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I purchased an HP laptop with the Qualcomm Atheros AR9565 (QCWB335) wireless adaptor. I understand that this adaptor is currently not supported on Ubuntu 12.04 and there is no way to get wireless access.

I installed compat-wireless-3.6.6-1 ath9k driver and it didn't work: lshw -C network still showed *-network UNCLAIMED after reset.

How can I figure out when Ubuntu will have driver for AR9565? Is there a workaround to get wireless working somehow?

I need to figure out whether to return the laptop or wait it out.

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2 Answers

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Your device is covered in this package: http://www.orbit-lab.org/kernel/compat-wireless-3-stable/v3.6/compat-wireless-3.6.6-1-snpc.tar.bz2

The files with extra letters, in this case snpc, are pre-patched to add newer devices and, sometimes, features. Yours is a good example.

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This worked. After installing the updated Ubuntu driver, my wireless adapter appeared, but was hardware disabled. I had to install Windows 7 in a side partition and get the Wireless working there first. Then, after I booted into Ubuntu, wireless was working. – Victorb Nov 20 '12 at 14:19
Very glad it's working. Don't forget to re-compile after a later kernel version is installed by Update Manager. – chili555 Nov 20 '12 at 16:44
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The compat-wireless package will probably require adding your pci.id to the pci.c file as well as some other changes, similar to this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=12201881&postcount=35

Did you do that? Learn your pc.id with:

    lspci -nn | grep 0280

There may be a version of compat-wireless that includes your device. If you'll post the details, we'll be happy to assist you.

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I did not make any custom modifications to the code yet. I'm guessing the pci.id for my device is 36 from 0a:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. Device [168c:0036] (rev 01). It is currently not in the ath_pci_id_table. I'll try to add it and see what happens. – Victorb Nov 11 '12 at 15:50
After adding 36, the wireless is still not working as before. It is still UNCLAIMED. The only change I see is that the wireless light is always red on my laptop (off). I cannot make it white by pressing Fn-F12. However, doing sudo rfkill list all shows that nothing is blocked. – Victorb Nov 11 '12 at 20:30

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