to install it on
> his new machine - dual booting with Micro$oft Windoze 7.
>
> His super-duper new laptop arrived. Acer, AMD 4 core, fast etc. but not
> as nice looking as my impressive HP DV5. The wireless refused to
> connect.
>
> After 8 hours on Saturday I could sometimes see hubs in the
> neighbourhood but could not connect to my own hub using WPA2.
>
> ? ? ? ?iwlist wlan0 scan
>
> produced technical details of local hubs - but still could not connect.
> NetworkManager sometimes froze.
>
> Spent many hours Googling for his wifi adaptor Altheros AR928K which
> uses a driver known as ATH9K. ?Many others have had a similar problem.
> Kernel 2.6.27 apparently includes this driver but Centos 5.5 is 2.6.18.
>
> On my Sony Vaio netbook I abandoned XP and installed Centos 5.5. No wifi
> (yet XP had) but luckily for me I eventually discovered the Altheros
> AR8132 needed ATL1E which, for Centos 5.5, means a kernel modification.
> Luckily it is on Elrepo as kmod-atl1e. A quick Yum and I was connected.
> Many thanks to Elrepo. ?The netbook comes to life with Centos. Its now a
> really usable machine. XP on a netbook was pure crap.
>
> However ATH9K for Centos 5.5 does not exist.
>
> This afternoon I had to tell my friend his brand new computer is
> incompatible with Centos and wifi.
>
> Please can anyone recommend a suitable Linux variant with a kernel >>
2.6.27 that is a bit like Centos ?
>
> Does anyone know if Centos 5.6 will be on 2.6.18 and whether it will
> have drivers like ATH9K ?
>
> Anyone any idea what kernel version Centos 6 will have ?
>
> Thank you.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Paul
> GB

CentOS is great for servers, but absolutely not for a new person
you're trying to get to try Linux.  This approach actually hurts Linux
since people think "oh I tried Linux and it sucked".

Ubuntu is the way to go for this, and I would at least start from a
LiveCD (though it is slow) and work from there.  VirtualBox is a good
next step from the LiveCD, as almost no one wants to be dual-booting.

At Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:49:39 +0000 CentOS mailing list <centos at
centos.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> I persuaded a reluctant friend to buy a new computer. I enthusiastically
> extolled the joys and benefits of Centos and promised to install it on
> his new machine - dual booting with Micro$oft Windoze 7.
> 
> His super-duper new laptop arrived. Acer, AMD 4 core, fast etc. but not
> as nice looking as my impressive HP DV5. The wireless refused to
> connect. 
> 
> After 8 hours on Saturday I could sometimes see hubs in the
> neighbourhood but could not connect to my own hub using WPA2.
> 
> 	iwlist wlan0 scan
> 
> produced technical details of local hubs - but still could not connect.
> NetworkManager sometimes froze.
> 
> Spent many hours Googling for his wifi adaptor Altheros AR928K which
> uses a driver known as ATH9K.  Many others have had a similar problem.
> Kernel 2.6.27 apparently includes this driver but Centos 5.5 is 2.6.18.
> 
> On my Sony Vaio netbook I abandoned XP and installed Centos 5.5. No wifi
> (yet XP had) but luckily for me I eventually discovered the Altheros
> AR8132 needed ATL1E which, for Centos 5.5, means a kernel modification.
> Luckily it is on Elrepo as kmod-atl1e. A quick Yum and I was connected.
> Many thanks to Elrepo.  The netbook comes to life with Centos. Its now a
> really usable machine. XP on a netbook was pure crap.
> 
> However ATH9K for Centos 5.5 does not exist.
> 
> This afternoon I had to tell my friend his brand new computer is
> incompatible with Centos and wifi.
> 
> Please can anyone recommend a suitable Linux variant with a kernel >>
2.6.27 that is a bit like Centos ?
Hmm... For a hot new laptop, you are pretty much out-of-luck for
something like CentOS.  FC14 *might* work, but I don't know how stable
or end-user friendly FC14 is.  A current release of Ubuntu will likely
work, but Ubuntu is not like CentOS -- its admin 'style' is a bit
different -- things are in different places and the admin tools are
different -- as a CentOS user / admin, you'll find them 'strange. OTOH,
it is likely to be more newbie / end-user friendly and likely will work
better with hot new hardware.
> 
> Does anyone know if Centos 5.6 will be on 2.6.18 and whether it will
> have drivers like ATH9K ?
CentOS 5.x will always have a 2.6.18 base kernel, but will have
backported drivers and security fixes, etc.  But probably not drivers
for bleeding edge WiFi.
> 
> Anyone any idea what kernel version Centos 6 will have ?
Probably whatever Fedora Core 12 (?) has.  Whether this will work on
your friend's laptop is uncertain.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Paul
> GB
> 
> Centos on 2 VPS, 2 desktops, 1 laptop and 1 netbook.
> Going cheap : genuine Windoze 95 and 98 installation disks :-)
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
> 
>                                  
-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller at deepsoft.com
Deepwoods Software        -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
()  ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org   -- against proprietary attachments

