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en:users:drivers:ath9k

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.

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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

linux-wireless is the recommended mailing list to use.

The archives for the old ath9k-devel list, which was closed in 2017, are available:

https://lists.ath9k.org/mailman/listinfo/ath9k-devel

Get the latest ath9k driver

ath9k is part of the kernel, but the latest version 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

  • AR2427 1×1 SB (no 11n)
  • AR5008:
    • AR5418+AR5133
    • AR5416+AR5133
    • AR5416+AR2133
  • AR9001:
    • AR9160 2×2 DB
    • AR9102 2×2 SB
    • AR9103 3×3 SB
  • AR9002:
    • AR9220 2×2 DB
    • AR9223 2×2 SB
    • AR9227 2×2 SB
    • AR9280 2×2 DB
    • AR9281 2×2 SB
    • AR9285 1×1 SB
    • AR9287 2×2 SB
  • AR9003:
    • AR9380 3×3 DB
    • AR9382 2×2 DB
    • AR9331 1×1 SB
    • AR9340 2×2 DB
  • AR9004:
    • AR9485 1×2 SB
    • AR9462 2×2 DB
    • AR9565 1×1 SB
    • AR9580 3×3 DB
    • AR9590 3×3 DB
    • AR9592 2×2 DB
    • AR9550 3×3 DB

Available devices

Features and modes of operation

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

Modes of operation

  • Station
  • AP
  • IBSS
  • Monitor
  • Mesh point
  • WDS
  • P2P GO/CLIENT

Features

  • 802.11abg
  • 802.11n
    • 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
  • 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

Other sections

en/users/drivers/ath9k.txt · Last modified: 2023/10/19 16:10 by J J