Cannot connect to wi-fi with AR5BWB222 on Ubuntu 13.04

Question

I have just installed Ubuntu 13.04, and am using an Atheros wireless card (AR5BWB222). I find that I can see networks, but cannot connect to any of them. Attempting to do so leads to about 30 seconds of attempting to connect, following by a message telling me that I have been disconnected. I have no backup network connection and cannot therefore run any sudo apt-get commands, although I can transfer files very slowly by loading Windows 8 and saving files to another partition (I cannot use a USB stick as only my two USB 3.0 ports appear to be recognized by Ubuntu, both of which I need for mouse/keyboard). lsmod tells me that ath9k is in use, but fixes related to using usehwcrypt=0 have had no effect. rfkill shows no hard or soft block. I will happily post any and all relevant diagnostic information, of course.

I apologize if I am repeating an already known bug, but my searches elsewhere have not given me any working solutions. This is particularly problematic as I need to install the wireless to be able to run boot-repair before I can even boot into the right partition to begin fixing my problems with the USB...

Answer 1

What I have personally done to create my networks is the following (though I have done this with fixed ethernet rather than wireless connections - I am guessing it works the same):

• Firstly, remember that ifconfig = fixed connections, and iwconfig = wireless connections, so you won't see wireless connection information with the ifconfig command

• Next, if you have the GUI / desktop installed, use the UI menu item (top right corner drop down menu) to create a new network connection ... select the correct MAC address, and then choose your DHCP or static settings etc.

• sudo nano /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

• edit the last line after [ifupdown] to managed = true

• this is only one approach, but it is basically choosing to use one set of management tools over another (I believe)

• Next: sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

• and if there is a connection there for your wlan0 (or whatever the connection is called - for mine it is of course eth0), which says something like: #iface wlan0 inet dhcp, and you wanted to set a static address ... then you comment out that line

• Finally, if you are getting the error message about the avahi-daemon not liking your .local domain, you just edit as follows:

• sudo nano /etc/default/avahi-daemon
• change or add > AVAHI_DAEMON_DETECT_LOCAL=0

Now reboot ... you should be able to connect to your fixed or wireless connections ... apologies if this is only for fixed, I don't remember reading that part (though I think I did manage to get it to work for a wireless connection, that was a while ago, let me know how you go)

One other alternative I saw involved downloading tools:

• sudo apt-get install wireless-tools

... but I didn't go down that path, so you would have to google that one yourself.

Good luck !

Answer 2

This problem is partially solved. I have found that, if I enable IOMMU in my BIOS, the wireless and USB 2.0 ports start working - but the USB 3.0 ports stop working. A little frustrating, to say the least.