For years, I've been using Fedora Core for my desktop/laptop systems and 
CentOS for my servers. It's a good balance, because upgrading Fedora Core 
takes about an hour or so, plus a day or two of occasional interruptions to 
shake out various drivers and stuff. Also, I don't have to keep two
different
Operating Systems sorted out 

On my hard disk, I have my /home, /boot, and / directories each on their own 
partitions, and when I'm upgrading my Fedora, I just format / and /boot, and
leave /home alone. Although I've transfered it a few times between hard disk
and computer upgrades, I've been using the same /home directory for well
over
10 years now, with nary a hitch! 

Make sure you have backups, etc., especially when upgrading versions, though 
I've not had much problem. 

Fedora Core is "cutting edge" and had no particular trouble shaking
out
drivers on my recent Dell Precision M4500. 

-Ben 

On Tuesday, January 25, 2011 09:49:39 am Always Learning
wrote:
> I persuaded a reluctant friend to buy a new computer. I enthusiastically
> extolled the joys and benefits of Centos and promised to install it on
> his new machine - dual booting with Micro$oft Windoze 7.
> 
> His super-duper new laptop arrived. Acer, AMD 4 core, fast etc. but not
> as nice looking as my impressive HP DV5. The wireless refused to
> connect.
> 
> After 8 hours on Saturday I could sometimes see hubs in the
> neighbourhood but could not connect to my own hub using WPA2.
> 
> 	iwlist wlan0 scan
> 
> produced technical details of local hubs - but still could not connect.
> NetworkManager sometimes froze.
> 
> Spent many hours Googling for his wifi adaptor Altheros AR928K which
> uses a driver known as ATH9K.  Many others have had a similar problem.
> Kernel 2.6.27 apparently includes this driver but Centos 5.5 is 2.6.18.
> 
> On my Sony Vaio netbook I abandoned XP and installed Centos 5.5. No wifi
> (yet XP had) but luckily for me I eventually discovered the Altheros
> AR8132 needed ATL1E which, for Centos 5.5, means a kernel modification.
> Luckily it is on Elrepo as kmod-atl1e. A quick Yum and I was connected.
> Many thanks to Elrepo.  The netbook comes to life with Centos. Its now a
> really usable machine. XP on a netbook was pure crap.
> 
> However ATH9K for Centos 5.5 does not exist.
> 
> This afternoon I had to tell my friend his brand new computer is
> incompatible with Centos and wifi.
> 
> Please can anyone recommend a suitable Linux variant with a kernel >>
2.6.27 that is a bit like Centos ?
> 
> Does anyone know if Centos 5.6 will be on 2.6.18 and whether it will
> have drivers like ATH9K ?
> 
> Anyone any idea what kernel version Centos 6 will have ?
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Paul
> GB
> 
> Centos on 2 VPS, 2 desktops, 1 laptop and 1 netbook.
> Going cheap : genuine Windoze 95 and 98 installation disks :-)
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
-- 
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Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
Running XP as a server???
<<

There are lots of bloatware Windows products which use MS SQL server as an
embedded database, Les. My personal favourite was the software for a TV
tuner card (Pinnacle) which used SQL Server to store its program schedule.
Bloatware of the first order, and unstable as hell, too.

Meanwhile, for those who a spot of schadenfreude:
http://failblog.org/2011/01/25/m-thru-f-why-so-blue/

Best,

--- Les Bell
[http://www.lesbell.com.au]
Tel: +61 2 9451 1144

Always Learning <centos at g7.u22.net> wrote:
>>
Thanks for the good advice. I wondered why the installer gave those
choices. Now it makes sense.  All my production data resides on /data
and I tend to leave the standard directories alone
<<

Paul, if you want a basic explanation of the rationale behind the Linux
Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, you might enjoy this article from a course I
wrote years ago - it's a little dated, but still applicable today.

http://www.lesbell.com.au/Home.nsf/web/What+Goes+Where+on+a+Linux+System?OpenDocument

Best,

--- Les Bell
[http://www.lesbell.com.au]
Tel: +61 2 9451 1144