Comment 8 for bug 284354

In Intrepid, the madwifi backend was removed from wpasupplicant (bug 235463, see https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2008-June/025516.html). This introduced regressions, documented in bug 259157, which it was hoped could be addressed in Network Manager or the kernel. That bug is still open, because there are unfixed regressions when using the madwifi driver.

At the same time, the ath5k driver was added, but doesn't work properly with AR2424 according to Oliver. Oliver, what is the bug number for the issue that ath5k doesn't work with this chip?

There are also a variety of other regressions with ath5k relative to madwifi (the default in 8.04): https://edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bugs?field.searchtext=ath5k

Thus it seems that neither driver is particularly suitable for this device at present and would need to be fixed. The options would seem to be:

- Move ahead to a newer ath5k, which seems to work but has surely not been well tested
- Provide updated userland workarounds for madwifi (bug 259157)
- Fix madwifi (maybe impossible due to the nature of the driver)